As terror attacks dominate global headlines and politicians continue to disappoint our already low expectations of them, it is understandable to feel dejected and dispirited at the foibles of our human race. Previous optimism has dwindled, the horizon is more opaque, and even the most optimistic among us wake up worrying over our children’s future in an uncertain world.
While these concerns are undeniable, real and difficult to predict, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a step back and focus on the good that has been accomplished (particularly in the past 50 years) as innovation and technology have improved our standard of living and quality of life.
As Matt Ridley points out in his book The Rational Optimist: “Some of the billions alive today still live in misery and want even worse than the worse experienced in the Stone Age. Some are worse off than they were a few months or years before. But the vast majority of people are much better fed, much better sheltered, much better entertained, much better protected against disease and much more likely to live to old age than their ancestors have ever been…
“Even allowing for the hundreds of millions who still live in abject poverty, disease and want, this generation of human beings has access to more calories, watts, lumen-hours, square-feet, gigabytes, megahertz, light years, nanometers, bushels per acre, miles per gallon, food miles, air miles, and, of course, dollars than any that went before.”
Peter Diamandis, in his book Abundance Is Our Future, puts just a few basic numbers to this soaring assertion: in the 20th century the average human life span has more than doubled; and global average per-capita income, adjusted for inflation, has tripled. Childhood mortality has come down by a factor of 10. The cost of food, electricity, transport and communication have dropped 10- to 1,000-fold. Steve Pinker has showed us that, in fact, we’re living during the most peaceful time ever in human history. And Charles Kenny notes that global literacy has gone from 25% to more than 80% in the past 130 years.
We truly are living in an extraordinary time, something many people forget.
And we keep setting our expectations higher and higher. In fact, we redefine what poverty means. Think of this: in the US today, most people living under the poverty line still have electricity, water, toilets, refrigerators, television, mobile phones, air conditioning and cars. The wealthiest barons of previous centuries could never have dreamed of such luxuries.
If you have 20 minutes to tear yourself away from the continual bombardment of negativity on our news channels, please have a look at Hans Rosling’s TED talk "The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen", as he debunks developing-world myths in a humorous and informative way:
These are just some of the things I have been reading about. Some thoughts. A different way of thinking. But infinitely more positive than the negativity that the digital devices we hold so dear bring us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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Stephen Silcock is a senior portfolio manager at Investec Wealth & Investment.
This article was paid for by Investec.
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