Good news!

[Urbane]

WARNING: There is some GOOD news in this column so if you're addicted to only bad news please don't read it. Here it is:

Margaret Wente
The world is much better than it seems
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Dec. 25, 2015

Who wouldn’t be depressed about the world today? Donald Trump! Islamic State! Oil slump! Mass shootings! Global warming! Everywhere you look, it’s doom and gloom.

So, turn off the news and consider this. For most of humanity, life is improving at an accelerated rate. Most people find this hard to believe – after all, we’re programmed to look for trouble. Here are some reasons to start the new year on an optimistic note:

Global poverty has plunged. This year, for the first time on record, the percentage of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has sunk below 10 per cent, the World Bank says. This is a stunning achievement. As recently as 1990, 37 per cent of the world’s population was desperately poor. Since then, around 1.3 billion people have been lifted above the poverty line, which is now set at $1.90 (U.S.) a day. That’s a low bar. But it means that more people than ever before have a tolerable life.

Other cheery news: Malnutrition has all but disappeared, except in countries with terrible governments. Eighty per cent of the world’s population use contraceptives and have two-child families. Eighty per cent vaccinate their children (alternative Toronto parents, please take note). Eighty per cent have electricity in their homes. Ninety per cent of the world’s girls go to school.

As for inequality, surely the growing wealth gap should concern us. Well, perhaps. But there’s an upside. “The rich got richer, true,” Deirdre McCloskey, an economist who specializes in the history of bourgeois prosperity, has noted. “But millions more have gas heating, cars, smallpox vaccinations, indoor plumbing, cheap travel, rights for women, lower child mortality, adequate nutrition, taller bodies, doubled life expectancy, schooling for their kids, newspapers, a vote, a shot at university, and respect.”

We’ve never lived in such peaceful times. Wars and conflict fill the news, but they are at historic lows. Worldwide, people are about five times more likely to die by homicide as they are to be killed in a war. As for terrorist attacks, you’re far more likely to be killed by a collision with a deer.

Your kids are probably better behaved than you are. Today’s teenagers may well be the nicest, most responsible kids in history. Drug use among high-school students has plummeted, according to the latest Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey. Alcohol use has declined to 45 per cent in 2015, from 66 per cent in 1999. Marijuana use is down to 21 per cent, from 28 per cent; tobacco cigarette use has plunged to less than 9 per cent, from 28 per cent. And more kids than ever before say they abstain from drugs and alcohol: 42 per cent today, versus 27 per cent in 1999.

Gun violence is actually going down. Mass shootings in the United States have become so routine that they all seem to run together. Yet, gun violence has fallen dramatically over the past two decades. Between 1993 and 2013, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, the rate of U.S. gun homicides fell by half, from seven homicides for every 100,000 people to 3.8 homicides in 2013 (the Canadian rate is about one-10th that figure).

The drop in U.S. gun violence is part of an overall decline in violent crime, which has plunged by nearly half since 1991. What happened? The Washington Post’s Max Ehrenfreund cites several possible factors: More police officers on the beat, the use of computers in police work, a broad decline in alcohol use, less lead in the environment (which causes brain damage and induces criminal behaviour) and more prosperity. (Also, the population is getting older.) In Canada, violent crime is also down: Homicide rates are at their lowest level since 1966.

Africa went a year without any polio. We are gradually wiping out the worst of the world’s diseases. In 1988, polio was endemic in 125 countries. Now, there are just two: Afghanistan and Pakistan. The last country in Africa to eradicate polio was Nigeria. “It required mapping every settlement in the north of the country, counting all the children in every house, delivering oral polio vaccine several times a year, working with hundreds of thousands of traditional leaders and community mobilizers, and operating in areas dominated by extremist groups,” writes Bill Gates, who has been instrumental in the fight. “Nigeria’s efforts show that smart strategies can work even under the most difficult conditions.”

The bees are back. This year Canada had a record honey harvest – up more than 11 per cent from last year. The number of bee colonies is up, too. Not good news for purveyors of bee-scare stories, but great for folks who like homegrown honey on their toast.

Coffee and wine are good for you. You knew it, didn’t you? New studies confirm that coffee (even decaf) and wine (in moderation) are associated with living longer. Make mine a macchiato, with a glass of merlot on the side. And make a New Year’s resolution to count your many blessings – including flush toilets, electric lights, polio vaccines and peace.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-de ... e27923750/

[Atomoa]

This is propaganda.

Bee-scare folks? I keep bees and that's a crock of poop. One year and it's all clear? Did we stop using monocrop farms and neonicotinoids?

More people live on 1.90 a day so be happy for them because they just took your factory job.

Economist who specializes in the history of bourgeois prosperity? What the hell is that? Is there a proletariat expert to counter his claims?

We live in a oligarchy but people are getting taller so chin up!

"Don't worry about anything go back to watching TV we've got it all under control!"

