The Best Time to be Born

My kids often tell me that it would be criminal to bring a baby into this world, but I strongly disagree. It’s by far the best time in human history to be born. Things are better now than they have ever been worldwide.

By the numbers

News shows often highlight the bad things in the world, but only because it’s better for ratings. Rage is engaging. Good news is boring. But there is way more boring good news in the world today than bad news.

Medicine

We are coming up on the 100th anniversary of penicillin being discovered by Alexander Fleming. It is difficult to overestimate the impact of this one substance. All modern medicine is predicated on the availability of antibiotics. Infection was the largest killer of people prior to this discovery.

I could not imagine being born into a world where a small cut could kill you by infection. Simple surgeries were near impossible and complex surgeries were just science fiction. Doctors did not even wash their hands before the mid 1850’s. Who would bring a baby into THAT world?

Quality of life

Imagine if you could trade and be Augustus, Emperor of Rome. Your life would be terrible compared to now. Think about having a hot shower. It wasn’t even a real option until the 1950s. No dental care, no television, no popular books, no recorded music. Traveling was arduous and dangerous. Today, you can easily drive or fly to distant lands in hours. It used to take a year to cross the United States assuming dysentery or bandits didn’t kill you first.

The option of what kind of job you want to pursue is an entirely new thing. There are resources to find communities everywhere you turn. We live longer, we eat better, we communicate much quicker. Everything is better now.

Is everything better?

Obviously, there is still deep angst and unhappiness in almost all people’s lives. There are still many parts of the world suffering from dictators, war, prejudice, and more. Life is still as Thomas Hobbes described it.

The life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” – Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan, 1651

It is silly to say that everything is great. It’s not. However, so much is statistically better than it used to be. I think people are upset about how things are versus how they could potentially be. There are very disturbing clouds on the horizon.

Climate change, AI, and wealth inequality

These are the big three of danger signs. However, I am still optimistic that we can fix the problem. It might be painful, but humanity has survived far worse. We will figure out ways to clean the atmosphere. We will figure out ways for AI to not kill us all. We will figure out ways to deconcentrate wealth. Humanity is resilient. We figure things out.

Note: This post is 100% a ploy to get my kids to produce me grandchildren.