Hi folks,
this is the first in a possible trial series of news articles called 'The World Works' news.
I notice in the libertarian and various 'truth' movements there is a tendency for some to look only at the negative events occurring in the world; increasing tyranny, creeping socialist control and the evils committed by those in positions of power and influence can attract us in to a spiral of believing that the world is falling in to a hopeless pit of chaos.
The evolutionary reasons for the human mind to do this seem self evident to me; snakes and fire are important to keep an eye on and we can bond socially through shared negative experience.
However i have a suspicion that the good we have in the world could be far more than the bad that we have in the world and it is the good that i hope to highlight here.
I also write this with the aim of sharing an alternative mode of thinking that i have found beneficial to my mood and cognition since reducing my exposure to negative information and thinking.
For more information on how negative dwelling can affect psychological and physical well being see these articles.
https://iheartintelligence.com/2016/12/12/consequences-soaking-yourself-negativity/?fb=iis
https://www.elitedaily.com/life/negative-thoughts-yourself/981879
On the macrocosmic (worldwide) scale:
Global extreme poverty falling rapidly.
This one is probably one of the best pieces of news i have heard in some time.
While i have many issues with how the world bank operates they appear to be the most accurate measure we have of poverty levels through out the world, the following graphs and information sets show some encouraging statistics which i would argue are likely due to worldwide advancements in relatively free markets.
The following graph is synthesised from the information provided in a paper on the percentage of people in poverty and extreme poverty over the last 200 years by Bourguignon and Morrison (2002) and the world banks 'world poverty in absolute numbers' study from 2015 and taken from ourworldindata.org.
As is evident from the graph above there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of people in extreme poverty over the last 200 years and an even more drastic disparity by the end of the study between those not in extreme poverty and those in it despite the huge boom in population following on from 1950.
To illuminate this further i will attempt to investigate the numbers in more detail.
At the beginning of the estimated period in question (1820) most of the worldwide population (1.2 billion) were in extreme poverty (defined as consuming or earning $1.90 a day) with 60.61 million living outside of extreme poverty and 1.2 billion living in extreme poverty.
From 1820 to 1850 both numbers began to rise to 1.17 billion in extreme poverty and 94.7 million not in extreme poverty.
By 1910 1.44 billion were in extreme poverty ( a 0.27 billion person increase) and 308 million were not in extreme poverty (a 213.3 million person increase)
Jumping ahead to 1950 we start to see the population of the world increase more than the levels of extreme poverty with 708 million not in extreme poverty (a 400 million person increase from 1910) and 1.81 billion in extreme poverty (a 0.37 billion person increase since 1910)
By 1990 with a world population of 5.31 billion we had an extreme poverty rate of 1.96 billion (a 0.15billion increase from 1950) and 3.35 billion not in extreme poverty (a healthy 3,549,292,000,000 increase from 1950!)
Then what i perceive to be the most encouraging numbers are occurring between 2002 and 2015 where we see extreme poverty numbers drop from 1.65 billion to 705.55 million (a decrease of 0.31 billion from 1990 and whopping decrease of 1,649,294,450,000 persons in extreme poverty for this time period!) and this is with the world population rising from 6.05 billion people to 7.35 billion people between 2002 and 2015, in fact in just one year (2014-2015) absolute poverty fell by around 202 million people!
Percentage of people in non rich countries with a per capita income of over $10 a day is increasing as the percentage in extreme poverty is decreasing.
To illustrate this increase in worldwide welfare still further i found one more graphic i think is worth noting from the ourworldindata.org website (see below).
As can be seen in the above graphic the % population of people (1981-2013) in the green band ($3.1 - $10 a day) is steadily increasing as is the blue band which illustrates the percentage of the population with an income of above $10 per day (international dollars) in countries this data set defined as poor.
Within the same time period (1981-2013) the % of people within countries defined as poor who fell in the bottom two bands considered 'absolute poverty' can be seen to be steadily decreasing.
Just to illustrate some of these percentages at the beginning of this study 32.75% of the population were in extreme poverty (the bottom band) and another 18.83 percent were in the second band from the bottom which is also another metric used by some researchers to indicate extreme poverty.
By 1990 the number of those in the bottom band (maroon) of extreme poverty had fallen to 20.31% and those in the second band (salmon colour) of extreme poverty had fallen to 21.7% and by 2002 the number of those in the bottom (maroon) band of extreme poverty had fallen to 12.68% (a 7.63% decrease!) and those in the second band (salmon colour) of extreme poverty had fallen to 17.36% (a 4.34% decrease).
Moving ahead to more recent times the percentages seem to be that between 2002 - 2013 the lowest tier of absolute poverty ($1.25 int. per day) fell from 12.68% to 4.63% and those in the second tier of absolute poverty fell from 17.36% to 7.92% which is a 9.44% decrease!
So from the start of when this study was conducted in 1981 to the end in 2013 the total percentage of people in countries defined as poor in the two categorisations of extreme poverty fell from 51.58% to 12.55% which is a mighty 39.03% extreme poverty decrease from 1981-2013.
Equally encouraging in my opinion is the growth of the percentage of people in countries defined as poor by this study who have an income over $10 international (blue band) , this rose from 9.26% in 1981 to 22.92% in 2013 (a 13.66% increase!) and in the category of % of people who live in a poor country who have an income of between 3.1 and 10 international dollars a day this figure increased from 21.75% in 1981 to 45.42% in 2013 (a 23.67% increase).
