In the ever more interconnected world we live in, an abundance of information about distant places is literally at our fingertips. While this fact should be heartening, it provides a perplexing problem: the authenticity of certain pieces of knowledge. This makes it difficult to answer large and daunting questions. The big question this blog will focus on today is: are things getting better, or worse?
The Facts
The first place to turn to answer this all-encompassing question is raw data. And there is a mountain of evidence to suggest that our world is improving. For instance, extreme poverty rates have plummeted around the world since 1950 (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2018a). 137 000 people have been uplifted from extreme poverty every single day for the last 25 years. Global literacy has increased exponentially (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2018b), life expectancy has risen more than 20 years over the last century, and the number of democracies in the world has risen from 5 in 1874 to 87 in 2009. The correlation between democracies and a higher level of education and better quality of life is very high.
The good news doesn't stop. The World Health Organization has found that malaria mortality rates have decreased by 29% since 2010, and 35% for children under 5 years of age. The spread of the Internet and emancipative values have helped to liberate a large portion of the world from misinformation and undemocratic governments.
The sheer size of data showing an improving world should curb the pessimism of even the most cynical of critics. We can be assured that the world is becoming a better place than it was at any time in the past. However, this does not necessarily mean that everything is getting better.
Static Suffering
The problem with the use of statistics in answering this question is that they don't tell the whole story: they answer only part of the question, namely the part about the world getting better. But what about the individual? Are each of our lives better simply because our environment is better?
In the words of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, a renowned professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, "Life is suffering.". The single common trait that unites all of humanity is the fact that we will all suffer throughout our lives. Unpredictable events do occur. A good example of this is the 1929 Economic Depression. The people living in the 1920s were having a grand old time until that fateful day of October 29. Even if our lives are perfect at the moment, something will happen that will throw us into a state of chaos and pain. It is simply the way the universe is: the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of any closed system will increase over time. Fresh fruits will turn mouldy, relationships deteriorate... time is not a kind mistress.
This raises a troubling question: how can our individual lives get any better if the only guarantee that we have in life is suffering, regardless of how much the world improves?
The Future
Another issue with solely relying on the data of the past to answer our question at present is that it is not time considerate. The trends that have remained consistent could fall off. There is no way of knowing whether the uptick in the rate of literacy will continue, or that tomorrow another 137 000 people will be uplifted from extreme poverty. Will homicides ever go away completely, or is human nature set in stone?
There are also future events that might sour any notions of world improvement. Climate change is rapidly decimating our planet. Overpopulation, an issue barely talked about, is going to loom its ugly head some time this century. (the global population will reach 9 billion in 2050, and 10 billion, the maximum level of humans Earth can support, in 2100).
Optimism
But what is barely mentioned in our day-to-day lives is the amazing power of human imagination and ingenuity. The human species, a weak, hairless and virtually defenceless mammal has lived for only 200 000 years and radically altered the planet we live on. We have visited the depths of the oceans and our nearest celestial body. I believe that we can save ourselves from whatever plagues us in the coming years. Even if that were not the objective truth (if there even is such a thing!), it is better to have faith than to cripple oneself's with doubt.