[flamingfingers]

She wrote this while listening to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

[Urbane]

There are certainly lots of things to be miserable about if one chooses but personally I like Margaret Wente's column. She backs up what she says with stats but some people are so inclined toward the negative that they just can't accept good news. In fact, good news makes them even more miserable. Anyway, the world in so many ways has been getting better and better. We should continue trying to make the world a better place but sometimes we need to step back and count our blessings.

[Urbane]

Another perspective on the good news and an explanation as to why some people just don't recognize good news when they see it:

Glenn Reynolds: Actually, things are pretty good
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
December 21, 2015

Amid stories of terrorism, government incompetence and corruption, mass migration and economic stagnation, there’s actually some good news: Global poverty has fallen below 10% for the first time ever.

That’s right: A new study by the World Bank estimates that less than 10% of the world’s population is living in what it calls poverty — an income of less than $1.90 per day. Twenty-five years ago, over a third of the global population was living on less. The biggest changes have come in East Asia and around the Pacific, but even sub-Saharan Africa, the worst place in the world for incomes, has improved significantly, with poverty dropping from 56% to an estimated 35.2% since 1990.

For most of human history, of course, extreme poverty was the norm. People worked hard to get — if they were lucky — three meals a day and clothes on their backs. Money was scarce, possessions were few, leisure existed only when all the work was done, which was seldom, and capital for investment was scarce — as were things to invest in.

Deaths from sickness and violence were common: As Steven Pinker has noted, human beings back in the era before nation states developed had a 15% chance of dying by violence; numbers today are vastly lower. This is true, he notes, despite the number of deaths from wars and civil wars.

Charles Kenny even wrote in The Atlantic that 2015 was the best year ever in the history of humanity. Wars have become less common and less deadly (though better publicized), while vaccines and medicines have reduced sickness and death. Kenny writes: “The UN reported this year that global child mortality from all causes has more than halved since 1990. That means 6.7 million fewer kids under the age of five are dying each year compared to 1990. Nearly 7 million families avoided the pain of burying their child in 2015 who would have gone through it if the world hadn’t seen two and a half decades of historically unprecedented progress against childhood illness.”

So that’s all good news. But it leads to a couple of points. First, this progress is contingent: Screwups or bad luck could turn things around. As science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once wrote:

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as ‘bad luck.’”

Globally, we’ve changed that “normal condition” by the spread of free markets and free inquiry, which have led to a global growth in knowledge and skills that has made almost everyone rich by human historical standards. But we could revert to the “bad luck” norm if things went wrong, and they still might. Eternal vigilance, and all that.

The second point is that people haven’t caught up. Our brains are still wired, in large part, for caveman times: A time when the stock of wealth was largely fixed (hunter-gatherers couldn’t create more antelopes, or more berries), so that if one person had more, that inevitably meant that another had less, and when strangers — meaning, basically, the people over the next hill — had every reason to try to take it away from you. These two caveman attitudes produce the zeal for redistribution that is now marketed as socialism and the tribalism that is still a major part of politics.

We don’t live in the caveman era now. Wealth isn’t fixed, but the product of human ingenuity — cavemen couldn’t make more antelopes, but we can invent gadgets and services that never existed before. And in free markets, we entrust our lives to strangers not of our tribe every time we fly in an airplane, drive on the highway or check in to a hotel.

We’ve come as far as we have by overcoming those caveman attitudes. To go farther, we’ll need to overcome them more completely. Will 2016 be better than 2015? That will depend on how well we do at that.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... /77663688/

[Atomoa]

She backs up what she says with stats but some people are so inclined toward the negative that they just can't accept good news.

One year of slightly increased bee health = "the bee scare-story people can chill out" That's not statistics, it's dangerous propaganda.

In fact, good news makes them even more miserable.

Talk about painting it up. This article is full of holes which are clearly visible from a few kilometers away The good news isnt good news, it's whitewash. People said the same thing about slavery : "100 years ago these people didnt have clothes!"

It has nothing to do with being miserable and more to do with cutting through the *bleep*.

These two caveman attitudes produce the zeal for redistribution that is now marketed as socialism and the tribalism that is still a major part of politics. We’ve come as far as we have by overcoming those caveman attitudes. To go farther, we’ll need to overcome them more completely.

There it is. Go back to sleep.

[Urbane]

The "redistributers" don't like it when things are getting better because it cuts them off at the knees. So it may be bad news for them but the good news is really making a difference for those who are no longer living in poverty.

[mexi cali]

Atomoa; This is propaganda.

Bee-scare folks? I keep bees and that's a crock of poop. One year and it's all clear? Did we stop using monocrop farms and neonicotinoids?

More people live on 1.90 a day so be happy for them because they just took your factory job.

Economist who specializes in the history of bourgeois prosperity? What the hell is that? Is there a proletariat expert to counter his claims?

We live in a oligarchy but people are getting taller so chin up!

You outdid yourself with the use of deeper words than is your norm. who helped? And why?

