{"id":694,"date":"2019-01-25T23:50:14","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T23:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/?p=694"},"modified":"2020-05-13T17:01:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T17:01:46","slug":"the-bad-old-times-our-lives-are-better-than-ever-before-heres-the-proof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/the-bad-old-times-our-lives-are-better-than-ever-before-heres-the-proof\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Bad Old Times”: Our Lives are Better than ever Before – Here’s the Proof."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We lead the best\nlives that humans have ever had. With all the doom and gloom going on in the\nworld around us, seemingly unending wars being fought in the middle east and\nstill all too many people suffering of extreme poverty and hunger in less\neconomically developed countries, this is easy to forget. Yet it is true, and especially\nin light of seemingly unsolvable crises and problems, it is well worth slowing\ndown and taking a look at the empirical evidence that exists, reminding\nourselves that: yes, there are problems, but yes, our lives are actually pretty\ngood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us look at four statistics that prove this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Life Expectancy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Life Expectancy at birth, globally and in China specifically.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As people, we hope\nfor and wish each other long and prosperous lives. It should therefore only\nseem natural to have life expectancy be a critical indicator to see how well-off\nwe are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, life\nexpectancy is extremely capable of showing the progress which a society, a\ncountry or humanity as a whole has made, as a wide variety of factors factor\ninto how old we get. For one, there\u2019s the quality of medical services and their\naffordability; medical supplies in a country may be top-notch, but if the\nmajority of the population is unable to access or afford them, then that will\nnot improve the average duration of a citizen\u2019s life. Pollution plays a role,\ntoo: severe smog, or pollution of drinking water or food resources may result\nin an earlier death. Due to its telltale nature, life expectancy is used as one\nof the three categories which are combined to form the HDI \u2013 the other two\nbeing literacy rates and standards of living. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the\ngraph on hand, we can see that the global average life expectancy has exceeded\n72 years at the last data point in 2016, a truly impressive value and even more\nso when one takes into consideration that just over fifty years earlier, the\nglobal life expectancy was at just over 52 years. Many developing countries\nhave seen a dramatic increase in their life expectancy. The example presented\nhere is China, which has experienced an incredible boost in life expectancy\nfrom just 43 to 76 years through the same 56-year time period. Other developing\nnations have followed or are following China\u2019s example, skyrocketing themselves\nand their citizens into a better future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upward trend\ncontinues: the world\u2019s healthcare systems, the degree to which the governments\nare able to access and help even the most disadvantaged citizens, and advances\nin the scientific fields relating to medicine are all contributing factors to\nthis trend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps it is the chart of the global life expectancy that best encapsulates why we should be at the very least tentatively optimistic about our future as humankind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Fertility Rates<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Fertility rates globally and specifically in South Korea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At first sight, it\nmay seem counter-intuitive that falling fertility rates are something positive and\nworthy of recognition as a great achievement. But in fact, fertility rates tell\nus more than simply how many children the women of a country or the world have.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, more\ndeveloped countries see a lower birth rate. This is due to a number of reasons,\nincluding urbanization and more women working as well, thus having less time to\nbe used as housewives and exclusively take care of the raising of children. Better\neducation also plays a role \u2013 both because it helps with employment and\nequality of women, and because sexual education makes the previously\npotentially unknown or abstract concepts of contraception a lot more tangible\nand accessible. It is especially the access to birth control measures \u2013 whether\nbecause of greater individual prosperity, or because of government-subsidized\nprograms \u2013 that results in a drop of fertility rates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though low fertility rates are causing aging populations in some parts of the world, especially developed nations such as Germany or Japan, the overall global drop in fertility rates still evidences that great progress has been made in the categories of equality, education and birth control and will likely continue for the years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

How tall we are<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Height of Dutch men and how it has skyrocketed over the years
