The news these days is pretty bleak. Natural disasters, terrorism, nuclear weapons, government shutdown, social unrest, autocratic leaders, structural unemployment, the opioid epidemic, increasing inequality, xenophobia, a refugee crisis, the list goes on.
Given the onslaught of depressing news, it's no wonder that a recent
survey found only 6% of people in the US would agree that, "All things considered, the world is getting better."
So, for our mental health and yours, we decided to take this week to talk about the many ways in which our world is actually improving.
The Reality
Poverty:
In the 1800's, only a privileged few were not living in extreme poverty. Economic growth and increased productivity made it possible to steadily lift more people out of extreme poverty.
This is an extraordinary achievement, particularly because the world population has increased seven-fold over the last two centuries.
Literacy: In the past only a tiny elite was able to read and write. It was in the last two centuries that literacy became the norm for the world's population. Today 8 out of 10 people are able to read.
Health: In 1800, more than 40% of the world's newborns died before the age of five. Now that number is only 4.3%. Modern medicine helped, particularly the discovery of germs, but even more important were improvements in housing, sanitation, and diet. In addition, vaccinations against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus did not exist 200 years ago, but today, 86% of children receive these potentially life-saving vaccinations.
Freedom: Throughout the 19th century more than a third of the population lived in colonial regimes and almost everyone else lived in autocratically ruled countries. Now, more than every second person in the world lives in a democracy, and the huge majority of those living in an autocracy (4 out of 5 of them) live in one autocratic country: China.
Education: None of the achievements over the last 2 centuries could have been made without the expansion of knowledge and education. Projections suggest that by 2100, there will be almost no one without formal education and there will be more than 7 billion minds who will have received at least secondary education.
Who Knew?
Researchers were motivated to conduct the study because they found that 9 out of 10 people did not believe the world was getting better. Because positive developments tend to happen very slowly, they rarely make the headlines in our event-obsessed media.
To combat the mis
perception
, researchers developed a visualization summarizing this 200 year history. (Click the image to view a larger version)
