[Something]

As Agent K said in MiB "A person is smart, people are dumb panicky animals and you know it."

[MatthTheGeek]

We're doing better than we ever have, and most of the relevant indices are trending upwards.

Life today is better for more people than it ever has been in the past.

Yeah, and that's mostly because of the discoveries of a few very talented people. Do you think the average man would be able to build his own computer from scratch, or compose a symphony on his own ? Of course not. The example is silly and f***ing simplistic, but what I mean is that the global technological and cultural advancement of a civilization doesn't mean that the people in the civilization are less stupid.

OK so humanity is stupid compared to how it would be if it was less stupid.  'Humanity could be improved' is a lot less attention grabbing and edgy, but it's also a damn sight more accurate.

As I said, I'm no native English speaker. What I said may look like that, but what I eventually meant is close to your 'Humanity could be improved' thing. I also wanted to stress here, about the NTF topic, that people nearly blindly believed in the NTF anti-zod propaganda because that's something they wanted to hear, and because of what we call in French the "sheep effect" : people doing things because they see other people doing that. If one see that people fight for the NTF, he is gonna think that NTF's cause is worth fighting for. That's the very same power than the one of martyrdom on masses, and that's basically for me a lack of detachment.

[Mongoose]

Exactly.  Economic conditions for Terrans living in the systems that would later become NTF space were very poor during the Reconstruction period, while the Vasudans were simultaneously presenting a near-perfect model of how to rapidly recover from an immense disaster.  People get jealous and wonder, "Why not us?", a few more vocal types start spewing some rhetoric, the "sheep effect" kicks into gear, and all of a sudden, you have a whole mass of angry, easily-exploitable people.  Bosch couldn't have pulled it off any better than he did.

[General Battuta]

+1 to that, Mongoose.

[Droid803]

Mob mentality is a very powerful too.

[TrashMan]

People were promissed a better future. And the restoration of the glory of Terra.
It's not surprising Bosch found many followers.

b.t.w - hatered can be passed to the next generation.  I can immagine many terran pilots who fought in the T-V war having kids that grow up hating the zods.

[Droid803]

"You killed my (grand)father!"

[mxlm]

"Prepare to die"