This means that in total the percentage of people in poor countries who are making a wage that is not close to extreme poverty rose 37.33% between 1981 and 2013!
I find both sets of information very encouraging and i think they go to show that while there are indeed individual governmental or personal tragedies on a global scale there is certainly less material deprivation and hardship which in my opinion is most certainly a cause for a celebration :-)
In the microcosmic (individual) scale
Two fathers in a shed find a charitable voluntary solution to providing children with prosthetic limbs.
This is one story i found to be most heartwarming.
Who are team Unlimbited?
Stephen Davies (whose YouTube channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/paybaksrd/videos) from the Swansea valley in Wales was born without a left hand and after trying the prosthetic limbs provided to him as a child (which consisted of an NHS provided hand me down arm with a wing nut to screw and unscrew the gripping mechanism) he had gone long periods without a prosthetic.
After experiencing the frustration of this Stephen posted his thoughts about the inadequacy of the currently affordable and available prosthetic solutions online and his comments were read by a volunteer by the name of Drew Murray from an organisation called e NABLE ( see here for their website http://enablingthefuture.org/about/) who describe themselves in the following way:
'The e-NABLE Community is an amazing group of individuals from all over the world who are using their 3D printers to create free 3D printed hands and arms for those in need of an upper limb assistive device.
They are people who have put aside their political, religious, cultural and personal differences – to come together and collaborate on ways to help improve the open source 3D printable designs for hands and arms for those who were born missing fingers or who have lost them due to war, disease or natural disaster.
The e-NABLE Community is made up of teachers, students, engineers, scientists, medical professionals, tinkerers, designers, parents, children, scout troops, artists, philanthropists, dreamers, coders, makers and every day people who just want to make a difference and help to “Give The World A Helping Hand.”'
After reading Stephen's complaints about the currently available and affordable limbs Drew Murray of e NABLE set about designing and 3D printing Stephen a prosthetic hand, on seeing the results of this and knowing the hardship that missing a limb had caused him in his own childhood from May 11-August 12, 2015 Drew and Stephen set about forming their own charitable organisation; Team Unlimbited (http://www.teamunlimbited.org).
Team Unlimbited now design, run R&D on, print, test and ship out custom designed 3D printed arms to children who have lost their arms below their elbows all over the world who have lost fingers, a hand or part of an arm all from a tiny back garden shed (as of yet 3D printed legs are not yet available as they cannot provide the tensile strength needed).
One such recipient of Team Unlimbited arms is 8 year old Isabella Andreou who born without a left arm below the elbow was ecstatic to receive a prosthetic arm and due to low production costs she can recieve subsequent replacement arms in the future (see video of her unboxing below)
How are the arms made?
The arms are made from a biodegradable thermoplastic aliphatic polyester known as PLA (Polylactic Acid) which is usually produced through metal catalysis (usually tin octoate) of lactide derived from corn starch, sugar cane, starch or cassava roots (depending on location), PLA can also be made via direct condensation of lactic acid monomers.
The components that form the final arm or hand are 3D printed in a flat configuration and the use of PLA plastics allows these flat components to be thermoformed in to the rounded shapes needed in a prosthetic arm.
These components are then sometimes shipped as a kit (sometimes whole) anywhere in the world with instructions on how to assemble them with their appropriate operating cables given online, when constructed the fingers of the arm can be clenched by moving the remaining elbow joint upwards.
What are the advantages of the methods used by Team Unlimbited?
-3D printing allows production time per unit to be 10 times faster than non 3D printed alternatives
-the arms and hands made by team unlimbited are made for less than $27 US per item, this means team unlimbited can be funded by donations and self sourced income effectively
-low production times and production costs mean that as a child outgrows their current arm a new one can be produced cheaply and quickly
-the use of PLA biodegradable plastic is beneficial to the environment as it biodegrades in to carbon dioxide and water within 6-12 months as opposed to the many years it takes petroleum based plastics to decompose meaning that landfill and ocean plastics content is reduced.
-using open source 3D printing designs means that designs, improvements, R&D and updates can be shared worldwide instantly in a decentralised manner throughout the e NABLE and global community.
-3D printing allows individual parts to be quickly replaced
-if needed the arms can be sent as a much smaller kit which allows cheap shipping worldwide.
-they make the world a better place :-)
Are there any more examples of children who have received Team Unlimbited Arms?
Yes! Here are some below:
5 year old Elsie received and her v2.0 UnLimbited arm:
Team UnLimbited workshop and thier collaboration with Callum and Jamie who printed thier own arm (decentralisation in action!)
Football enthusiast Ajay recieved an extraordinary suprise courtesy of Team Unlimbited
Links, sources and resources:
Psychology of focusinbg on the negative:
https://iheartintelligence.com/2016/12/12/consequences-soaking-yourself-negativity/?fb=iis
https://www.elitedaily.com/life/negative-thoughts-yourself/981879
World wealth data:
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview
Team Unlimbited and e NABLE
http://www.teamunlimbited.org
https://www.youtube.com/user/paybaksrd/videos
http://enablingthefuture.org/
Thank you for reading, i hope that in this edition of 'The World Works' news i have shown that there is a wealth of positive life enriching activity that is occurring daily in our world as a whole and on an individual level: where there is darkness there must always be light.
I believe that our thoughts about reality create (through the Hermetic principle of mentalism) the world around us (see Mark Passio on the 7 principles of hermeticism on YouTube for more information) so by focusing just on the negative we may receive more of the same by our unconscious actions or (alternatively)by immutable macrocosmic laws.
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Peace, love and voluntarism from: