There are reasons to be cynical but more reasons to be optimistic. Life expectancy worldwide has risen from about 55 years to 70 years since 1960. Child mortality has dropped from about 12.5-million in 2000 to 7-million in 2011. The world illiteracy rate is trending towards 15% by 2015 from about 36% in 1970. Virtually no women were able to vote in the 1890's but currently women are able to vote where men are in nearly all parts of the world.
Newsflash. "Things" have always been turbulent, there's just more of us now and the dissemination of information is much more rapid than it ever was in the past.