The World Is Getting Better

Check out this nifty little video to offer an optimistic perspective on the world’s progress:

Or try this out for size:

With an accompanying quote from one of my favorite economists, Ludwig von Mises:

“The luxury of today is the necessity of tomorrow. Every advance first comes into being as the luxury of a few rich people, only to become, after a time, an indispensable necessity taken for granted by everyone. Luxury consumption provides industry with the stimulus to discover and introduce new things. It is one of the dynamic factors in our economy. To it we owe the progressive innovations by which the standard of living of all strata of the population has been gradually raised.”

First and foremost, I’ve never really considered it much, either. How marvelous is it that the Golden Gate Bridge is still standing and doing as it was constructed to do some 70 years after its construction? We certainly take that for granted. And look, I’m not outside this cognitive confirmation bias bubble. I gravitate toward bad news myself.

But it is worth highlighting and making note of the fact that among most major indicators, the world is getting better. It just is. Those bad stories are still worth highlighting so we can continue to make the world better, but we can’t lose sight of our remarkable and extraordinary progress in the process.