Is the world getting better or worse? A look at the numbers | Steven Pinker
Was 2017 really the "worst year ever," as some would have us believe? In his analysis of recent data on homicide, war, poverty, pollution and more, psychologist ...
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Many people face the news each morning with trepidation and dread. Every day, we read of shootings, inequality, pollution, dictatorship, war and the spread of nuclear weapons. These are some of the reasons that 2016 was called the "Worst. Year. Ever." Until 2017 claimed that record -- (Laughter) and left many people longing for earlier decades, when the world seemed safer, cleaner and more equal. But is this a sensible way to understand the human condition in the 21st century? As Franklin Pierce Adams pointed out, "Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory." (Laughter) You can always fool yourself into seeing a decline if you compare bleeding headlines of the present with rose-tinted images of the past. What does the trajectory o...
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Many people face the news each morning with trepidation and dread. Every day, we read of shootings, inequality, pollution, dictatorship, war and the spread of nuclear weapons. These are some of the reasons that 2016 was called the "Worst. Year. Ever." Until 2017 claimed that record -- (Laughter) and left many people longing for earlier decades, when the world seemed safer, cleaner and more equal. But is this a sensible way to understand the human condition in the 21st century? As Franklin Pierce Adams pointed out, "Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory." (Laughter) You can always fool yourself into seeing a decline if you compare bleeding headlines of the present with rose-tinted images of the past. What does the trajectory o...
