“It strikes me that people think that we are going to get better, and the world is not going to get better. Our world, West, Europe, where I am, where i grew up, that comes from Troy, del Islam, from middle Ages, Renaissance… that world is ready for papers, its best moment has been the 20th century, and now we are in decline, it will never be better.”

Attributed to Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

This quote, attributed to Pérez-Reverte, describe the society in which we live as decadent and sentence that it will never be better than now. A few hard affirmations, pessimistic and how certain?

En 2020 the world is more connected than ever. You can not only travel to any corner of the world in a more or less safe way, but also, thanks to the internet you have access to the alexandria library raised to the nth power. And all from the palm of your hand.

Maybe, in this time of almost absolute access to all information and places, we are more blind than ever. While until recently access to information was a problem, now the problem is about being able to see relevant information that is not relevant. Distinguish noise from information.

We have just started the year 2020 and this pessimistic discourse is present in our day to day. But is it true that the world is a worse place today than before? Was the 20th century your best moment or was it another moment?

Are we in today “a better world”?

Following pessimistic statements like the one above, alarmist speeches in which he is branded as “climate apocalypse” (and two) our near future or publications that state that “we have already destroyed half the trees on the planet“, the question arises how far is this true? Are we really that bad? or can the straw not let us see the wheat?

We find ourselves in a world that each day is better than the last. A world that, after this last decade (what if, the new decade begins in 2021) has managed to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people through cooperation between individuals. That today takes care and protects more the climate than it does 10 años, and immensely more than what was done in the 20th century. Definitely, we are in the best time to live, as a human being, in all of human history.

During the last years this planet is increasingly a place where there is more and more health, but wealth, more life expectancy, but peace, more cooperation and at the same time there is less poverty, less armed conflict, less infant mortality, less malnutrition or more access to education and information. These statements are not without their points. There are countless social conflicts, personal, political or climatic that we have not yet been able to solve or that today are not considered problems but tomorrow we will.

Sustaining this type of affirmation requires a careful study in the matter and a deep scrutiny of each aspect and for that, scientific analysis and objective data must be used (as far as possible) to support this thesis so contrary to the one that is communicated to us every day.

The 28% of all the wealth that has existed in humanity

According to the data collected by the World Bank and in the absence of collecting the data corresponding to 2019 full, tells us that the world Gross Domestic Product (GDP in current USD) en 2010 It was from 66,051 Billion and in 2018 of 85,910. In the absence of data from 2019 reliable, we do a simple calculation for (considering that this last year we have not had global financial cataclysms) try to come up with a number to assign to 2019. Like in 2017 the increase was 4,787 Billion and in 2018 of 4,959 Billon, we take the stocking (giving negative global growth in 2019) and it gives us that 2019 would have a value in the increase of the world wealth of 4,873 Billion.

Now, doing the calculation the result it gives us is that wealth in terms of world GDP is around 90,783 Billion and if in 2010 It was from 66,051 Billion, gives us an increase of 27,24%.

Reasons for this growth there are many, but I consider that three of the big culprits may be the greater access to communications, improvement in global transport networks and international trade.

Extreme poverty was cut in half

The world bank returns to give us data and this time they are in relation to extreme poverty. En 2011 the extreme poverty threshold was set at $1,90 (before came from $1,25) in what is considered international dollars. For this, the value of goods is homogenized to eliminate the distortions caused by local currencies.

The data tells us that:
En 2005 they had 1,350 millions of people in extreme poverty. For a total of 6,520 millions of people in the world. A 20%.

En 2015 they had 734 millions in extreme poverty. With a total of 7,357 millions of people. A 10%.

The world we live in, not only has it managed to halve the number of people living in poverty, but it has also done so while growing in population. You can check the world bank data here.

Infant mortality fell by a third

According to last study Nations and the Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, infant mortality has decreased dramatically in recent years globally. The annual rate of reduction of infant mortality has been 3.8%, what to 10 years is more than a third. The change has been more pronounced among the children of 0 a 5 años, while of 6 a 15 years its reduction has not been so great. Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South Asia have been the areas where this reduction is most notable.

The main causes of death, en 2018, for children under 5 years were: prepartum complications (16%), pneumonia (15%) and complications in childbirth (11%).

These changes are possibly due to a reduction in the cost of treatments that we have considered basic in the West for decades and are now accessible by the poorest countries, to greater access to information on health and the advance in health that has been taking place globally for decades.

Life expectancy goes from 69.5 a 72.6 años

According to the United Nations in its latest statistical and forecast data, people's life expectancy does not stop climbing. Recently passed from 69.5 a 72.6 years and keeps going up after big jumps in recent 70 años. These dates slightly differ of the world bank, Although I understand that life expectancy is not an objective data that can guarantee how long you will live.

