Is the world still getting better?

 In the mid-2010s, Hans Rosling became world famous for his hopeful presentations of everything that has steadily improved in the world. But what have the curves looked like since then? If you look more closely at the statistics, you will find many reassuring facts, but also clouds of worry.

 Is the world still getting better? The question may seem strange at a time when most things seem to be going in the opposite direction, but it is worth taking seriously.

 Books about the decline of society and humanity have always come in a steady current. In 2010, the British biologist and science journalist Matt Ridley's book "The rational optimist: How prosperity evolves" came out with a different view.

In 2016, the Swedish writer and liberal social debater Johan Norberg published "Progress: Ten reasons to look forward to the future". Perhaps the most famous is
"Factfulness. Ten tricks that help you understand the world" with the subtitle "Ten reasons we're wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think", by the doctor and public health professor Hans Rosling, published posthumously.

 In for example, the magazine The Economist's review of Norberg's "Progress". Ultimately, of course, it is aquestion of whether the world is getting better, but the indicators that are highlighted are generally uncontroversial. Few find it problematic that poverty decreases while peace, tolerance and democracy increase. The statistics come strikingly often from various UN organisations. This does not mean that there is no measurement error, but it is basically the same statistic that development researchers all over the world use.

 Another common denominator of the books about how to make the world better is that their authors work uphill and have been dismissed as naive. It is difficult to change people's world view. Most people are instinctively pessimistic about the world's development.

 In Rosling's book, the frustration is particularly clear. Despite educational data visualizations and YouTube lectures viewed by millions, Rosling often encountered ignorance and casual attitudes even among highly educated people who worked daily on global development. While Ridley and Norberg are outspoken market liberals, Rosling said he was just relaying the facts. He even protested against the label optimist: "You're not an optimist just because you know that child mortality has fallen faster in recent decades in Bangladesh, Egypt and Brazil than it ever did in Sweden.

 Rosling's apolitical approach made him hard to dismiss. But interestingly enough, it may also have contributed to making it more difficult for many to accept his message. Research indicates that people who are to be persuaded to change their opinion on important issues require more than facts that show they are wrong. An understandable explanation is also needed as to why things are different from what they thought. It may be easy to show with statistics that the world is getting better, but it is more difficult to convincingly explain why this is the case. Unlike Rosling, Ridley and Norberg have in several books presented a coherent narrative about what the positive development depends on: free markets and creative individuals.

 As explanations for human progress, market economy, economic freedom and technological development go a long way. But there are patterns that deviate from that worldview. Prosperous countries with high economic freedom also tend to have high taxes and a large welfare state. Technological development as an explanation for the world becoming better immediately raises questions about where the technological development comes from and what makes the technology used for good purposes.

 Overambitious, many say, but there is nevertheless a common denominator: man's dominance on the planet depends on an outstanding ability to cooperate. Human societies succeed better when there are institutions that promote cooperation. The explanation is fully compatible with Norberg's and Ridley's market friendliness: the division of labor that emerges in the market economy can be advantageously understood as a form of cooperation. But democracy, the rule of law and the welfare state are also institutions that in different ways promote cooperation and thus wealth creation. Perhaps it would be easier to get a voice for the idea that the world is getting better if development is explained as the result of human cooperation.

 A bigger problem is probably that the development of the world in recent years has made the thesis that the world is getting better seem dated, if not out of date. A global virus pandemic, continued global warming, multiple outbreaks of war, the return of inflation and a number of elections with populist successes around the world have created a doomsday feel in news reporting. But if there's one thing we've learned from Hans Rosling, it's that feelings are often contradicted by facts.

 In most cases, there is now another ten years of data for the measures and indicators that Ridley, Norberg and Rosling highlighted. What do we see if the time series are extended? Several metrics continue to improve at a steady pace. The proportion of the world's population with access to drinking water is increasing, from 66 percent in 2010 to 73 percent in 2022. Literacy, too, in 2022 it was higher than ever: 87 percent. For men, the figure is even higher, but the

gender gap is narrowing over time. Infant mortality continues to fall. The curve showing global life expectancy at birth for the world's population is It has increased from 47 in 1950 to 73 in 2023. The increase is strikingly stable, but there are two notches in the curve, one larger than the other. Pause your reading and test yourself: what two events after 1950 have caused significant but temporary drops in the average lifespan on Earth?

 The last hack was in 2020 and was caused by the corona pandemic. The second notch is larger and is visible in 1960 when Mao caused mass starvation in China. Otherwise, people die at increasingly old ages and newborn earthlings are expected to live longer and longer. Life expectancy is not the only indicator that took a beating during the pandemic and then recovered. The proportion of the world's population living in absolute poverty fell until 2020, when it increased significantly. But between 2021 and 2024 it fell back. The latest update came this spring and showed that poverty is falling regardless of whether the poverty line is drawn at two, four or seven dollars a day.

 The World Bank also reports the world's aggregate GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation. This "gross planetary product" fell in 2020, but quickly recovered and in 2023 was the highest ever. More gratifying is that more and more countries are now able to combine growing GDP with decreasing carbon dioxide emissions, even when imports and exports are taken into account. The trend towards increasing intelligence seems to be continuing, largely because better nutrition promotes brain development. The number of murders per capita continues to decrease, both in Europe and globally. Annual deaths from natural disasters are still falling. The trend of more and more countries banning ethnic discrimination in working life continues. At a time when many are sighing over developments in the United States, it may be interesting to know that the percentage of Americans who accept marriages between whites and people of color has increased continuously since surveys began in 1958. In 2021, the figure was the highest ever: 94 percent.

 Many people become skeptical and irritated when statistics about the world getting better are lined up in this way. What do the numbers really say? Have the indicators been selected to fit a certain narrative, while other statistics develop significantly more problematically? For the reader who feels hit, I have a reassuring message: several curves that pointed in the right direction a decade or two ago have stagnated.

 In many respects, the world is now going downhill. Does it feel better? The overview above is a subset of indicators I selected in 2017, when I summarized the message of Ridley, Norberg and Rosling. Why you're wrong about almost everything, yet won't change your mind”. There were 19 points, and as far as the data series then went, everyone was heading in the right direction. Now it's different. The prevalence of malnutrition increased during the pandemic, and there is no reduction in the data yet. The incidence of child labor has stopped falling, and the number of armed conflicts in the world has increased in the last ten years. More conflict does not necessarily mean more deaths, but 2022 was unfortunately the deadliest year since the 1980s. When data from 2023 and 2024 is added, it is unlikely to look any better. It is also disappointing that the percentage of people living in democracy is in a downward trend, and even if more countries manage to increase GDP without emitting more carbon dioxide emissions, both total carbon dioxide content and global average temperature are going in the wrong direction. The world is still getting richer and healthier, but it is also getting hotter, more violent and less democratic.

 The sad thing about this is that if violence and dictatorship spread, the institutions that promote human cooperation are threatened. Then even more prosperity curves will turn downward. The 2020s will probably be a worse decade for the genre of books about the world getting better.

ATTENTION! PS. The overpopulation problem is also forgotten in this contex

Todde

Also check:

https://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-earths-nature-is-being-ravaged-by.html