The world is far better than you think

People often wish to “go back to a better time”, or reminisce about their childhood when “the world was a safer place”. It may have felt that way, but it’s almost entirely untrue.

That’s not to say that things can’t be better — the world today is still a mess, but it’s the safest and healthiest that it’s ever been. I’ll be pulling some quotes from Hans Rosling’s book “ Factfulness “, and this one is a great place to start:

“Remember: things can be bad, and getting better.”

You can point to many bad things in the world today, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but most “bad things” are wildly better today than any time in history.

Murder rates in the US have crept up lately to roughly 15 deaths per 100,000 residents in the last few years, but that’s still just half the rate it was in the 90’s (such as 28 per 100,000 in 1993).

Reports of missing children are down 40 percent since 1997.

Across the world, poverty rates are at all time-lows, more people are educated and vaccinated than any time before, and all is trending in the right direction.

Even school shootings are down from where they were in the 90’s. From 1993–2000, there were 276 children killed in schools. In the past eight years (2015–2022), it’s been around 210. If you factor in the much greater population of students these days, the numbers are even more skewed. Certainly any number greater than zero is entirely unacceptable, and I’m in favor…