Whenever you feel like the world is going under, there's no hope and progress is more of a dream than a reality, take a close look at this chart. Take a deep breath and look again.
Now think about it: global poverty levels have fallen from an astounding 94% in 1820 to about 10% in 2015, all while going from a population of ~1 billion to ~7,5 billion[1]. A truly remarkable achievement, which until not too long ago was literally unthinkable(remember Malthus, Ehrlich, etc?).
As I think about this more and more, it really becomes mind-blowing. There is perhaps no greater achievement with such an enormous immediate impact in both scale and scope.
To put it simple, in this case, progress meant the difference between life and death - for hundreds of millions of people.
Feeling really grateful to be alive today and have the opportunity to witness and be part of so many interesting experiments.
References
[1] - For a broader look on poverty data please see: https://ourworldindata.org/world-poverty/
Photo credit 1:
Photo credit 2: http://www.dream-wallpaper.com/photography-wallpaper/childhood-poverty-1-wallpaper/1280x800/free-wallpaper-19.html
And the internet is playing a huge role in maintaining this marvelous achivement
Can you aware me on #craigrant? Thanks!
The human mind is the ultimate resource, we became richer because there were more people there to invent, build and improve.
I think that as we approach full internet connectivity around the globe, we will continue seeing more and more new ideas that will now have a global audience. The future is brighter than it seems. :)
Indeed, it seems that over the long run, if we manage to prevent cataclysmic events, humanity could eventually become a form of super-organism. A more complex and potent form of a body where the internet, would be our nervous system.
It would be interesting to be able to see at least 50 years into the future., right now more than ever before.
As I was typing a similar reply, I saw yours. lol thnx (I geuss)
Nice post.
I think there is a strong correlation with capitalist economic systems and reduced poverty.
hi xtester,
thanks for voting for my post https://steemit.com/steemit/@knozaki2015/steemit-has-introduced-a-new-reputation-score-what-is-it-and-how-can-you-boost-up-your-score
very interesting post about the poverty decline in the world. i am convinced that within 100years, we will be able to push that to almost 0.
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Thanks, following.
Industrial age, yea it sure is sending us flying forward. The population's said to keep rising to 11 million as well. Amazing how quick the time flies by. remember the good old 56 k modem. awww yehhh. Sure is a cool time to be alive.
Keep up the great work @xtester
Upvoted
It is nice to take a step back and look at the larger scale of where we are today as people. How far we have come (compared to global history) to lowering the death rate from disease, famine, even war. Despite the media focusing on most of the negatives, it really is a good time to be alive. Well that, and because of the porn. We really have stepped up our porn game in the past 20 years or so.
Do you think we may see a reversal or stagnation of this chart's improvement as overpopulation becomes an issue in several decades time?
No, I don't think so. Indeed, as @borntowin points out, doesn't seem to be an issue. In fact, I think it will become clearer during the next 10 - 20 years that humans are essentially multipliers and not only consumers. The more minds you have, the more things you will invent.
Here is a great quote from Economist Bryan Caplan expressing it aptly:
"The total number of people on earth and the average standard of living skyrocketed over the last two centuries. The world has never been more populous or more prosperous than it is today. Never. By historic standards, almost everything is cheap. You may wince at the price of gas, but have you looked inside a WalMart lately? They’re practically giving stuff away.
These would be amazing coincidences if population growth were an important cause of poverty. Indeed, it makes you wonder: Is our population a cause of our prosperity?
The answer is almost certainly yes. The main source of progress is new ideas. We are richer today than we were 100 years ago because we learned so much. We learned ways for one farmer to feed hundreds of people, we learned how to fly, we learned how to make iPhones. As Nobel Prize–winning economist Robert Lucas puts it, the world’s expanding prosperity is “mainly an ongoing intellectual achievement, a sustained flow of new ideas.”
The magic of ideas is all around us. As a little boy, I typed my first words on my mom’s electric typewriter and corrected mistakes by hand. Now I use Microsoft Word, and I haven’t touched a bottle of Liquid Paper in twenty years. If you put this book down for a moment, the fruit of new ideas is probably right in front of your eyes. If you’re wearing contact lenses or had Lasik surgery, the fruit of new ideas is actually on your eyes.
The sweetest thing about ideas is how cheap they are to share. A million people—or 7 billion—can enjoy the latest discovery almost as easily as a solitary hermit. In fact, ideas often become more useful when more people use them. The Internet was so-so when only one person in 100 had a modem; now we can’t live without it.
Our future depends on new ideas. So how would you respond to a precocious five-year-old who asks: “Where do new ideas come from?” You don’t have to dodge the question out of embarrassment. Feel free to blurt out the scandalous truth: New ideas come from people—especially smart, creative people. When you get more people, you get more smart, creative people; and when you get more smart, creative people, you get more new ideas. In the words of economist Julian Simon, “the human imagination” is “the ultimate resource."
Overpopulation will not become an issue, in fact we might have the opposite issue in the future as people have less and less children. Basically if a country has a fertility rate of less than 2.1 children per woman, its population will eventually start decreasing exponentially.
The overpopulation "myth" as I see it doesn't take account of human ingenuity or the ability of technology to solve problems. It is also likely that population will start to fall off and within the next 200 years or so underpopulation may become a problem in certain places. Further moving off planet may become a reality within the next century or so.
i was at a university lecture where someone spoke about this very topic recently and i was truly inspired. Great post!
In your reference [1], it is stated that "extreme poverty is defined as living with an income of less than 1.90$ per day". How on earth would someone be able to live off of 1.90$ per day?! That is half a loaf of bread...
Yeah, It's awful what some people go through and knowing how things have improved for them is quite remarkable.
Thank you for interesting post.
Keep do more like that
Indeed, we have made major strides in many areas in the last century.
Wrote an article about the same thing a couple of days back.
I think we've come a long way but still plenty far to go. It's not really clear how they define extreme poverty though.
I think this was a great post. It's rather telling that the 1800's are nothing in comparison to today.
The more one has the less have another
quality over quantity. Appreciate that. will follow.
And it is mind blowing to see these results. It's just that for some reason "good news" still tends to be "no news".
Keep this up and you will make a change!
Nice post. Have you read Abundance by Peter Diamandis and Stephen Kotler?
Thanks. Sure, it was quite interesting.
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