The year 2014 was kinda tough, amirite? It stressed me out, believe me. Hey, I live 15 minutes from Ferguson, MO; do the math. Still I think that on balance, stuff is going pretty well. Here are some data points which prove that the world is *not* all horrible, but in fact may be pretty cool: Electricity generated by solar power is about to be cheaper than coal-powered kilowatts. Violent crime in America is half of what it was twenty years ago. NASA just EMAILED a wrench to a space station. They emailed plans for a tool to a 3D printer and the astronauts had it in a few hours. Long-time bastions of all-male influence, such as major professions are either 50/50 either gender, or closing the gap rapidly. In 1970, women only represented 8% of medical schools, and Harvard Business School had about 8% women as well. Today, medical schools are 51% women and Harvards latest crop of MBAs were 40% female. Lets stick with 1970 versus today. America is locked in a heated dialogue about its democratic institutions acting in authoritarian ways, notably the torture regime established by the CIA and the dramatic over-reaction of the police to popular protests against the shooting of unarmed civilians. Today, the American people are able to leverage the Internet to quickly organize protests and disseminate information to hold these institutions to account. Back in 1970, you had Kent State, where the National Guard actually executed protestors (and dont kid yourself, lots of Americans thought the hippies had it coming) and the intelligence community had violated the civil rights of peace protestors so badly via COINTELPRO that the Church Commission had to be engaged to entangle a horribly dysfunctional culture that had been allowed to fester. Every citizen now has a supercomputer in their pockets connected, for a reasonable fee, to damn near every scientific paper, artistic work, and news source that you could need to answer any question. Oh, and they each come with applications to create media that can be disseminated - for free - to the entire planet, for the purpose of political communication or sheer entertainment. YouTube is the worlds largest free record collection. In a huge number of countries, if you should happen to be gay you have the opportunity to declare your love freely and seek a government-approved legal marriage, as opposed to the old system, where you would be beaten to death without consequence. The entire Western world is rejecting mass-market megabrewed beer in favor of 1000 different versions of delicious craft beer with 6.5% ABV or higher. This segment is growing 20% per year. Toyota just came out and declared that its strategy is to see a world after the combustion engine. If you want to run your own business, you can set up a storefront and payment gateway for damn near free in under an hour, as opposed to the tedious applications and massive upfront cost of merchant accounts that you used to need. I could go on. There are things that stress us out. But if you look at a variety of trends, they indicate a path toward humanity and creativity and opportunity and kindness. What cool trends are you seeing?
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 00:06:39 +0000
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