Things that did not suck in 2016

[drwex]

Among the end-of-year lists I found this: https://medium.com/future-crunch/99-reasons-why-2016-has-been-a-great-year-for-humanity-8420debc2823#.mfog3m4ex

A list of 99 things that happened that were actually pretty good this past year. Most of them happened outside the United States, like

• Life expectancy in Africa has increased by 9.4 years since 2000


• Thailand became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis


• In 1990, more than 60% of people in East Asia lived in extreme poverty. As of 2016, that proportion has dropped to 3.5%


• Italy became the last large Western country to recognise same-sex unions

Some were international, like

• acid pollution in the atmosphere is now almost back to the level that it was before it started with industrialisation in the 1930s


• global malaria deaths have declined by 60% (something that mostly affects non-white, non-US people but still a world problem)


• the number of women dying from pregnancy and childbirth has almost halved since 1990

So there are bubbles and there are bubbles. Inside our US-centric bubble things were still pretty terrible. But the US is not the whole of the world. I don't think it makes what has happened here any less awful, nor what is to come any less terrifying. But if we are realistic people we should look at the whole world, realistically. We are used to America being first and best and brightest. But if we're not, at least there are other countries to carry the world forward.

Comments

[hammercock]

I read that list, too, and it did help me somewhat.