Thursday, December 04, 2014 10:31:46 PM
The world is actually safer than ever. And here's the data to prove that .. INTERACTIVES inside ..
.. last night a guy was pontificating on about how much conflict and danger there was in the world today .. many do, eh, and it's true .. moan and groan about what a tough world it is .. however, the key thing was that he was adamant in his fact that the world was a more dangerous place now than it had ever been before .. when i suggested the facts .. ummm .. probably do not support his fact he accused me of accusing him of lying .. then when i pointed out that i didn't see him accusing me of lying just because he said i didn't have the facts, he said i questioned his fact first .. which was correct, but seriously .. gadzooks .. it's not easy to chat with someone whose position is basically bound to emotion and personal opinion, and whose logic is so mucked up .. anyway, when i see him next i'll give him the URL for this one which i'm guessing he won't check, but can't do any more to encourage him to question his absolute belief ..
The Takeaway
October 23, 2014 · 12:15 PM EDT
Producer T.J. Raphael
A demonstrator holds a candle during a protest to demand information about the 43 missing students of the Ayotzinapa teachers' training college, in Mexico City October 22, 2014.
Credit: Tomas Bravo/Reuters
Over the last six months, the news has been dominated by an onslaught of depressing headlines.
Inside .. This story is based on a radio interview. Listen to the full interview.
Almost every week, stories about a scandal, a war, a disease, climate change, income inequality and a shaky economic recovery have dominated the news cycle, giving us all reasons to be terrified. But a new website, ourworldindata.org .. http://www.ourworldindata.org/, provides a much needed analysis about the good news out there.
Max Roser, an economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking .. http://ineteconomics.org/ .. at Oxford University, is the creator of the Our World In Data website. And while it may seem like the world has gotten worse over time, Roser's data suggests that good things are happening, even if they take a bit of time.
“To really understand how the world is changing, you have to look at the big picture,” Roser says. “You have to zoom out from the current events to understand in which direction the world is changing.”
Roser says things skew towards the positive side when examining long term global trends on health, access to food and even violence.
“We live in a much more peaceful and inclusive world than our ancestors of the past,” he says. “The news is very much focused on singular events. All of these trends that I’m looking at are slow changes that happen over decades, or sometimes even centuries. These developments never have a ‘now’ moment that would make them interesting for news that is following current events.”
With wars raging in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, South Sudan and elsewhere it's hard to believe that war deaths are actually declining at a rapid pace. Here's a look at how far we've come since World War II:
IMAGE [ OOPS .. all the images are sorta interactive types and unable to be reproduced so to continue
here is better to be done with a click .. umm, then again, no .. i'll leave the points made here anyway ]
Malaria has taken a deadly toll on countries near the equator but there's been some good new on that front over the last ten years:
IMAGE
Thanks to the industrial revolution and the surge in computers in the workplace people are working less than they used to.
IMAGE
And the world is less poor than ever but as Dr. Roser notes, income inequality in the richest countries is rising.
IMAGE
A look at homicide rates shows the world used to be a much more dangerous place:
IMAGE
Here's a map of homicide rates today:
IMAGE
The world is also more democratic.
IMAGE
Here's a graph showing the number of people living in different political systems.
IMAGE
This story .. http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/news-grim-until-you-look-data/ .. first aired as an interview on PRI's The
Takeaway .. http://www.thetakeaway.org/ , a public radio program that invites you to be part of the American conversation.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/world-actually-safer-ever-and-heres-data-prove
.. maybe i'm still wrong, but he'll have to come up with some better evidential fact than he has so far .. no, he isn't on the right of politics either .. he just,
and fair enough, feels it's tough and he is adamant he absolutely knows he is right .. like, you know, the stare!!! with a "you are fucking wrong!!!" .. shrug .. lol .. :)
.. last night a guy was pontificating on about how much conflict and danger there was in the world today .. many do, eh, and it's true .. moan and groan about what a tough world it is .. however, the key thing was that he was adamant in his fact that the world was a more dangerous place now than it had ever been before .. when i suggested the facts .. ummm .. probably do not support his fact he accused me of accusing him of lying .. then when i pointed out that i didn't see him accusing me of lying just because he said i didn't have the facts, he said i questioned his fact first .. which was correct, but seriously .. gadzooks .. it's not easy to chat with someone whose position is basically bound to emotion and personal opinion, and whose logic is so mucked up .. anyway, when i see him next i'll give him the URL for this one which i'm guessing he won't check, but can't do any more to encourage him to question his absolute belief ..
The Takeaway
October 23, 2014 · 12:15 PM EDT
Producer T.J. Raphael
A demonstrator holds a candle during a protest to demand information about the 43 missing students of the Ayotzinapa teachers' training college, in Mexico City October 22, 2014.
Credit: Tomas Bravo/Reuters
Over the last six months, the news has been dominated by an onslaught of depressing headlines.
Inside .. This story is based on a radio interview. Listen to the full interview.
Almost every week, stories about a scandal, a war, a disease, climate change, income inequality and a shaky economic recovery have dominated the news cycle, giving us all reasons to be terrified. But a new website, ourworldindata.org .. http://www.ourworldindata.org/, provides a much needed analysis about the good news out there.
Max Roser, an economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking .. http://ineteconomics.org/ .. at Oxford University, is the creator of the Our World In Data website. And while it may seem like the world has gotten worse over time, Roser's data suggests that good things are happening, even if they take a bit of time.
“To really understand how the world is changing, you have to look at the big picture,” Roser says. “You have to zoom out from the current events to understand in which direction the world is changing.”
Roser says things skew towards the positive side when examining long term global trends on health, access to food and even violence.
“We live in a much more peaceful and inclusive world than our ancestors of the past,” he says. “The news is very much focused on singular events. All of these trends that I’m looking at are slow changes that happen over decades, or sometimes even centuries. These developments never have a ‘now’ moment that would make them interesting for news that is following current events.”
With wars raging in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, South Sudan and elsewhere it's hard to believe that war deaths are actually declining at a rapid pace. Here's a look at how far we've come since World War II:
IMAGE [ OOPS .. all the images are sorta interactive types and unable to be reproduced so to continue
here is better to be done with a click .. umm, then again, no .. i'll leave the points made here anyway ]
Malaria has taken a deadly toll on countries near the equator but there's been some good new on that front over the last ten years:
IMAGE
Thanks to the industrial revolution and the surge in computers in the workplace people are working less than they used to.
IMAGE
And the world is less poor than ever but as Dr. Roser notes, income inequality in the richest countries is rising.
IMAGE
A look at homicide rates shows the world used to be a much more dangerous place:
IMAGE
Here's a map of homicide rates today:
IMAGE
The world is also more democratic.
IMAGE
Here's a graph showing the number of people living in different political systems.
IMAGE
This story .. http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/news-grim-until-you-look-data/ .. first aired as an interview on PRI's The
Takeaway .. http://www.thetakeaway.org/ , a public radio program that invites you to be part of the American conversation.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/world-actually-safer-ever-and-heres-data-prove
.. maybe i'm still wrong, but he'll have to come up with some better evidential fact than he has so far .. no, he isn't on the right of politics either .. he just,
and fair enough, feels it's tough and he is adamant he absolutely knows he is right .. like, you know, the stare!!! with a "you are fucking wrong!!!" .. shrug .. lol .. :)
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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