Is progress a pipe dream? Or are things getting better? I debated this question last month at Stevens Institute of Technology with my pal Garry Dobbins, a philosopher who's even more than of a curmudgeon than I am. In a blurb for the debate, Garry asserted that "we tend to deceive ourselves about having made progress." In the wake of Trump's victory, Garry'due south cynicism looks all likewise apt. I'm nonetheless re-posting my pro-progress arguments beneath. Now, more than e'er, we demand to remember how far we've come, so we don't lose faith in ourselves. –John Horgan

Ours is a glum historic period. Pessimism is rampant not only among old people, like my colleague, Prof. Dobbins, but also amid people but starting out in life, like students here at Stevens. When I ask if they remember things are getting better, my students normally shake their heads. They think progress is a pipe dream.

I know progressives who doubt progress. Progress-deniers seem to believe in conservation of misery. If things get ameliorate today, they must get worse tomorrow. Progress here means regress in that location.

I empathize why many people think things are bad and getting worse. We face serious problems: war, terrorism, nuclear weapons, racism, religious extremism, inequality, climate alter, AIDS, the Zika virus, political corruption. Trump.

But progress-pessimism is wrong-headed, for two reasons. Outset of all, information technology can be cocky-fulfilling if it foments apathy or despair, which undercut efforts to solve bug. Progress-denial also flies in the face of the enormous progress we've achieved over the past couple of centuries. Humanity is healthier, wealthier, more than peaceful and more than free than e'er. Deprival of this progress is delusional.

Here are statistics on progress, many of which come from "Our Globe in Data," a terrific website created past Oxford economist Max Roser.

Credit: OurWorldinData (CC Past-SA 4.0)

Nosotros ARE HEALTHIER THAN E'er. Average life expectancy for nearly all of homo history and pre-history was well-nigh 30 years, in part because maternal and child mortality were so high. Since 1900 global life expectancy has more than doubled--from just over 30 to almost seventy--every bit a effect of improved water and sewage treatment, medical hygiene, vaccines, antibiotics and other health-measures. Maternal and child mortality accept plummeted. In the U.S., life expectancy is almost fourscore years.

Pessimists might think, Yeah, but longer life spans hateful overpopulation. At that place's some truth to that, merely take heart. The rate of population growth has fallen by almost 50 percent since peaking in 1962, because women are choosing to have fewer children.

Nosotros ARE WEALTHIER THAN EVER. For most of man history, the vast majority of humans were extremely poor, living a hand to mouth existence. Then the industrial revolution brought about what economist Deirdre McCloskey calls "the not bad enrichment." Outset in the late 18th century, average global income has surged by a factor of more than 10. Some people have gotten much richer than others, but this is not a cypher-sum trend. Humanity as a whole has go less poor. The percentage of people who alive in farthermost poverty, defined as $1.25 a day or less, dropped in the last few decades from over fifty percentage to less than 20 percent.

Credit: Our World in Data (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Nosotros ARE More than PEACEFUL. Many of my students were toddlers on September 11, 2001, and then they cannot remember a time when your country was not at war. Nevertheless, nosotros are living in a relatively peaceful era, especially compared to the previous century.

Estimates of war deaths should vary widely and hence should be taken with a grain of common salt, only a clear trend emerges from data presented by Roser and other groups (see here and hither). According to my estimate, global war-related deaths have averaged near 200,000 people a year since 2000. That includes casualties of the war in Syria, which has killed an average of fourscore,000 people a year since 2011. In the offset half of the xxth century, nearly 4 one thousand thousand people a year on average were killed by war and genocide. Near 1 one thousand thousand people a year were killed between 1950 and 2000. (These latter figures come from my book The Terminate of War.) As a pct of population, war casualties have fallen past roughly two orders of magnitude over the past century.

More than good news: The threat of global nuclear war has receded since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s. There are near 15,000 nuclear warheads in the world, down from a high of virtually 70,000 in the 1980s. Terror attacks, similar the contempo bombing in New York City, have united states of america all spooked. Merely your almanac risk of being killed by in a terror attack in the United states of america since 2000 is less than your risk of drowning in a bathtub.

Ordinary homicide claims more than twice as many lives today as state of war, terrorism and genocide combined, and homicide rates are falling in many regions of the world. The murder rate in the U.S. has dropped past fifty percentage since the early 1990s.

As psychologist Steven Pinker documented in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, violence at all scales, from kid abuse to international war, has declined. I've knocked Pinker for overstating levels of prehistoric violence, just I applaud him for rebutting widespread fearfulness that the world is "falling apart."

Credit: Our World in Information (CC By-SA iv.0)

We ARE MORE Costless THAN E'er. 100 years ago a tiny minority of nations were democracies. If yous define a democracy as a society in which women can vote, not a single nation was democratic. Today, a majority of nations are autonomous (indicated past green line above). About two thirds of the global population lives nether a democratic or partly autonomous government, according to the non-profit Freedom Business firm.

In the U.South., at that place accept been tremendous advances in civil rights. When I was a kid, the south was all the same segregated. Some states still banned marriage between blacks and whites. Homosexuality was a crime, and then was abortion.

And so we shouldn't despair, but we shouldn't be complacent, either. Progress isn't easy or inevitable. We've come far, but we still accept much farther to become to solve issues like environmental despoliation, poverty and state of war. We likewise have to make sure we don't lose what we've gained.

THE TRUMP Trouble. And that brings me to Donald Trump, who was just elected President. If I were making the case for pessimism, Trump would be my principal piece of bear witness. Trump is an anti-progressive if ever there was one. His election reveals that many Americans feel threatened past progress, especially rights for women and minorities.

Trump embodies a paradox of democracy. We are complimentary to elect someone who can practise the states neat impairment. But American commonwealth has proved resilient. We take survived terrible Presidents, like Richard Nixon, and George Bush. We will survive Trump, too, as long as nosotros don't succumb to irrational fear, anger and despair, the very emotions that take fueled his rising. Then we will continue our long, perilous expedition toward paradise.

Further Reading:

Why You lot Should Choose Optimism

E.O. Wilson's Thrilling Prophecy of "Paradise" on Earth

Steven Pinker, John Gray and the Stop of War

Meta-Mail: Horgan Posts on War and Peace

War Is Our Most Urgent Problem. Let'south Solve Information technology.

How the U.South. Can Help Humanity Achieve World Peace.

Lets Begin Talking About How to End Wars.