I remember when Pinker's book Enlightenment Now came out with example after example like this, the main critizism is that it doesn't 'feel' like that to many people and telling them otherwise undermines their 'lived expereince.'
I worked with a woman who was extremely worried about violence on women in 2020 and compared that to her own expereince as a college kid touring India solo in the 90s when she felt it was safer. When I pulled up the numbers and showed her that she was SIGNIFICANTLY more at risk back then, I got HR called on me for the crime of minimizing violence on women. I told HR that I didn't justify it, I contextualized it. That wasn't good enough. Because violence still existed and because this women felt it was worse, my sharing that it was orders of magnitude safer was offensive.
I called their bluff about facts and they backed off because I said it would look bad for women to ignore hard facts in place of emotional reaction in a professional business world. I did get chastised. I learned to let them live without facts and data.
Cognifive dissonance on clear display. They glitch like two magnets being forced together when one flips to align the poles. Data be damned. We all do it. It's a truely difficult position to actually be open to changing your mind when you've committed to a narrative.
I think few will doubt that a number of challenges have been solved, and in a narrow sense progress is irrefutable. On average people do live longer, are healthier, and have basic literacy. I wonder though, if not a comparable model is the life of many animals in captivity. They too live longer and healthier. If captivity is progress for them, it would seem a rather hollow victory, and more importantly, it challenges the assumption that raising these basic metrics is a good proxy for meaningful progress (whatever that may be).
These outcomes clearly have multiple causes. However, do the many people on both the far right and left who oppose the spread of liberalism genuinely believe it has played no role in fostering prosperity? The remaining poverty, disease, and illiteracy demonstrate our failure to win the fight against human suffering completely, and we should continue to improve our society to address these problems. But surely our immense progress in these goals speak to the value of a more liberal and democratic world.
It's hard to believe life expectancy was just 31-32 years in 1900. That's the average. In poverty-stricken parts of the world, like Africa, people were expected to live only into their 20s. That was just four generations ago!
I don't know the exact numbers, but I suspect a contribution to this would have been the adoption of antiseptic practices by doctors during child birth (1840's to 1890"?). Washing of hands, us of boiled water to clean and disinfect cloths and tools, use of carbolic or whatever as an antiseptic? More mothers and babies surviving. Apparently it was quite a struggle for the first doctor(s) doing this to convince their "expert" colleagues to follow suit.
Every day, the media brings the worst of the world to our screens, making it seem like the entire globe is at war. But in reality, if someone spends just five minutes looking at the data, they'll see that we're living in the most peaceful time in history. Fact-checking matters. That war-peace chart is unbelievable.
Great charts. You appear to use “wealth” and “income” interchangeably. I’d recommend that you differentiate between the two. It can be argued that while global income has increased exponentially, global wealth broadly defined (including natural resources, other species, and all sorts of ecological resources) has declined markedly.
It's remarkable how so many people are unaware of the progress made over the past couple centuries. As long as we have relative freedom that progress should continue.
Don't absolutize no/lower taxes. There is not lest costly way to achieve climate goal than taxation of net emissions. And deficits reduce saving and investment more than taxes to avoid deficits.
Great set of charts and nice to have something to crow about or be optimistic about.
The rise is global wealth and well being, resulting in the more rapid fall in poverty rates, was a gradual process globally, but helped along greatly via the "globalization" from the 1980's on. As we reconsider some of that and continue to re-shore, etc., perhaps we also need to figure out how to help those communities and nations stay coupled to valid and viable local economies when exports to the wealthier groups may be declining, or at least being reconfigured to the lower tech side of things.
I agree we don't need to re-shore everything, and that having global trade with the "proper" countries can provide the benefits of specialization, etc., But some supply chains, such as for medical supplies and national security elements (and internet communications? - 5G etc.?) do need to be bolstered and protected, along with developing strategic reserves in a selected group of products (large grid transformers? other long lead items used in our power grid? ) and some raw materials.
The idea that trade reduces the likelihood of war through economic interdependencies sounds correct, but humans are too fickle to take that argument to the bank (ref. WWI??). But I understand the spirit of that view, even when the reality may disappoint us. :-)
When it comes to Russia and the CCP, etc., I guess we need to find a balance between importing enough low value stuff to keep them sort of dependent on our market and not forcing them into expanding their global reach any sooner or faster than they are doing already.. And we really need to find a way to correct the absurd views about CO2 contributing to global warming and the flawed ideas related to solar and wind "renewables" as the solution to our long term energy needs. This is helping them and hurting us. There we basically need a "religious reformation".
I remember when Pinker's book Enlightenment Now came out with example after example like this, the main critizism is that it doesn't 'feel' like that to many people and telling them otherwise undermines their 'lived expereince.'
