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In this newsletter, like the four previous years, we close the year with a list of data that is neither exhaustive nor impartial and contains only good news.
I do this to counter a paradox: Most people believe that the world is going backwards and we are heading toward chaos, even though the data makes it clear that this perception is wrong. The world is not getting worse, it is getting better. That doesn't mean it's a perfect place. Not even a good place. We suffer from wars, injustice, hunger and disease. A minority of the population owns most of the wealth, while 8.4% survive on less than two dollars a day. Poverty is everyday. But of all the global scenarios we know (not imagined or desired, but known), this is the best.
The realization that we are making progress worries many people because they fear that it will make us conformist. But I think it's the other way around: to move on, it's useful to feel like you're moving forward.
Happy New Year,
Kiko
The good news
❤️ 1. Life is getting longer again. After a break caused by the pandemic, global life expectancy increased again in 2023: today it is 73 years, up to 12 years more than in 1980. | GNU
🦠 2. Covid has declined in Spain. While it was the main cause of death in the period January-June 2020, 2021 and 2022, it disappeared from the list of the ten most common diseases in 2023. | INE
👬 3. More and more people say their city is a “good place” for gays and lesbians to live. In 2005 only 20% of the world's population thought this way, today it is 50%. In Mexico, for example, they rise from 39% to 64%. | Gallup
🆘 4. The pandemic has made us more altruistic. The proportion of people who “helped a stranger” increased by 10% in 2021 and 2022. | Happiness report
👶 5. Malaria vaccines have arrived. The first measure proved effective locally: child mortality (from whatever cause) fell by 13% where it was administered. A second, cheaper vaccine was also approved. | THE COUNTRY
🧬 6. The first CRISPR DNA editing therapy also received the green light. It is still a primitive tool, but it has a promising future: dozens of trials are currently underway. | THE COUNTRY
💶 7. Average income has increased in Spain. From 2015 to 2022, income per person increased from 15,500 euros to 17,000 euros, adjusted for inflation. | INE
🏦 8. Evasion in tax havens has been (greatly) reduced. As? Thanks to systems for exchanging banking information. In 2013, there were hidden assets worth 10% of global GDP, almost all in the hands of the rich and not reported to any country's authorities, but in 10 years that number has fallen to 3%. | Tax Observatory
💰 9. Global GDP per capita has doubled so far this century. It has increased from $8,000 in 2000 to $21,000 in 2021, adjusted for inflation and cost of living. It grew on all continents. | World Bank
⚖️ 10. And inequality has also been reduced. The top 10% of people have 55% of total income, which is a lot, but less than in 2000. | WIDS
🎮 11. 68% of Australian retirees play video games. They are mainly women who want to “have a good time”, “take on challenges” and “take care of their mind”. | IGEA
👵 12. Dementia is reduced. The incidence of Alzheimer's and similar diseases has fallen by 30% in 15 years. The reason lies not in a drug – although there are promising ones – but in the higher level of education of the new generations, which protects their minds from decay. | THE COUNTRY
🧑🎓 13. The number of university students has doubled in 20 years. 39% of boys and 45% of girls of study age are enrolled in higher education. | World Bank
📚 14. Do people not read anymore? We read more. 65% of Spaniards say they read a book in their free time in the last quarter, compared to 53% in 2002. Women (70%) and young people (74%) are reading more. | Editors Guild
🗣️ 15. We invent new words. The RAE included Perreo, Chundachunda, Aquaplaning, Oscarizar, Sexting, Pixel and Big Data. | RTVE
😀 16. And new emojis have arrived. My favorites are the jellyfish 🪼 and the vibrating head 🫨.
👩💼 17. There are more women in parliaments. They occupy 27% of the seats, twice as many as in 1990. | I PU
🏆 18. Spain won the World Cup and its players learned more than one lesson. Luis Rubiales discovered that the world has changed without him knowing it and that kissing a woman because you feel like it is wrong, no matter how much of a boss you feel. I'm sure he wasn't the only one who learned back then. | THE COUNTRY
🍼 19. Paternity leave is getting longer in Spain. In 2015, parents had only two weeks off to care for a newborn, now they have 16 weeks, and next year it will be up to 24 weeks. This is good news, also because of Alison Gopnik: “We don’t care about others just because we love them. We also love them because we care for them.”
