Thursday, March 01, 2012

The World Is Getting Better

I gave a 20-slide lecture tonight on this topic, in the wonderful Pecha Kucha format.

I share with you four of those slides.

In addition to the massive decrease in violence, the subject of several prior slides,

Anything Else Gotten Better?

Sex discrimination
Race discrimination
Sexual-orientation discrimination
Handicap discrimination
Imperial control of colonized people
Totalitarianism and authoritarianism
  Is that all you’ve got?  
Food production has increased gigantically
Transportation is cheaper
Communication costs a tiny fraction of before
Information is available on unprecedented scale
The air is cleaner
World population is under control
 
Wait, What Was That About World Population?  

The population bomb was a dud
No developed nation has enough kids to replace itself
The two most populous countries, China and India, are at or below replacement fertility
Nearly all the large developing countries are down to replacement fertility or very close
Is Anything Worse? 
Rich-World Problems Are on the Rise:
Obesity
Cancer
Heart disease
Divorce and unmarried parenthood
Global warming

1 comment:

Diane M said...

Worse - women seem to be unhappier, although it's not clear why.

I think rates of depression may have gone up.

My biggest concern, though, is that things have gotten better so unevenly around the world. There are still many countries where girls don't get educations and gay people are threatened with death. Right sharing of the world's resources hasn't improved, although more food makes everyone better off.