SSFB Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 Read the story at the link if you're able to. The graphs didn't post here cleanly so I removed them. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/opinion/sunday/2019-best-year-poverty.html?fbclid=IwAR0Gw7ijYYkevrKuN7qu0jFp8-ZhGeft9VWyoN9izOhH7p35vL10qDNdQLc Quote If you’re depressed by the state of the world, let me toss out an idea: In the long arc of human history, 2019 has been the best year ever. The bad things that you fret about are true. But it’s also true that since modern humans emerged about 200,000 years ago, 2019 was probably the year in which children were least likely to die, adults were least likely to be illiterate and people were least likely to suffer excruciating and disfiguring diseases. Every single day in recent years, another 325,000 people got their first access to electricity. Each day, more than 200,000 got piped water for the first time. And some 650,000 went online for the first time, every single day. Perhaps the greatest calamity for anyone is to lose a child. That used to be common: Historically, almost half of all humans died in childhood. As recently as 1950, 27 percent of all children still died by age 15. Now that figure has dropped to about 4 percent. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “If you were given the opportunity to choose the time you were born in, it’d be pretty risky to choose a time in any of the thousands of generations in the past,” noted Max Roser, an Oxford University economist who runs the Our World in Data website. “Almost everyone lived in poverty, hunger was widespread and famines common.” But … but … but President Trump! But climate change! War in Yemen! Starvation in Venezuela! Risk of nuclear war with North Korea. … All those are important concerns, and that’s why I write about them regularly. Yet I fear that the news media and the humanitarian world focus so relentlessly on the bad news that we leave the public believing that every trend is going in the wrong direction. A majority of Americans say in polls that the share of the world population living in poverty is increasing — yet one of the trends of the last 50 years has been a huge reduction in global poverty. Escaping Extreme Poverty The proportion of the world’s population subsisting on about $2 a day or less has dropped by more than 75 percent in less than four decades. As recently as 1981, 42 percent of the planet’s population endured “extreme poverty,” defined by the United Nations as living on less than about $2 a day. That portion has plunged to less than 10 percent of the world’s population now. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Every day for a decade, newspapers could have carried the headline “Another 170,000 Moved Out of Extreme Poverty Yesterday.” Or if one uses a higher threshold, the headline could have been: “The Number of People Living on More Than $10 a Day Increased by 245,000 Yesterday.” Many of those moving up are still very poor, of course. But because they are less poor, they are less likely to remain illiterate or to starve: People often think that famine is routine, but the last famine recognized by the World Food Program struck just part of one state in South Sudan and lasted for only a few months in 2017. A Greatly Reduced Toll Diseases like polio, leprosy, river blindness and elephantiasis are on the decline, and global efforts have turned the tide on AIDS. A half century ago, a majority of the world’s people had always been illiterate; now we are approaching 90 percent adult literacy. There have been particularly large gains in girls’ education — and few forces change the world so much as education and the empowerment of women. Sharp Gains in Literacy Estimated share of population over age 14 that is able to read and write. You may feel uncomfortable reading this. It can seem tasteless, misleading or counterproductive to hail progress when there is still so much wrong with the world. I get that. In addition, the numbers are subject to debate and the 2019 figures are based on extrapolation. But I worry that deep pessimism about the state of the world is paralyzing rather than empowering; excessive pessimism can leave people feeling not just hopeless but also helpless. Readers constantly tell me, for example, that if we save children’s lives, the result will be a population crisis that will cause new famines. They don’t realize that when parents are confident that their children will survive, and have access to birth control, they have fewer children. Bangladesh was once derided by Henry Kissinger as a “basket case,” yet now its economy grows much faster than America’s and Bangladeshi women average just 2.1 births (down from 6.9 in 1973). 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diseases like polio, leprosy, river blindness and elephantiasis are on the decline, and global efforts have turned the tide on AIDS. A half century ago, a majority of the world’s people had always been illiterate; now we are approaching 90 percent adult literacy. There have been particularly large gains in girls’ education — and few forces change the world so much as education and the empowerment of women. Sharp Gains in Literacy Estimated share of population over age 14 that is able to read and write. You may feel uncomfortable reading this. It can seem tasteless, misleading or counterproductive to hail progress when there is still so much wrong with the world. I get that. In addition, the numbers are subject to debate and the 2019 figures are based on extrapolation. But I worry that deep pessimism about the state of the world is paralyzing rather than empowering; excessive pessimism can leave people feeling not just hopeless but also helpless. Readers constantly tell me, for example, that if we save children’s lives, the result will be a population crisis that will cause new famines. They don’t realize that when parents are confident that their children will survive, and have access to birth control, they have fewer children. Bangladesh was once derided by Henry Kissinger as a “basket case,” yet now its economy grows much faster than America’s and Bangladeshi women average just 2.1 births (down from 6.9 in 1973).
frenchy Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 moto weeps.... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold War Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 End stages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anler Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 All thanks to Trump! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zambroski Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 A good solid dose of socialism can fix all this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 22 minutes ago, Zambroski said: A good solid dose of socialism can fix all this! We can vote our way into socialism. We will have to shoot our way out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zambroski Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 1 minute ago, Snake said: We can vote our way into socialism. We will have to shoot our way out. Not if we don’t have guns!!!! Socialism has to fix the gun epidemic first!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold War Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 tHeReS KiDS in cAges !!!!!!!!! We can't let em out until we get this MFRrrrrrrr impeached. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKIQPilot Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 Thanks Obama. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rod Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 Capitalism all the things! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mainecat Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 It’s like an old man saying....”back in my day we walked 4 miles to school uphill” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum Contributing Member Skidooski Posted December 30, 2019 Platinum Contributing Member Share Posted December 30, 2019 1 minute ago, Mainecat said: It’s like an old man saying....”back in my day we walked 4 miles to school uphill” Now you know why no one listens to you, because it's all bullshit 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racinfarmer Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 5 hours ago, Skidooski said: Now you know why no one listens to you, because it's all bullshit If that is what retirement is like, I'm not sure I want to retire, assuming I make it that far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.