🧑🚀 20. The record for the number of people in space has been broken. In May, 17 people met in orbit. | Planet4589
🌖 21. India was the fourth country to (softly) land on the moon. The Chandrayaan-3 probe landed on the moon on August 23 and the Asian country joined the Soviet Union (1966), the United States (1966) and China (2013). | Nature
🤖 22. Generative artificial intelligence continues its amazing advances. She has improved at many tasks that we thought were impossible for an algorithm: she writes, she paints, she animates, she understands images, she argues (in a sense), and she is creative (in a sense). It's definitely thought-provoking. | THE COUNTRY
🌦️ 23. Another AI exceeded ECMWF weather model predictions. It is a paradigm shift: current numerical calculation models that are based on the simulation of known equations are now combined with “black box” models that learn independently from data. | FT
🧠 24. New brain implants gave a voice to people who cannot speak. The trick is to measure the brain's electrical signals and use an AI capable of distinguishing the patterns associated with each phoneme. | FT
💊 25. We have revolutionary anti-obesity drugs. We already knew that Ozempic and Wegovy regulate satiety and cause spectacular weight loss. It has now been proven that they also reduce the risk of heart failure and stroke. | Science
🎉 26. HIV medications have prevented 21 million deaths since 1996. The deaths were reduced to a third. | UNAIDS
🥇 27. Katalin Karikó won the Nobel Prize and embodied the promise of our progress. Karikó grew up in Hungary in the 1960s with no hot water, no television or refrigerator; he shared the only warm room with his family. She planted seeds in the garden, loved school, and was the first of her people to attend college. In 1985 he emigrated to the USA and hid some money in his two-year-old daughter's stuffed toy. Then she was a penniless researcher at the University of Pennsylvania for two decades. She was never appointed professor. She was an expert in RNA when interest in the molecule waned, but Karikó didn't give up. In 1997, bored in the printer queue, she struck up a conversation with immunologist Drew Weissman, beginning a collaboration that, half through determination, half by chance, came to fruition with a technology that will go down in history: vaccines. of RNA. | Joe Walker Podcast
🇨🇴 28. The release of rare mosquitoes stopped dengue fever in three Colombian cities. As? They are specifically infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which prevents them from transmitting this disease. | Saloni Dattani
🐯 29. Iberian lynxes continue to reproduce. In 2002 there were only 94 copies left, now there are 1,600. | THE COUNTRY
🐶 30. Many pets have been healed. A reader wrote to me that her dog Canela had survived five admissions this year (which didn't bode well): “She's here now, happy and content and like an oak tree.”
🌤️ 31. There are fewer suicides in the world. The rate per 100,000 people has fallen by 35% in 25 years. | WHO
🌊 32. Deaths from drowning (in water) have halved since 1990. Thousands and thousands of children are being saved. | Future crisis
✅ 33. Paula shared with me Nora Ephron's list of things the author would miss. “My children and Nick. Spring and autumn. Walk through the park. The idea of taking a walk in the park. Read in bed. The laughs. Have dinner at home, just the two of us. Have dinner with friends. Have dinner with friends in cities where none of them live. Christmas tree. To take a bath. The cakes”.
🇨🇳 34. China has tripled its renewable energy. In 2007 they contributed 6% of their total energy, now it is 18%. | OWiD
🇪🇸 35. Spain generated half of its electricity from renewable sources. A historical record. | THE COUNTRY
🇨🇱 36. Chile was the country that gained the most energy from the sun. This was followed by Australia, Israel, Greece and Spain. | OWiD
☀️ 37. More than that: solar energy is growing exponentially. Global installed capacity has doubled in four years. | BloombergNEF
🥳 38. We discover that chatting makes us happy. If we rate our happiness at 6 out of 10, we will feel satisfied at a 7 instead of a 6 after a conversation with a friendly stranger. | Science
⛽ 39. Global energy demand from burning fossil fuels has fallen from 90% to 82% since 1980. And the pace promises to accelerate to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. | The country
☢️ 40. SO₂ emissions have been reduced by a third since 1980. This stopped acid rain, which damages lake and stream ecosystems. | In progress
🌎 41. And the ozone layer will fully recover. Thirty-five years ago, the Montreal Protocol mandated the elimination of 96 chemical substances (aerosols and refrigerants) that opened a hole in the barrier that protects us from ultraviolet radiation. It was a success. | THE COUNTRY
🏥 42. Child mortality has fallen more than we can imagine. For thousands of years, half of all children died before reaching adulthood. In 1950, less than 75 years ago, one in four people died prematurely. Today, 96% of babies in the world and 99.5% in countries like Spain grow up healthy, strong and alert.
I've known this statistic for a long time, but in 2023 I experienced it. We had a healthy baby who is growing up happily and without complications; But could the same thing be said 100 years ago? Luna was slightly turned, and after 20 hours of labor (to the monitored rhythm of her little heart), three pediatricians decided it would be safer to deliver by cesarean section, a routine operation that may have saved her life. We vaccinated them against diseases I can't even remember the name of, and even against bronchiolitis, with a (non-)vaccine that didn't exist last year. Luna spent a hot summer without realizing it, and when winter came she always had a warm blanket, a well-filled cot and an artificially warmed room. We were even worried about him sleeping on his back because it has been proven to be safer, and although nothing would have happened to him sleeping on his back, this knowledge saves babies every day.
We delight in everyday miracles—in the form of technology, institutions, and wisdom—whose success goes unnoticed by us because the misfortunes we avoid are invisible missiles.
👔 43. The prize is discovering amazing things, like that babies are born with judgment. A beautiful example was shared by Alok Morarka: “My 20-month-old daughter Siya was crying and restless after a long day at daycare. When it came time to change him, she kept insisting, “Blue shirt! Blue shirt!” I pulled out three different blue onesies, which she pushed aside almost in disgust. Siya kept pointing at me. Finally I understood: I was wearing a blue striped shirt. “Can we use this one?” I asked, holding her blue one Striped bodysuit up. Yelling “Yes yes yes!” “He wanted to go to the match with his father.”
PS If you need more good news, sign up for Email Yes or check out my 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019 compilations.
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