Is the world a better place?
That’s a hard question to answer isn’t it? by no means it’s definitely a critical question.
I wonder what would be the answers from the spectrum of pessimists to optimists, from a deliberate thoughts or intuitive first answer that comes to mind.
What’s your answer?
Here’s one way to think about it.
Define what metrics we should define the betterment of the world by
Define the timeframe
Gather data, accurate data from the specified timeframe
Compare and find your answer here.
Here’s how you might define the betterment of the world:
A world could improve by two broad way: Decreasing bad things & Increasing good things
Bad things? perhaps cancer, death, and wars would pass.
Good things? electricity, child mortality, education will do.
Hans Rosling, a swedish academic realized that a lot of people in the world got the answer to this question wrong and he wrote a book about it that left me seeing things more clearly, and suddenly the big world I’m a part of becomes a better place.
Here are some examples of the answers shown very clearly. Factfulness is a great read, and I would highly recommend it. I’ll be writing about being factful in a future post. Stay tuned
