{"id":381,"date":"2019-07-05T21:57:06","date_gmt":"2019-07-06T01:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=381"},"modified":"2022-04-14T16:45:06","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T20:45:06","slug":"is-the-world-getting-better-or-worse-statistics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/is-the-world-getting-better-or-worse-statistics\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the World Getting Better or Worse? [Statistics]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>If you\u2019ve turned on a TV or read a newspaper in the last two decades or so, you\u2019d have a pretty grim picture of the world. Terrorism. Extreme poverty. Deadly epidemics. And it\u2019s getting worse all the time. But this view is completely wrong. Not only are things much <em>better <\/em>than we think\u2014they\u2019re better than they\u2019ve <em>ever <\/em>been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The World is Getting Better, and Less Bad<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A combination of a <em>decline <\/em>in bad trends and an <em>increase <\/em>in positive trends has made the present the best time to be alive in human history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just take a look at some of the <strong>bad trends that have declined<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Slavery: Once a near-universal institution, it\u2019s only legal in three countires today.<\/li><li>HIV: Rates of infection per million are half of what they were in 1996.<\/li><li>Child mortality: A shocking 44 percent of children died before their fifth birthday in 1800. Today this figure has been whittled down to 4 percent.<\/li><li>Combat deaths: At the height of World War Two, there were 200 combat deaths per 100,000 people. Today that number is 1, even <em>with <\/em>the ongoing Syrian Civil War.<\/li><li>Hunger: 28 percent of people worldwide were malnourished in 1970. Today, that figure is 11 percent.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And as a corollary, check out these <strong>good trends that are on the rise<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Women\u2019s suffrage: At the dawn of the 20th century, almost no countries allowed women to vote. Today, 193 out of 194 do.<\/li><li>Food production: Crop yields have nearly quadrupled since 1961. This has been a major driver of the aforementioned decline in worldwide hunger.<\/li><li>Access to electricity: The share of people with access to electricity increased from 72 to 85 percent from 1991 to 2014.<\/li><li>Access to clean drinking water: More people than ever can drink safe, treated water, with that figure going up 30 percent from 1980 to 2015.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve turned on a TV or read a newspaper in the last two decades or so, you\u2019d have a pretty grim picture of the world. Terrorism. Extreme poverty. Deadly epidemics. And it\u2019s getting worse all the time. But this view is completely wrong. Not only are things much better than we think\u2014they\u2019re better than they\u2019ve ever been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,25],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-statistics","tag-factfulness","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is the World Getting Better or Worse? [Statistics] - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is the world getting better or worse over time? 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