alt Hacker NewsLots of things have existed throughout history, yet we have overcome them in the last few hundred years. There is peace in Europe (west of Russia) which had as ancient conflict as Yemen; there is democracy, freedom, women have equal rights in much of the world, starvation and many diseases are mostly overcome, warfare is very rare and not an omnipresent threat, ...
Thank goodness our predecessors didn't think this way. They thought that through reason, hard word, and humanism they could overcome these things, and they did. No doubt there were plenty of naysayers.
What will we do with our turn?
While I commend the positive attitude and I tend to have a positive view on the trajectory of humanity.
This part of the planet has been almost intractable since the age of Hammurabi - it is quite fractured without any current overarching unity or framework. There isn't a dominant religion (similar to Europe) or shared values. I could say almost meaningless things like "thought that through reason, hard word, and humanism they could overcome these things" which would make little of the hard truths of the long histories of the varied peoples and fractions of the area.
It would almost seem naive to say things like because we've solved some tough problems in the last century we can solve all problems.
I think you gloss over much and certainly give yourself a mightier than thou feeling with your "Thank goodness our predecessors didn't think this way".
I too hope for peaceful resolution and stability but fall back to the historic record of success especially in a place that is constantly, recently and historically decimated by war among fiefdoms.