Trend lines, not headlines

First, read the following:

If you had to choose a moment in time to be born, any time in human history, and you didn't know ahead of time what nationality you were or what gender or what your economic status might be, what time would you choose? Paleolithic? Neolithic? Ancient Greece or Rome? Medieval times? Elizabethan England? Colonial America? The 1950s?

Think about it.

Think again.

Remember, that in this thought experiment "you didn't know ahead of time what nationality you were or what gender or what your economic status might be."

Yes?

So, which moment in time would you choose to live?

My answer is no different from the one the questioner himself provided: I would choose today.

What if I were one of the struggling plebes and did not inherit millions from his father?

 “We are fortunate to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history,” he opined, adding that “it's been decades since the last war between major powers. More people live in democracies. We're wealthier and healthier and better educated, with a global economy that has lifted up more than a billion people from extreme poverty.”

I agree with him.  This is the best of times all over the world.  It is phenomenal.  

I have proposed to teach a freshman seminar course in which I want students to verify for themselves how much we are all better off today compared to decades and centuries past.  The title of the course that I have proposed, which is the title of this post also, is from one of the talks that Bill Clinton gave years ago, Clinton suggested that people should understand the trend lines and not simply be glued to the headlines.

So, if all is well, then "why the doom and gloom heaped on us by politicians and pundits"?

Micheal Shermer, from whose column in the Scientific American I excerpted those quotes, gives a few explanations.  To me those explanations are rather immaterial.  I am amazed at how much we can't seem to think about the big story of the phenomenal success on various fronts that we humans have achieved over the past two hundred years.  Our inability to situate an unfortunate event against a an appropriate measure over time blows my mind.

BTW, the questioner who posed that thought experiment with which I began this post?  Another former President. Thanks, Obama!