Reasons to be an optimist

Whenever the headlines get me down, I remind myself that, on a factual basis, the world is vastly better off than it has ever been. I keep coming back again and again to three books in particular, that provide a forceful counterpoint to the narrative that the world is in terrible shape. I suggest you check these out next time you are in need of a lift:

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling. Rosling was a Swedish physician, international health expert and educator whose TED talks have been widely viewed - more than 35 million times. His book, which he finished shortly before he died in 2017, is a beautifully simple, elegant and fact-filled argument on why the world is objectively so much better off now than at any point in history and how our biases and cognitive blinders prevent us from truly internalizing the incredible progress we have witnessed in the last 50 years. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, rates of child mortality, hunger, etc. are all crashing, and yet the vast majority of people completely fail his simple 12 question quiz on the state of the world. Bill Gates called this “one of the most important books I’ve ever read―an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” Worth your time.

The Rational Optimist, by Matt Ridley: A brilliantly written analysis on why things are actually getting better in almost every conceivable dimension. It puts a lot of the misery of today's headlines into perspective and will make you feel better about the world - guaranteed. In case you don't have time to read it all, here is a link to a great podcast with the author on EconTalk with Russ Roberts: https://www.econtalk.org/ridley-on-trade-growth-and-the-rational-optimist/

Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, by Johan Norberg A good companion to “The Rational Optimist”; it makes you feel good about the world by putting everything into context, showing how far we’ve come in just the last 100 years. It is hard to imagine that, as the author points out, children were literally dying of hunger from famines in Sweden in the 1800s and that living standards in Sweden in the 1830s were worse than those in the poorest parts of Africa today. Here is a good podcast with the author: https://www.cato.org/multimedia/media-highlights-tv/johan-norberg-discusses-capitalism-globalism-other-topics-dissenter