Here we are. Where are we?
Well, we (homo sapiens) have existed as a species for about 130,000 years. We have had large scale civilization for about 6,000 years. Today over six billion humans live together on our planet (and a scant few in space).
Who are we?
Our Global Village
If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like this:
There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 people from the Western Hemisphere (North and South America) and 8 Africans.
51 would be female, 49 would be male.
70 would be non-white, 30 white.
70 would be non-Christian, 30 Christian.
50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only six people, and all six would be citizens of the United States.
80 would be living in substandard housing; 70 would be unable to read; 50 would suffer from malnutrition.
Only one would have a college education and only eight would have access to a computer.
QuestionsHow are we doing? Are we getting along? Are we helping each other? All things considered, is life better now than in the past, or are we headed downhill? On this page we begin an exploration of these questions.
AN AMAZING CENTURY OF PROGRESS
Now that "2001" is history, how did it compare to 1901?
REFLECTIONS ON THE "GOOD OLD DAYS"
Is our cultural pessimism justified?
We've heard the bad news. Is there any good news?
BRINGING "US" AND "THEM" TOGETHER
Words of wisdom from inventor Dean Kamen
HOW TO RADICALLY IMPROVE WORLD HEALTH
A proposal from economist Jeffrey Sachs
THE GREAT HUMAN CLONING CONTROVERSY
A sensible point of view from Dr. Nick Bostrom
The "Good Old Days" Weren't So Good After All
The belief that society is in decline is a permanent characteristic of every era. People have always believed they lived in a crumbling world.
Jack McDevitt, Author
Every generation has been convinced that it's seeing the beginning of the end. Tablets dug up in Iraq from 3000 B.C. say the same thing.
James P. Hogan, Author
We live in an era in which pessimism has become the norm...the sowing of despair and self doubt has become so pervasive that we accept it as a normal intellectual stance—even when it is directly contradicted by our own reality.
Arthur Herman, Smithsonian Institution
Key to this cultural pessimism is a belief in the myth of the noble savage—that before we had science and technology, people lived in ecological harmony and bliss. Quite the opposite is the case.
John Brockman, Editor and Publisher
The past was crammed full of ignorance and drudgery, filth, superstition, disease and brutality.
Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove, Authors
The Current State of Humanity
Today, as always, there is both good news and bad news about the state of humanity. It is easy to point out the many ways in which people suffer (and I do that below).
It is not so easy to identify the positives (which I also gladly do); or perhaps it is easy, but it's just not popular. A reasonably objective look, however, reveals plenty of good news about the current state of humanity.
On Bringing "Us" and "Them" Together:
"We must invent delivery systems and economic models that allow us to share our incredible technology with the emerging world. Two-thirds of the world sees us sitting here with air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. We have anesthesia and clean drinking water. We have a bulldozer, and they have a pickax. Who's going to be resentful? We must help the rest of the world create value with the technology. Until they spend their time writing software code instead of finding clean water or burying their babies, we're going to be in a race with catastrophe."
Dean Kamen, Inventor and Entrepreneur
A Proposal to Radically Improve World Heath
Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs has been described as "probably the most important economist in the world" by the New York Times. In this interview with Discover Magazine, Sachs contends that a small investment in health care in poor countries—about $34 per person per year—would not only reduce disease but would be a boon for the global economy.