This is a list of only good news! Yes, you read that right… We do this to combat a paradox: most people believe that the world is going backwards and that we are headed for chaos, even though the data makes it clear that this perception is wrong.

The world isn’t getting worse, it’s getting better. That doesn’t mean it’s a perfect place, or even a good place. We suffer from wars, injustices, hunger and disease. A minority of the population owns most of the wealth, while 8.4% survive on less than $2 (less than €2) a day. Poverty is a daily phenomenon. But of all the world scenarios we’ve known (not imagined or desired, but known), this is the best.

Acknowledging that we are making progress worries many people because they fear it will make us conformists. But I think the opposite is the case: to keep walking, it is useful to feel that you are moving forward.

Happy New Year!

the good news

  • After a pause due to the pandemic, global life expectancy increased again in 2023: today it is 73 years, up to 12 years more than in 1980.
  • More people think their city is “good place” for gays to live. In 2005, only 20% of the world’s population believed this, and now it’s 50%. For example, in Mexico, the percentage has increased from 39% to 64%, as “El Pais” writes.
  • The pandemic has made us more altruistic. The percentage of people who “they helped a stranger” increased by 10% in 2021 and 2022.
  • Malaria vaccines have arrived. The first vaccine proved effective in practice: infant mortality (from any cause) was reduced by 13% where it was administered. In addition, a second, cheaper vaccine was approved.
  • The first CRISPR therapy for DNA editing also got the green light. There are dozens of trials underway.
  • Tax evasion decreased. How; Thanks to banking information exchange systems. In 2013, hidden assets worth 10% of global GDP, almost all in the hands of the rich, were in tax havens and were not declared to any country’s tax authorities, but within 10 years this figure had fallen to 3%.
  • The global GDP per capita it has doubled so far this century. From $8,000 in 2000 to $21,000 in 2021, adjusted for inflation and cost of living. GDP per capita increased on all continents.
  • And inequality also fell. The top 10% of people with the highest income have 55% of the total income, which is a lot, but less than in 2000.
  • 68% of Australia’s pensioners they play video games. Most of this percentage is made up of women who want to have fun, take on challenges and improve their mental health.
  • Dementia cases are decreasing. The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and similar diseases has decreased by 30% in 15 years. The decline is not due to any drug – although there is much promise – but to the higher educational level of the new generations.
  • University students doubled in 20 years. About 39% of boys and 45% of girls of school age are enrolled in tertiary education.
  • New emojis have been released…
  • There are more women in national parliaments. Women occupy 27% of the seats, double the number compared to 1990.
  • The record was broken for the number of people in space. In May, 17 people were simultaneously in orbit around space.
  • India became the fourth country to land on the Moon. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed on the Moon on August 23, a feat accomplished only by the Soviet Union (1966), the United States (1966) and China (2013).
  • Artificial Intelligence continues its amazing advances. She got better at many tasks we thought impossible for an algorithm: writing, drawing, moving, understanding pictures, reasoning (in a sense), and being creative (in a sense). It certainly makes you think…
  • An Artificial Intelligence program outperformed conventional weather forecasting models. This is a paradigm shift: today’s computational models, based on simulating known equations, will now be combined with black-box models that learn on their own from data.
  • New implants have given a voice to people who can’t speak. The idea is to measure the brain’s electrical signals and use Artificial Intelligence to distinguish the patterns associated with each phoneme.
  • We have revolutionary anti-obesity drugs. We already knew that certain drugs regulate satiety and achieve dramatic weight loss. Now they have also been shown to reduce the risk of heart failure and stroke.
  • HIV drugs have prevented 21 million deaths since 1996. The number of deaths has dropped by a third.
  • Katalin Kariko won the Nobel Prize and embodied the promise of our progress. Karikó grew up in Hungary in the 1960s, without hot water, TV or refrigerator, sharing the only warm room with her family. She planted seeds in the garden, loved school and was the first in her family to go to university. In 1985 she immigrated to the US, hiding some money in her two-year-old daughter’s stuffed animal. Then, for two decades, she was an under-resourced researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. She never became a professor. He was an RNA expert when interest in this molecule waned, but Karikó didn’t give up. In 1997, she struck up a conversation with immunologist Drew Weissman, and so began a collaboration that eventually paid off, half by determination and half by luck, with a technology that will go down in history: RNA vaccines.
  • Release of rare mosquitoes stopped dengue fever in three Colombian cities. How; They were deliberately infected with the bacterium Wolbachia, which prevents them from transmitting this disease.
  • Iberian lynx continue to recover. In 2002 there were only 94 left and now there are 1,600.
  • Many pets were cured.
  • There are fewer suicides in the world. The suicide rate per 100,000 people has fallen by 35% in 25 years.
  • Deaths by drowning have halved since 1990.
  • China has tripled renewable energy. In 2007, it accounted for 6% of its total energy and now that figure is 18%.
  • Chile was the country that took advantage of solar energy the most. Australia, Israel, Greece and Spain followed.
  • We discovered that talking makes us happy. If we rate our happiness as 6 out of 10, after talking to a friendly person or even a stranger, that number rises to 7.
  • Global energy coming from burning fossil fuels has fallen from 90% to 82% since 1980. And the pace promises to accelerate to net zero emissions by 2050.
  • SO₂ emissions (sulfur dioxide) have fallen by a third since 1980. This has reduced acid rain that destroys lake and stream ecosystems.
  • And the ozone layer will fully recover. Thirty-five years ago, the Montreal Protocol mandated the elimination of 96 chemicals (aerosols and refrigerants) that were blowing a hole in the barrier that protects us from UV radiation. It was a success.
  • Infant mortality has fallen more than we can imagine. For millennia, half of children died before reaching adulthood. As recently as 1950 – not even 75 years ago – one in four children died before reaching adulthood. Today, 96% of the world’s babies grow up healthy, strong and smart.