troisoiseaux

I vaguely remember seeing a post at one point in the Les Mis Fandom Era of Tumblr, pointing out that "the 20th century will be happy" reads as sort of ironically tragic now, because of, well, everything that went down in the 20th century, but pointing out that Hugo wasn't wrong— I can't remember all of the examples, but I feel like "children no longer dying of polio" was one of them? Anyway, I think humanity has a tendency to take scientific progress/the good things for granted— speaking of things I saw online, there's a Hank Green (iirc?) post that's been floating around about how no one appreciates the things that didn't kill them, e.g., pollution, food safety standards, etc. And obviously following THAT line of thought will lead to depressing places rn but like. We really have made so much progress, as a species!!! The 22nd century WILL be happy, goddammit!

(Side note: have you read John Green's Everything Is Tuberculosis?)