Earlier this month, I wrote about how we’ve got it good, which spurred rebuttals from friends, family, and others who cited various current issues to suggest that we don’t have it so good, or at least not as good as my previous post would lead people to believe.
My friends in the U.S. mentioned inflation, cost of living, credit card debt, struggling to make ends meet, not being able to afford a home, and mental health issues.
A pen pal in France provided evidence for income inequality, homelessness, wage stagnation, climate change, and human overconsumption of natural resources.
My relative expressed their views on government, education, taxes, crime, God, debt, communism, socialism, marriage, welfare, mental health, abortion, drugs, and constitutional rights.
I’m grateful that they held me accountable because I can see how it’s not helpful to only talk about the good when there is bad happening.
“Solely communicating the progress that the world has achieved becomes unhelpful, or even repugnant, when it glosses over the problems that are real today.” — Max Roser
That being said, of those who offered rebuttals, nobody disagreed with the points I made about why we have it good (or at least better than our ancestors 200 years ago): longer lifespans, higher GDP per capita, less people living in extreme poverty, and more.
From conversations and research over the past couple of weeks, I’ve compiled two lists:
Progress: what we’re doing well
Problems: what we need to work on
Hopefully this is a less one-sided, more balanced perspective, compared to my previous post.
Note: these lists aren’t meant to be exhaustive. In other words, there are certainly areas of progress and problems that are not included in these lists.
Progress: what we’re doing well
Physical health
Life expectancy at birth (increasing)
Child mortality (decreasing)
Economic wealth
GDP per capita (increasing)
Percent of people living in extreme poverty (decreasing)
Working hours (decreasing)
Technology
Electricity access (increasing)
Energy capture (measured in kilocalories per person per day)
Internet access (increasing)
Share of population in range of mobile network (increasing)
Share of U.S. households using specific technologies (running water, refrigerator, electric power, flush toilet, radio, automobile, vacuum, landline, dryer, air conditioning, color TV, computer, washing machine, microwave, cell phone)
Political freedom
Percent of people living in a democracy (increasing)
Countries with universal right to vote (increasing)
Countries by share of women in parliament (increasing)
Number of countries where same-sex sexual acts are legal (increasing)
Number of countries protecting core LGBT+ rights (increasing)
Education
Share of the world’s population with formal basic education (increasing)
Share of children in primary school (increasing)
Share of adults who can read and write (increasing)
Share of the population using the Internet (increasing)
Other living conditions
Daily supply of calories per person (increasing)
Death rate from malnutrition (decreasing)
Using safely managed drinking water (increasing)
Deaths attributed to unsafe sanitation (decreasing)
Environment
Renewable energy generation (increasing)
Problems: what we need to work on
Fossil fuel consumption (increasing)
Greenhouse gas emissions (increasing)
Global warming (increasing)
Other environmental issues
Drug use disorder deaths (opioid deaths increasing)
Physical health
Obesity (increasing)
Economic
Income inequality (data for the U.S. specifically)
Wage stagnation (U.S.)
Homelessness (U.S.)
Balancing between gratitude and healthy pessimism
We’ve made great progress on some things, but we still have work to do on other things.
Only focusing on the progress is “unhelpful, or even repugnant, when it glosses over the problems that are real today” (Roser).
Only focusing on the problems doesn’t seem right either. If we don’t celebrate and enjoy our progress, then what are we doing any of this for?
It’s a balance between being grateful for the good we’ve got and still working hard to improve what needs improving.
Questions for further exploration
Are we focusing on the “right” things? Most of our economic effort is focused on areas where we’ve already made a lot of progress. Can we shift this effort to focus on other problems?
Is our progress in some areas causing our problems in other areas? E.g., economic production causing environmental issues, social media causing mental health issues.
Open for dicussion
Is there something important I didn’t include in the lists?
Did I put something in the progress list that you think belongs in the problems list? Or vice versa?
Let me know please! I can only do so much research on my own. It helps a ton to get other perspectives. Reply to this email or leave a comment on Substack.