I want to start my first blog post of the year sharing some very positive news. If you’re depressed by the state of the world, let me toss out an idea: In the long arc of human history, 2019 has been the best year ever.

 

This may not seem to be the case, especially for many of us in the US, with climate change worsening, political tension higher than ever, a medical system that is clearly broken, the social structure of our country deteriorating, wide disparity in income, drug problems and more but for humanity over all, life just keeps getting better.

 

The bad things that you fret about are true. But it’s also true that since modern humans emerged about 200,000 years ago, 2019 was probably the year in which children were least likely to die, adults were least likely to be illiterate and people were least likely to suffer excruciating and disfiguring diseases.