I worked with a woman who was extremely worried about violence on women in 2020 and compared that to her own expereince as a college kid touring India solo in the 90s when she felt it was safer. When I pulled up the numbers and showed her that she was SIGNIFICANTLY more at risk back then, I got HR called on me for the crime of minimizing violence on women. I told HR that I didn't justify it, I contextualized it. That wasn't good enough. Because violence still existed and because this women felt it was worse, my sharing that it was orders of magnitude safer was offensive.
That's insane. If you don't mind me asking. What happened?
I called their bluff about facts and they backed off because I said it would look bad for women to ignore hard facts in place of emotional reaction in a professional business world. I did get chastised. I learned to let them live without facts and data.
It often amazes me the extent to which people will do everything possible to avoid data that does not confirm their own confirmation biases.
Cognifive dissonance on clear display. They glitch like two magnets being forced together when one flips to align the poles. Data be damned. We all do it. It's a truely difficult position to actually be open to changing your mind when you've committed to a narrative.
I think few will doubt that a number of challenges have been solved, and in a narrow sense progress is irrefutable. On average people do live longer, are healthier, and have basic literacy. I wonder though, if not a comparable model is the life of many animals in captivity. They too live longer and healthier. If captivity is progress for them, it would seem a rather hollow victory, and more importantly, it challenges the assumption that raising these basic metrics is a good proxy for meaningful progress (whatever that may be).
These outcomes clearly have multiple causes. However, do the many people on both the far right and left who oppose the spread of liberalism genuinely believe it has played no role in fostering prosperity? The remaining poverty, disease, and illiteracy demonstrate our failure to win the fight against human suffering completely, and we should continue to improve our society to address these problems. But surely our immense progress in these goals speak to the value of a more liberal and democratic world.
Well said.
It's hard to believe life expectancy was just 31-32 years in 1900. That's the average. In poverty-stricken parts of the world, like Africa, people were expected to live only into their 20s. That was just four generations ago!
It's crazy to think about.
What explains the drop in child mortality? Is that just antibiotics?
There are a lot of things that contribute. Germ theory, antibiotics, forceps, medical imaging....
I don't know the exact numbers, but I suspect a contribution to this would have been the adoption of antiseptic practices by doctors during child birth (1840's to 1890"?). Washing of hands, us of boiled water to clean and disinfect cloths and tools, use of carbolic or whatever as an antiseptic? More mothers and babies surviving. Apparently it was quite a struggle for the first doctor(s) doing this to convince their "expert" colleagues to follow suit.
Thank you! Amazing really, isn't it?
It's also amazing that doctors resisted those anti-septic practices for so long.
Every day, the media brings the worst of the world to our screens, making it seem like the entire globe is at war. But in reality, if someone spends just five minutes looking at the data, they'll see that we're living in the most peaceful time in history. Fact-checking matters. That war-peace chart is unbelievable.
Great charts. You appear to use “wealth” and “income” interchangeably. I’d recommend that you differentiate between the two. It can be argued that while global income has increased exponentially, global wealth broadly defined (including natural resources, other species, and all sorts of ecological resources) has declined markedly.
You're right, I probably should not use the terms interchangeably. But knowledge is also a form of wealth and it has grown exponentially as well.
It's remarkable how so many people are unaware of the progress made over the past couple centuries. As long as we have relative freedom that progress should continue.
Don't absolutize no/lower taxes. There is not lest costly way to achieve climate goal than taxation of net emissions. And deficits reduce saving and investment more than taxes to avoid deficits.
Great set of charts and nice to have something to crow about or be optimistic about.
The rise is global wealth and well being, resulting in the more rapid fall in poverty rates, was a gradual process globally, but helped along greatly via the "globalization" from the 1980's on. As we reconsider some of that and continue to re-shore, etc., perhaps we also need to figure out how to help those communities and nations stay coupled to valid and viable local economies when exports to the wealthier groups may be declining, or at least being reconfigured to the lower tech side of things.
I am not sold on the need to "reshore." Global interdependence reduces the likelihood of war.
I agree we don't need to re-shore everything, and that having global trade with the "proper" countries can provide the benefits of specialization, etc., But some supply chains, such as for medical supplies and national security elements (and internet communications? - 5G etc.?) do need to be bolstered and protected, along with developing strategic reserves in a selected group of products (large grid transformers? other long lead items used in our power grid? ) and some raw materials.
The idea that trade reduces the likelihood of war through economic interdependencies sounds correct, but humans are too fickle to take that argument to the bank (ref. WWI??). But I understand the spirit of that view, even when the reality may disappoint us. :-)
When it comes to Russia and the CCP, etc., I guess we need to find a balance between importing enough low value stuff to keep them sort of dependent on our market and not forcing them into expanding their global reach any sooner or faster than they are doing already.. And we really need to find a way to correct the absurd views about CO2 contributing to global warming and the flawed ideas related to solar and wind "renewables" as the solution to our long term energy needs. This is helping them and hurting us. There we basically need a "religious reformation".
Stay optimistic and hopeful! Turn off all media as needed to stay that way.