I'm on my phone and can't reply to the substance of your post, and for that I apologize, but your comments demonstrate a stark ignorance of history. Overbearing parents (what does that even mean?) is as bad as child labor? Sure.
I don't think it's just technology. We are a more just and humane people than we have ever been. Now, it might be the product of prosperity, it is easier to be fair when you're not at the edge of survival, but I don't think that changes the fact that we are better regardless.
>but your comments demonstrate a stark ignorance of history. Overbearing parents (what does that even mean?) is as bad as child labor? Sure.
Perhaps it's this view that shows a "stark ignorance of history"? Who said "child labor" was widespread in the past?
Child labour with today's sense got widespread only in industrial societies. Working in the fields with your parents, as teenagers used to do in pre-industrial societies, is not "child labour" in the Nike-sweatshop or victorian England way.
I can assure you that even 40-50 years ago, kids used to play far more out in the open, and for far more than they do today, e.g:
>We are a more just and humane people than we have ever been.
The "more just and humane" is just a thin veneer when you have enough money not to care for smaller things. As soon as interests come into play people are even worse than they were.
Nixon got the shaft for Watergate. Today, under Bush and Obama we see far worse crimes, covering the whole of the population, and nobody gets the blame. I see far more hypocrisy and money-grabbing than in the past, and more isolated and a-political existence. Where are mass movements like the civil rights movement, the labour movement, the sixties peace and counter-culture movements, and such today?
I don't think it's just technology. We are a more just and humane people than we have ever been. Now, it might be the product of prosperity, it is easier to be fair when you're not at the edge of survival, but I don't think that changes the fact that we are better regardless.