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In what ways is the world better now than it was ten years ago?
I could use some optimism and positive reframing right now, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. As such, I want to know about some good things! Progress and such!
In my question, I asked about "the world" but I am really interested in any example, no matter how global or local. It also doesn't have to be explicitly human-focused, so feel free to gush about the improvements in, say, a programming language you love, or the tabletop gaming ruleset you use. I'm interested in positive examples of all types.
4 July 2012, amicably called Higgsdependence Day, was the day CERN announced to the world that the much-anticipated Higgs boson was discovered independently by two of their experiments with a staggeringly high degree of confidence. The discovery cemented the idea that our understanding of physics of small scale, the Standard Model, is superb. And while there are still a few open questions, we know a lot more about how the universe works now.
My friends actually stood in line since 4AM to be admitted into CERN's main auditorium and hear the presentations in person. I was halfway across the country presenting my own research results, and while I was pretty excited, I could not concentrate on anything that day and had a massive smile plastered on my face because 4 days prior I had met the cutest, most amazing girl who later became my wife.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and its incarceration rate been dropping for about 10 years after climbing for nearly 30 years.
Awesome!
No wait, that's bad.
Sadly I don't think that's yet the case, but to paraphrase: all continents now have at least one country where same-sex marriage is legal. Meaning more geographically (and, implicitly, culturally) widespread recognition of rights.
It's actually really easy when you look at the way the world IS and WAS rather than the way the world IS/WAS perceived.
10 years ago, there were as many racists as there were today (maybe even more) - but now they out themselves by doing things like wearing funny red hats. Knowing who is who is a good thing, not a bad thing.
10 years ago, people were kidding themselves that we would do something about climate change. Now at least we are aware that was bullshit.
There are plenty of those. Very, very little that seems newly bad about the world right now is actually new at all. But a lot of the stuff that IS newly good IS actually new. Net improvement.
I'm not so sure. Radicalization is a thing.
Here's a thread. It's nothing surprising, but it's eye-opening: https://twitter.com/gwensnyderPHL/status/1133057510292824065
Wow, that really was a trip. I don't know how to respond, but that's downright scary.
Asymptotic growth in wind and solar power installations globally. It's really quite dramatic since 2010, and there's been major innovation in solar/wind efficiency and cost of manufacture. Energy storage technologies are on the same crazy growth curve.
We won't be out of danger from carbon emissions anytime soon, but we're not growing non-renewable consumption as quickly as we used to, especially in China and India.
Also, CRISPR-CAS and subsequent gene-editing technologies. This may be the biggest technological breakthrough I'll see in my lifetime. We really can manipulate life efficiently and fairly predictably now.
It's just beginning to create actual cures for what were hopeless diseases, may give humanity the edge it needs to adapt food supplies to rapid climate change, and it's just a bounty of hope and peril.
Oh, and cannabis legalisation/decriminalization. :-)
Let's not forget some of the emerging technologies.
AMD's new CPU is a 4GHz, 6-core, 65w marvel that retails for $199. That's the shitty cheap chip in their lineup, and frankly, it's going to send Intel back to the drawing board even without Intel's colossal security fuckups. It's been a long time since there was a hardware shakeup like this. There is now no reason whatsoever to buy, or keep, Intel chips - they are all headed for the landfill. This kind of shakeup used to happen every two years, I kinda miss those days. The power savings on this new processing paradigm are going to have a massive impact on the environment.
We have 20% of the world's food coming from vertical farms, on track for over 60% within twenty years. That solves our pesticide and wasteful shipping and population feeding problems. In 2008, there were none. That's a lot of progress in one decade. In-vitro meat cultivation is starting to take off as well, and there goes our animal cruelty issues into the dustbin of history, and soon after, veganism. We're seeing a food revolution.
Ten years ago, finding out where to get our power was a problem. Now, in addition to the wind/solar revolution, we have several billion going into nuclear power development again, this time aimed at far better systems than those we've been stuck with since the last world war. We're going to have so much cheap energy we won't even be able to figure out what to do with it all, and it's completely green. We're solving our pollution generation problems right now, and securing the energy needed to clean things up at the same time. Ten years back, this technology was forgotten, and now it's a gold rush.
What was the breakthrough that allowed AMD’s new chip, and how much better is it? I have always bought Intel but admittedly I haven’t looked to deeply at the differences between them in the last couple of years. I might be buying a new computer soon so I’m curious.
AMD opened the floodgates yesterday, all the tech sites are going bonkers trying to get their videos and reviews and opinion pieces up. AMD's new lineup is such a stunner that ASUS is launching thirty motherboards alongside it - when the board vendors go in this hard, you know you're looking at a game changer.
Check out Linus Tips on what AMD announced yesterday. It's a good summary.
If you're planning to buy a new system, let the dust settle a bit first so people can tease out the best board designs from the various manufacturers, then make your decision. I cannot think of a single reason to choose an Intel chip at this point. They are now at the bottom of every chart... and this isn't something Intel can just 'fix' either. It'll take a major redesign - and I'm sure they are on top of that. Never count Intel out, just be glad when they get knocked around like this, it's good for the industry.
This is a decent list of reasons to think humanity can get its collective sh*t together, when it's not being cognitively sabotaged.
This is a fantastic list and exactly in line with what I was looking for. Thank you for linking it!
Beyond meat/impossible burger.
This is an underrated comment. I love hamburgers, and I have switched over to Impossible Burgers whenever I have the option. They taste great and are better for the environment (and the cows!)
Deaths attributed to malaria are dropping, particularly for children under 5.
That website has a lot of research and statistics, a lot of which indicates positive things. But there's some stuff that ain't so hot, either.
Fruit is something that comes to mind for me.
Grew up in a pretty decent sized city, but really only had apples, oranges and bananas year round. Cherries, peaches and such depended on season, and more exotic fruits like mangos and lychees had really limited windows and were expensive. Now, so much more fruit is available and available for longer.
LGBT rights, and especially trans rights. The WHO removed gender incongruence from its list of mental disorders. Multiple countries have removed the requirements for trans people to get sterilized before getting their ID changed. But maybe the most important thing is that more people know about it. It can have its drawbacks - e.g., we are often used as wedge issues - but the knowledge is out there, where closeted people can access it.
Then there's Sci-Hub, which was founded eight years ago. The paper you wanted to look up is behind a paywall? No problem. It's probably on Sci-Hub already.