This Has Been the Best Year Ever

[Juvenal]

This Has Been the Best Year Ever
For humanity over all, life just keeps getting better.

By Nicholas Kristof
Opinion Columnist
Dec. 28, 2019

Nick does a column like this regularly at the end of the year. He also does a lot of writing on human trafficking and global injustices from Darfur to Xinjiang. It's probably therapeutic.

[Sparko]

Behind a paywall.

People, if you are going to link to a paywalled article, at least post enough of it to have an actual discussion.

[One Bad Pig]

For further consideration:

[Juvenal]

Behind a paywall.

Non-subscribers are given a number of free reads each month. If you've used yours up for December, January is coming soon.

People, if you are going to link to a paywalled article, at least post enough of it to have an actual discussion.

The assumption is always that readers will read:

2019 was probably the year in which children were least likely to die, adults were least likely to be illiterate and people were least likely to suffer excruciating and disfiguring diseases.

But for those who prefer pictures:

2019-12-30_10-43-15.jpg

That's since 1981, and while based on World Bank data, doesn't acknowledge their paucity. Kristof provides the caveat ...

You may feel uncomfortable reading this. It can seem tasteless, misleading or counterproductive to hail progress when there is still so much wrong with the world. I get that. In addition, the numbers are subject to debate and the 2019 figures are based on extrapolation. But I worry that deep pessimism about the state of the world is paralyzing rather than empowering; excessive pessimism can leave people feeling not just hopeless but also helpless.

"Misleading and counterproductive" is linked in the original to an extended discussion about the figures' accuracy and relevance:

Back to Kristof, along with extreme poverty, he notes both illiteracy and famine have declined substantially, "the last famine recognized by the World Food Program struck just part of one state in South Sudan and lasted for only a few months in 2017." Childhood mortality has done the same. And with that decline has come a marked decrease in the excessive birth rates necessary to insure progeny. With that decline has come education and empowerment of women.

I was born in 1959, too.

[Sparko]

Non-subscribers are given a number of free reads each month. If you've used yours up for December, January is coming soon.



The assumption is always that readers will read:

2019 was probably the year in which children were least likely to die, adults were least likely to be illiterate and people were least likely to suffer excruciating and disfiguring diseases.

But for those who prefer pictures:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]41741[/ATTACH]

That's since 1981, and while based on World Bank data, doesn't acknowledge their paucity. Kristof provides the caveat ...

You may feel uncomfortable reading this. It can seem tasteless, misleading or counterproductive to hail progress when there is still so much wrong with the world. I get that. In addition, the numbers are subject to debate and the 2019 figures are based on extrapolation. But I worry that deep pessimism about the state of the world is paralyzing rather than empowering; excessive pessimism can leave people feeling not just hopeless but also helpless.

"Misleading and counterproductive" is linked in the original to an extended discussion about the figures' accuracy and relevance:

Back to Kristof, along with extreme poverty, he notes both illiteracy and famine have declined substantially, "the last famine recognized by the World Food Program struck just part of one state in South Sudan and lasted for only a few months in 2017." Childhood mortality has done the same. And with that decline has come a marked decrease in the excessive birth rates necessary to insure progeny. With that decline has come education and empowerment of women.

I was born in 1959, too.

Thanks!

So that means we can all say, "YAY Trump!!!"

[NorrinRadd]

Thanks!

So that means we can all say, "YAY Trump!!!"

According to this Spectator article, we have to thank both Trump and Obama, since the whole decade has been great.