{"id":2333,"date":"2022-07-21T01:40:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2333"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:49","slug":"better-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2333","title":{"rendered":"BETTER YET"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Max Roser at ourworldindata.org writes:<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He illustrates this truth by looking at statistics on child mortality.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Currently, worldwide, 4.3% of children die before their 15th birthday.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;This means that 5.9 million children die every year &#8211; 16,000 children on any average day, and 11 children every minute.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is tragic. It is worth every effort to improve upon this situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But historical perspective is helpful. And it may save us from despondency and hopelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Historians estimate that before 1800, the rate was much closer to 50%.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we consider that over the last 200 years we have seen the child mortality rate drop from 50% to 4.3%, shouldn&#8217;t we pause and celebrate?\u00a0 And THEN redouble our efforts to continue the improvements?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It seems to me that the majority of present day &#8220;activists&#8221; for so many causes &#8211; both religious and secular &#8211; are blind to historical perspective.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They seem incapable of admitting any progress whatsoever. Instead, they must constantly stir up society with &#8220;the sky is falling&#8221; rhetoric.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is exhausting. And, over time, it erodes so much that is good:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>The mental health of the young<\/li>\n\n\n<li>National pride<\/li>\n\n\n<li>And, ironically, the incentive to continue working at bringing change.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Max Roser at ourworldindata.org writes: &#8220;The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time.&#8221; He illustrates this truth by looking at statistics on child mortality.\u00a0 Currently, worldwide, 4.3% of children die before their 15th birthday.\u00a0 &#8220;This means that 5.9 million [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2334,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333\/revisions\/2334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}