patrick.net

Some of his numbers:

Life expectancy:
- for most of history: 30 yrs.
- today 71 yrs, increasing.
- In Kenya, improved by 10 yrs in the past 10 yrs.

Child mortality
- In Sweden: in 1750: 1/3 babies would die, now 1/3 of 1%
- other regions follow same trajectory
- 1800s: 1% of women died in child birth,
- now reduced by a factor of 250.
- other regions following

Infectious disease:
- largely eliminated in developed countries
- progress being made in the rest of the world: pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles and HIV: all in decline in past 20yrs.

Sustenance:
- agricultural revolution providing the required 2500 cal / adults.
- Every region can feed itself
- greatly reduced rate of under nourishment: now less than 15% in developing world.
- famine has been reduced, now mostly in war torn regions

Prosperity:
- China & India growing quickly following developed nations
- GDP / capita in India now is about the same as Sweden in 1920.
- extreme poverty drastically reduced. As defined by 2$(2015)/day, 90% of the world’s population was extremely poor 200 yrs ago, now less than 10%.
- 75% reduction in this rate since 1999.
- inequality between countries is decreasing.
- within rich countries inequalities have increased but...

Social transfers:
- for hundreds of years no countries spend more than 1.5% of GDP on redistribution, but in 20th century most developed countries created large programs.
- today medium social transfers is 22% of GDP for developed countries.
- poverty rate in the US decreased based on disposable income (after transfers and taxes): 1960 poverty rate 32% fell to 7% now.
- when calculated on consumption it fell to less than 3%.

Peace
- in most history, war was the natural state. Peace was always an interlude.
- today almost never at war. Last war between large powers was US against China in Korean war.
- After 2nd world war, rate of death in war trend is down: 22 /100,000.yr in early 50s, to 9 during Vietnam era, to 1.2 today.

Freedom and Rights
- Overall trend in government is toward democracy
- even with recent backsliding, the world has never been more democratic than it has been in this decade
- 200 yrs ago, the number of democracies could be counted on 1 hand.
- 1970: 31 democracies. Many Europeans countries were not democratic.
- 52 in 1999
- 87 in 2009
- 103 in 2016
- if current trend continue, death penalty will vanish by 2026.
- more and more countries have decriminalized homosexuality.

Child labor
- 1850: 30% of English children were sent to work in farms and factories
- rate of child labor has plunged throughout the world

Violent Crime
- record of homicides in Europe for 800yrs, in 1300 homicides rate was 35/100,000.yrs.
- now 1 /100,000.yrs.
- any part of the world, the rule of law increase and we see this transition.
- In the US: down by half since 1992
- In the world down by 30% in the past 20yrs.
- Domestic violent, rapes, down 75%.
- Children are safer.

Accidents
- We are safer in almost every way in the past century:
- 96% less likely to be in a car accident
- 88% to be mowed down on the sidewalk
- 99% less likely to die in a plane crash
- 59% less likely to fall to your death
- 90% less likely to drown
- 92% less likely to die in a fire
- 92% less likely less likely to be asphyxiated
- 95% less likely to be killed on job
- 96% less to die in an act of God: volcanos, landslides, earthquakes, etc…
- 97% less likely to be killed by a bolt of lightening
- only poisoning has gone the other way because of opioids epidemic.

Knowledge
- in early modern Europe: 15% of people could read and write
- Europe achieved universal literacy by mid 20th century
- Other countries following
- today 80% can read and write
- 90% under the age of 25%
- girls as well. In 1750, only 6 girls could read/write for 10 boys. Parity achieved at the end of 19th century.
- the world is close to gender parity for literacy today
- Even Pakistan, Afganistan have shown dramatic increases.

Intelligence
- Yes, people are getting smarter
- due to Flynn effect, IQ scores are rising 3points/ decades.
(Due to education, more abstract thinking and environments improvement.)

Quality of life
- 1870 work week: 62h/week , now has fallen by 22 hours + 3 weeks of paid vacations
- house work fallen from 62hours/week to 15 hours a week.
- leisure time increased by 8 hours a week since 1965.
- a single working mother today spend more time with her children than a married stay at home mom did in 1950s.
- we spend less on necessities: 60% a century ago, less than a 3rd today.
- life satisfaction increasing with development.
- in a survey 45 out of 52 countries: happiness has increased over the last 40 yrs.

Environment
- there was surely a large environmental cost to get to now, but...
- 178 countries have shown improvement in the environment quality over the last few decades.
- since 1970 in the US: population increased by 40%, GDP increased by 2.5, driven twice as many miles, but the 5 major air pollutants have been reduced by 60%.
- so don’t have to choose between development and environment.
- deforestation in temperate regions has fallen to 0.
- Tropical regions still see alarming deforestation, but the peak was 40 yrs ago.
- since 1970 we ship 2x more oil by sea, but 85% fewer oil spills.
- amount of earth surface protected from economic exploitation has doubled from 8% to 15%,
- amount of oceans surface protected from economic exploitation has doubled from 6% to 12%,

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Discuss.