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Globally, people\nhave gotten taller. Comparable data is relatively difficult to come by, but the\ndevelopment in the Netherlands (who have admirably collected the average height\nof their men every 10 years for over a century) from the late 19th<\/sup>\ncentury to the modern day is one example of just how significant the change in\nheight has been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Height is used as\nan indicator for two main areas which contribute to human development: the quality\nof nutrition and health. It is due to the differences especially in nutritional\nquality that the citizens of the DPRK (North Korea) are several centimeters shorter\nthan their South Korean counterparts, who hadn\u2019t experienced a famine in the mid-1990s.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who\nexperience severe malnutrition during childhood or adolescence will very commonly\nbe shorter than expected, despite not having any medical conditions which would\nresult in such a reduction of height. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing a general upward trend over the decades, in individual countries and globally, therefore suggests that the world\u2019s food supply has become increasingly secure and that a decreasing percentage of our kind are facing malnutrition. Though it may seem abstract at first, height can tell us a lot about how far we have climbed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Time spent at work<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Average weekly hours which Germans spend working<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStress\u201d, \u201cburnout\u201d\nand \u201c24\/7\u201d are words that many people today use to describe their jobs \u2013 but de\nfacto, most of the world, especially the developing countries, has reached a\nlow point in terms of how many hours a week one must spend providing for the\nfamily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, we have the\nexample of Germany, where in 1880, an average person would have to work 66\nhours each week (or nine and a half hours each day, seven days a week) to\nprovide for their family. A sharp drop was seen in the early 20th<\/sup>\ncentury with ever increasing industrial automation and a shift to the tertiary\nand later quaternary sectors of the economy. In the past 20 or 30 years, the\nnumber of hours worked has stayed rather constant at around 40 each week \u2013 8 hours\na day, but over only five days. If we\u2019d work seven days a week like we did in\n1880, we would spend just over five and a half hours at work each day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less time at works\ngives us more free time to allocate as we wish and has the potential to give\npeople more headspace to concern themselves with other matters \u2013 potentially driving\ninnovation and discovery. Or potentially driving Netflix binge watches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case \u2013 the less work time is needed to provide for oneself and one\u2019s family, the more one can make of one\u2019s life almost entirely without limitations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

All of the above measures, and countless other statistics, prove in definitive, empirical terms that in our modern world, we lead a better life than any of the generations before us. Let us treasure what we have achieved and not rest on our laurels – for even with such great advances, there remains lots to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cFertility Rate,\nTotal (Births per Woman).\u201d Literacy Rate, Adult Female (% of Females\nAges 15 and above) | Data<\/em>, data.worldbank.org\/indicator\/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLife Expectancy\nat Birth, Total (Years).\u201d Literacy Rate, Adult Female (% of Females\nAges 15 and above) | Data<\/em>, data.worldbank.org\/indicator\/SP.DYN.LE00.IN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mingels, Guido. Fr\u00fcher War Alles Schlechter:\nWarum Es Uns Trotz Kriegen, Krankheiten Und Katastrophen Immer Besser Geht<\/em>.\nDeutsche Verlags-Anstalt,\n2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roser, Max. \u201cHuman\nHeight.\u201d Our World in Data<\/em>, 22 Jan. 2019,\nourworldindata.org\/human-height.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We lead the best lives that humans have ever had. With all the doom and gloom going on in the world around us, seemingly unending wars being fought in the middle east and still all too many people suffering of extreme poverty and hunger in less economically developed countries, this is easy to forget. Yet it is true, and especially in light of seemingly unsolvable crises and problems, it is well worth slowing down and taking a look at the empirical evidence that exists, reminding ourselves that: yes, there are problems, but yes, our lives are actually pretty good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,6,24,96,95,100,38,75],"tags":[107,101,106,102,103,105,104],"class_list":["post-694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-featured","category-germany","category-history","category-infographic","category-progress","category-south-korea","category-technology","tag-fertility-rate","tag-health","tag-life-expectancy","tag-progress","tag-quality-of-life","tag-statistics","tag-who"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":704,"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions\/704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world-uncensored.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}