Thanks @jamtaylor! It's easy to be pessimistic with the onslaught of media thrown at us every day. "If it bleeds, it leads". Often, however, the true statistical facts are much more optimistic. I recently read The Better Angels of Our Nature and though Steven Pinker argues against anarchism (he's a fan of the Hobbesian Leviathan - basically a strong force needed to keep all the bad people in check), he does a really good job (IMO) of arguing the world is better now than it ever has been in terms of low human violence. He does a poor job (again, IMO) of arguing against anarchistic societies because the examples he uses (Aztecs, etc) clearly had rulers, and he doesn't factor in the change in what might be called human nature (for lack of a better term) over time. Humans used to take their children to public executions as a form entertainment. We've grown up since then. Also, when it comes to pessimism about society, give this video a watch (4 minutes):
We truly live in an amazingly prosperous time in human history!