Fewer countries criminalize homosexuality

At last report State homophobia, the international lesbian association, gays, bisexual, trans e intersex (ILGA) of 2019, give all the data related to the countries that criminalize (and those who don't) same-sex relationships happening globally 40% al 27%.

Some key facts are:

2009: 80 states with laws that punish gay relationships.
2019: 68 states with laws that punish gay relationships.

Special mention for Yemen with 100 lashes and even the death penalty and Iran with the punishment of a baton and possible death penalty for a law that was put in 2013.

These data correspond to member countries of the UN. And although the number has been reduced by 12 states that have gone from having laws punishing these acts to not having them (what in itself is a great change of political and social mentality), yes it is true that, have a list of 68 where this type of act is illegal indicates that there is a long way to go in the coming years.
Are we better doing 10 años? Yes. Can we be better? Undoubtedly.

Countries that protect women from 53% al 78%

Global legislation is changing by leaps and bounds in recent years in terms of equality and according to the World Bank, in his study “Women, Company and the law 2020“, point out that since 201, 40 countries have made 62 reforms in favor of gender equality.

According to the WBL Index (which are the initials of this study) Spain is left with a note from the 97.5%, only missing the paid parental leave to get to the 100%. Being ahead of countries like Switzerland, Austria, Alemania, Japan, New Zealand or Norway.

The vast majority of countries participating in the data have made progress in equality in recent years. 10 años.

The death rate from contamination is reduced by 19%

In his study “Outdoor Air Pollution” (November 2019), Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser review the changes in air pollution over the past three decades.

They estimate that in 2017 occurred 3,4 millions of premature deaths due to this cause. Since 1990 to this day, deaths from this cause have gone from 55 a 44 por cada 100,000 population. A reduction close to 20%. But also, this has occurred as the world population went from 5,300 millions to almost 7,800 millions.

They also drop that in countries currently considered wealthy, Pollution levels have decreased compared to the past, and indicate that the way to improve this situation may be to accelerate the prosperity of countries that are currently considered middle-income and poor. (and everyone will understand a way to make this happen).

Deaths from natural disasters drop a 95%

Hannah and Max present again at Our World in Data A study that started in 2014 and updated to 2019 related to natural disasters where they give some key data next to the statistic from 1900, to understand how our world has changed:

• Deaths from this cause have assumed on average 60,000 deaths a year.
• Natural disasters caused, in some years, million deaths annually and in the last decade, an average of 60,000.
• Historically, droughts and floods were the main cause of death. Today the most damaging are earthquakes.
• These disasters affect the poorest countries most markedly, they lack adequate infrastructure to protect themselves and respond to these events.

“Peak Stuff” or how the consumption of raw materials is reduced

Andrew McAfee, in your book “More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources” reviews the history of civilization and how frequently the premise for man was “do more with less”.

He tells us how capitalism and technology have been the two engines that have improved the efficiency of the world year by year in recent centuries.. In the past, this combination made us take more and more of the planet, however in recent years this trend has been reversed.

What happened was the invention of the computer, networks and software. From there, resource consumption and efficiency took a new path.

On the other hand, creative ability and competition have made the human being have invented over the years new more efficient ways of achieving things. Like cars, planes or ships now consume less than before or even electric vehicles appear, substitutes for other raw materials are also found when supply contracts and the price rises as demand continues. This fact encourages creativity (and the possibility of profit) and consequently cheaper alternatives appear that finally make the demand for the raw material fall.

BONUS: Fewer and fewer free countries

Not everything was going to be good news. FreedomHouse, an independent organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy, founded in 1941, has published in his recent study of 2019, some worrying facts about the freedom of the countries of the world:

Year and Countries	Free	Partial freedom	Not free
2008	46.1%	32.2%	21.8%
2018	44.1%	30.3%	25.6%

These data show that some political decisions in the world are not going in favor of the freedom of individuals.. While in some specific matters that have been discussed here there has been progress, roughly, it seems that the advances do not fully favor individuals.

Some of the countries that have fallen in the libertal index have been some as close as Portugal, Austria, Reino Unido… And some have improved: Afghanistan, Kosovo, Mexico… better see the full study.

Conclusions

Again, all these data are global and surely among all this you can find specific cases or areas of the world where things are not right right now. However, if we have to draw a conclusion on how the world is evolving, Should we look at the best cases? In the worst? Or on an average?

Perhaps looking at the average can give us information about the direction in which we are going.. While locally, Maybe we should continue working to make these data ridiculous in a decade from our next achievement..