The share of children who died before they were 5 years old in 1950 and 75 years later.
Africa: 33% ↘ 6%
Asia: 25% ↘ 2.5%
Oceania: 9.3% ↘ 2%
Latin America: 21% ↘ 1.5%
Northern America: 3.8% ↘ 0.6%
Europe: 10.5% ↘ 0.4%
Globally: 23% ↘ 3.5%
“Real scientists are delighted when they find out they're wrong... There are too many people in this world who want to be right. And too few who just want to know.”
— Brian Cox
"It’s only through history that we know that human progress has taken place. We might think that humanity came into existence with grocery stores full of food, and smartphones, and airline travel—and, for that matter, democratic government as opposed to despotic tyrants. But it’s good to appreciate that each one of these had to be clawed out of a world that didn’t have them. There are fantastic problems; there’s enormous suffering still, but there used to be even more. We need to know that many things have gotten better as the result of human agency and human valuation of other humans’ lives, and that those are the ideals that we need to embrace if we want to solve the problems—the very real problems—that are facing us now."
Meet The Leader | What most people get wrong about progress https://t.co/9y4yFV0SAG via @YouTube
Me:
I try to look at data and trends rather than headlines, because headlines can give you a misleading picture of the state of the world. Something goes wrong every day — that’s guaranteed — and if you just look at something goes wrong and say, oh, things are getting worse, you might be forgetting all the things that went wrong in the past.
Andrew Marr:
And what we call the news is a long litany of all the things that are getting worse or going wrong.
Me:
Well, yes, it’s much easier for something bad to happen suddenly than for something good to happen. Good things either creep up on you a few percentage points a year, and sometimes can compound.
So the fact that, for example, extreme poverty in the world has been declining and a billion people have escaped extreme poverty over the last 30 years — but not on Thursday — so it was never an event from the news. One of the biggest events in human history is something that most people have never even heard of.
@AndrewMarr9@LBC
The scene from 'The Straight Story.'
Made me think of these Chaucer's words:
'The life so brief, the art so long in the learning, the attempt so hard, the conquest so sharp, the fearful joy that ever slips away so quickly - by all this I mean love, which so sorely astounds my feeling with its wondrous operation, that when I think upon it I scarce know whether I wake or sleep.'
Le cumul de précipitation commence à atteindre les plus hautes valeurs observées en France.
En 48h glisssantes, il est tombé 842mm de pluie à La Croix de Bozon (station cofinancée des passionnés d'Infoclimat).
Nous vivons un épisode historique.
https://t.co/cl5eddxVdv
Alweer een wondermooie aflevering. Deze podcast begeleidt me intussen al een paar jaar tijdens mijn voorbereidingen van het meestal zondagse dis met het gezin.
❗Al te makkelijk wordt gesteld dat jonge generaties minder werkmotivatie hebben. Terwijl de werkelijke reden is dat IEDEREEN werk in loop vd tijd minder belangrijk is gaan vinden (periodeeffect). En ja: Jongeren vonden werk ALTIJD al minder belangrijk!
https://t.co/iJFFwytVH2
Tip: Wetenschapper in polarisatie (Bart Brandsma + @WUR). Polarisatie = gedachtenconstruct: wij vs zij. Heeft brandstof nodig: ferme uitspraken over identiteit v tegenpolen. Feiten, argumenten, betogen hebben daar maar beperkt nut. Investeer in het midden.
https://t.co/sbDiFAtJ28
Van mijn bucketlist: een interview met een Groot Schrijver. Dank je @erwin_mortier voor deze magistrale neerslag van ons fijne gesprek over de letteren en onze samenleving.
Vandaag in @destandaard der Letteren: https://t.co/cNqlERM8tg