Some “Fast Facts” on life to-day, given all the trouble in the world around us
500 years ago
- World population – 500 million
- Life expectancy – 30 years
- Poverty – 90% of the World’s population
- Violent death – 50 per 100,000 population
- No piped water, no electricity
- Hour of light – 60 hours of labour
- No voting
400 years ago
- World population – 550 million
- Life expectancy – 35 years
- Poverty – 90% of the World’s population
- Violent death – 40 per 100,000 population
- No piped water, no electricity
- Hour of light – 50 hours of labour
- No voting
300 years ago
- World population – 700 million
- Life expectancy – 30 years
- Poverty – 90% of the World’s population
- Violent death – 30 per 100,000 population
- No piped water, no electricity
- Hour of light – 40 hours of labour
- No voting
200 years ago (data started to turn)
- World population – 1.1 billion
- Life expectancy – 35 years plus
- Poverty – 80% of the World’s population
- Violent death – 20 per 100,000 population
- 5% had piped water, no electricity
- Hour of light – 6 hours of labour
- 1% of world had access to democracy
100 years ago
- World population – 2 billion
- Life expectancy – 45 years
- Poverty – 60% of the World’s population
- Violent death – 20 per 100,000 population
- 25% had piped water, limited electricity
- Hour of light – 10 minutes of labour
- 10% had vote and lived in democracies
Present
- World population – 8 billion
- Life expectancy – 70 years
- Poverty – 8% of the World’s population
- Violent death – 1-2 per 100,000 population
- 80% have piped water
- Hour of light – 1 second of labour
- 50% have the vote and live in democracies
Took forever to reach 500 million, 300 years to reach 1 billion (1800’s), another 100 years to reach 2 billion (1920’s), then another 100 years to reach 8 billion, with the major advances being industrialisation, medicine, sanitation, education and personal liberties.
While the world faces numerous problems of lesser or greater seriousness, the data on the overall tide of human progress is unmistakable. The interface of technology and democracy has produced the most extraordinary improvements in the safety, prosperity, and comfort of billions of people. Retaining that sense of perspective is important to fend off the near-constant assault of negative news and opinion that flows from a lot of the global press.
Source: The Common Sense
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