Looking up

Twenty-six areas of global progress.

3 comments:

Grim said...

Much of that is legitimate, but Pinker's book is not among those things.

Nor is there reason to believe that the last decade's relative peace will continue. That peace, which was marked by two of America's longest wars, was possibly the high-water mark of the post-Cold War pax Americana. The Middle East today looks to be on the brink of a regional war, of which we are currently on both sides but subtly favoring Iran. Possibly Iran will come out on top, finish building its nuclear umbrella, and impose a peace on the region in the old Roman (or Persian) manner. But possibly it will be a very nasty decade to come, even if we avoid war in Europe, even if China remains on its glidepath to nonviolent regional domination instead of coming into violent conflict with the powers it is attempting to dominate.

Grim said...

The Gray/Pinker dispute continues here.

MikeD said...

Question:
Where is North America on that top graph (% of people living on under $1.25/day). Out of curiosity. ((it's not curiosity, I suspect North America isn't on that graph because it would be a flat line across the bottom))