Friday, October 27, 2017

What I Won't Learn from my Incessant Facebook NewsFeed

For most of history, probably more than 90 percent of the world population lived in extreme poverty, plunging to fewer than 10 percent today. 

Every day, another 250,000 people graduate from extreme poverty, according to World Bank figures. About 300,000 get electricity for the first time. Some 285,000 get their first access to clean drinking water. When I was a boy, a majority of adults had always been illiterate, but now more than 85 percent can read..... 

So let’s pause from our pessimism for a nanosecond of celebration about a world that is actually getting better. The most important historical force in the world today is not President Trump, and it’s not terrorists. Rather, it’s the stunning gains on our watch against extreme poverty, illiteracy and disease; it’s all those 12-year-olds out there who never catch leprosy and instead go to school.  Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, July 1, 2017 

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