By Luke Langlois

I don’t know what it is, but it is super easy for us humans (sorry extraterrestrials) to be pessimists. Every day, we have to go to school or work and do some exhausting task that just repeats the next day, and the next day, and the next day. . . . If you pair this with the negativity of the media, who are always in our faces due to our devices, you have created a world of pessimists who are only able to see the ills and plights of the world. The media makes it seem like our world is a cesspool of murder, political instability, natural disasters, disease, and misinformation. While it is certainly true that these things exist, our world is getting far better in reality. Here’s why:

• In the past twenty years, the portion of people living in extreme poverty has been almost halved, and the number of people in poverty is dropping every day. Two-hundred years ago, about 85% of the world lived in what is now classified as extreme poverty. Twenty years ago, that number had dropped to 20%. Now, only 9% of people live in poverty. That isn’t to say that our effort to end poverty is done, but we’ve made incredible strides towards reaching that goal. In 1997, 42% of the Chinese and Indian population was living in extreme poverty. In 2017, that number fell to 12% in India and less than 1% in China. Numbers don’t lie!

• In 1800, no country had a life expectancy above the age of forty. Now, the global life expectancy is about seventy-one years old, with countries like Spain having an average lifespan of eighty-six years. The founders of the United States are slacking on their promise of life. How the heck is Spain beating out the U.S by an average of thirteen years? Maybe it’s the donuts. We can attribute this increase in life expectancy to our rapidly growing understanding of human health. The 1800s saw more than 40% of children die before the age of five. Modern medicine, dietary improvements, and increased sanitary efforts have made it so childhood deaths are an anomaly. Furthermore, we are discovering biological nuances every single day that help us move away from previously unknown health hazards present in our daily life. Look at the rapid discovery of dangers in vaping, for example. 

• Thebirdonfire.org is incredibly grateful that the world is working on this one–Over the last two centuries, literacy has gone from one of the many luxuries of being rich to a nearly essential element of the human condition. Throughout the 1800s, only about 20% of the global population was literate. Today, that number has risen to about 80%. Again, while we still have a ways to go, there is no doubt that we have come a long way. Always be grateful for your ability to read, and, on a broader scale, your education. 

• We can fly. Past civilizations gazed towards the sky wondering what is beyond the stars. They never dreamed that we would eventually find a way to be shoulder to shoulder with the crows, but we did. Thanks to an untold number of engineers, physicists, chemists, pilots, and citizens yearning for quick travel, we have “mastered” the safe art of flight. We fly above the clouds with only a .000025% chance of being injured. On the same tangent, we have a globally-maintained space station that constantly orbits our planet. That is amazing. See you on Mars! 

I could go on for just about forever. This small list does not include the way we’ve developed our technology for everyday use or the fact that about 83% of people graduate from high school today compared to about 9% in 1910, etc. Our work for humanity and Earth is not done. Truly, we’re far from it (thanks, plastic straws), but we all should love our world, what we’ve accomplished and what we will continue to accomplish. 

Sources

LOVE Editor: Quintus Ni