[Atomoa]

The "redistributers" don't like it when things are getting better because it cuts them off at the knees. So it may be bad news for them but the good news is really making a difference for those who are no longer living in poverty.

Sorry my friend but this is already post-capitalist times.

The words have forked tongues. They say they are helping the starving when previously they would let them starve - they just gave the good paying jobs to the starving for 1.90 a day to horde another gold coin. Your own propaganda insists that the wealthy are reigning down gold all over the world, which is complete nonsense. It's not as if business has been the prime motivator of society to improve either - they have been the roadblock. You can thank literally thank hippies and left wing journalists screaming bloody murder at the literal bloody murder that goes on. It's not business driving the improvements.

I've called it out and the costume comes off.

Deirdre McCloskey, an economist who specializes in the history of bourgeois prosperity

Again, really?

If you want to post pro-capitalist nonsense at least change the title of the thread.

[Omnitheo]

Margaret Wente is a troll. She likes to write things to rile people up. Sometimes I agree with her, sometimes I have to say *bleep* and I look forward to reading the complaints to the editor in coming days.

As for this, yeah I agree with her for the most part, it's not something new though, crime, poverty, inequality has been dropping steadily for years. These are things that make me wonder why when Canada has the lowest crime rate since the 60's that suddenly we needed an omnibus tough on crime bill. Or why so many posters on here used poverty and disease as an excuse to not find any sort of climate initiative.

That said, gun violence in the US, it's decreasing, but it's still alarmingly high. To simply dismiss the issue because it's "resolving itself" is apathetic and opens the way for lobbyists to bring in policies that would undermine the progress made this far. We still need to continue to work on addressing poverty, but we're at the point now where it's about targeting key areas of issue (ie native communities who lack drinking water)

And the bees. Well we had one good year, so I guess Colony Collapse Disorder is over. Good job guys, we beat it. Now I await the first month of a surplus budget for Margaret Wendte to announce that Canada has fully recovered.

[Atomoa]

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Bourgeois-Virt ... 0226556646

McCloskey’s sweeping, charming, and even humorous survey of ethical thought and economic realities—from Plato to Barbara Ehrenreich—overturns every assumption we have about being bourgeois. Can you be virtuous and bourgeois? Do markets improve ethics? Has capitalism made us better as well as richer? Yes, yes, and yes, argues McCloskey, who takes on centuries of capitalism’s critics with her erudition and sheer scope of knowledge. Applying a new tradition of “virtue ethics” to our lives in modern economies, she affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we actually live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations.

[Urbane]

I just take good news for what it is, i.e. good news. The thread title isn't "The world is perfect." It's "Good news!" I read "The Progress Paradox" some years ago and the author of that book also painted a picture of the world that, with all its faults, is getting better and better and he too had the stats to back up what he was saying. Is there still a lot of misery in the world? Are there still wars? Are there still people going to bed hungry each night? Are there still lots of violent crimes committed? Are there still people dying from some diseases? The answer to all of those questions is "yes" but while acknowledging that reality we can also acknowledge that things have been getting better in so many ways. That's all. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just some good news to celebrate during the holiday season.

[Ka-El]

Is there still a lot of misery in the world? Are there still wars? Are there still people going to bed hungry each night? Are there still lots of violent crimes committed? Are there still people dying from some diseases? The answer to all of those questions is "yes" but while acknowledging that reality we can also acknowledge that things have been getting better in so many ways. That's all. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just some good news to celebrate during the holiday season.

There is always good news to celebrate if we want to look for it, and for many of us looking to the many reasons we have for counting our own blessings the experience should be humbling, an experience of gratitude – not an excuse to rest on our laurels and say “well that’s enough then, what more can people expect?” We still have such a long way to go.

[Urbane]

There is always good news to celebrate if we want to look for it, and for many of us looking to the many reasons we have for counting our own blessings the experience should be humbling, an experience of gratitude – not an excuse to rest on our laurels and say “well that’s enough then, what more can people expect?” We still have such a long way to go.

I don't think that anyone could disagree with that and as I read both of the columns that I posted I certainly didn't get the impression that either of the authors was saying that we're there, that all is well in the world. While poverty being reduced is a good thing it certainly isn't poverty eliminated but we can still acknowledge the progress being made. We still have wars going on but fewer people are dying in combat so overall that's good news as well. In the media we have a disproportionate amount of commentary on the negative side so I just found it refreshing to read two positive columns about some things in the world that are getting better.

[d0nb]

Thanks, Margaret. But is the world much better than it seems, or does it only seem much better than it is?

The world appears to be in less pain because of easy credit. Obama has put a temporary patch on the U.S. economy at the cost of a two-fold increase of the national debt. The Chinese have helped fuel the global economy by running up thirty-trillion in debt. The Greeks fall ever deeper into debt by borrowing to service the interest on their debt.

A real good news piece would have to offer some hope of escape from the consequences of a global debt default.