The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
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Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#2It's just insane how good this is. Yeah, the middle class is hurting (worldwide, or pretty close), but the bottom is escaping poverty at an amazing rate.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#3The only reason that I already know this is Hans Rosling. His work is excellent, check it out if you haven't already. http://www.gapminder.org/
https://www.google.com/webhp?q=hans+rosling&tbm=vid
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#4It's really weird to me how commonplace the attitude of "It is what it is" and "Government can't do anything".
The air and water quality in the US is vastly better since the passage of laws that created and empowered the EPA (Created by the Republican President Nixon). The endangered species act has had many similar successes.
I live on Maui. The waters are now filled with Green Sea Turtles and Humpback whales that were nearly non-existent just 30 years ago. Yet when development and global climate change are threatening our reefs, people look at you like you're crazy for thinking that laws can be effective in safeguarding the environment for the future.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#5[deleted]
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#6Since this is HN, here's a question: what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#7This journalistic impulse to sell the world as worse than it is will not end because a single journalist caught a quick (and likely fleeting) guilty conscience. It will continue until the profession recognizes that their addiction to narrative harms the entire population.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#8It's really weird to me how commonplace the attitude of "It is what it is" and "Government can't do anything". The air and water quality in the US is vastly better since the passage of laws that created and empowered the EPA (Created by the Republican President Nixon). The endangered species act has had many similar successes. I live on Maui. The waters are now filled with Green Sea Turtles and Humpback whales that w…
What are you referencing in regards to poverty? I would have guessed that the recent reduction in poverty is largely attributable to wealthy nations reducing efforts to centrally plan the economies of poor nations.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#9Is there any inflationary effect to the $1.25/day figure that has been used since the 1980s? It's not clear from the article whether it's adjusted for inflation.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#10[deleted]