You get these End Times believers all the time who look at the state of the world they live in, see themselves as living in frightful times, and start preaching the the end is nigh. We even have an Armagedeon Clock that is counting down the days till the whole world goes boom. These End Times believers usually point to signs like escalating war, rise in famines and an increase in natural disasters like earthquakes. Those things are scary. Really scary. And one is tempted to believe, when they see these things, that we must live in ominous times, and we are being confronted with the end of a divine master plan. Except, consider this. The evidence suggests (very strongly I might add) that there is less war and violence on the earth today then there ever has been, even as heightened media attention makes it appear that it is all getting worse. Consider, for example, the detailed data and evidence collected by Harvard social scientist Steven Pinker in his book Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. scientificamerican/article.cfm?id=the-decline-of-violence The obsessive media attention given to violence, always makes it seem worse than it actually is. And this is true of every single issue we confront. Heres a quote: “Violent deaths of all kinds have declined, from around 500 per 100,000 people per year in prestate societies to around 50 in the Middle Ages, to around six to eight today worldwide, and fewer than one in most of Europe.” Okay, that takes care of any notion that were in some period of escalating violence. But what about famine? Isnt famine escalating? The answer? No. Actually, weve reduced the number of chronically undernourished people in the world from 868 million in the period between 2010-2012 to 842 million in the period between 2011-2013. And, how about a longer term trend? Between 1990-92 roughly 24% of the worlds population was chronically undernourished. Were now on pace to reduce that to 13% by 2015. Look, we are nowhere near where we need to be. This is definitely no utopia were living in, but there is nothing like End Times dystopia going on either. Oh, and what about those earthquakes. Again, this is a matter of media attention and the technological ability to be aware of these events in an instant. The US Geological Survey assures us that we arent anymore earthquake prone than we have ever been. So, count me out of the End Times Paranoia. We arent even close. Unless an astroid strikes. theguardian/global-development/datablog/2013/oct/01/world-hunger-global-goals-un
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 00:17:12 +0000
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