Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller were once the richest people on earth. Yet the three had spent most of their adult lives without electric lighting, water heaters, or a refrigerator. And the bunch never even saw a Mcdonald’s, a ballpoint pen, or a coca-cola can.
These gentlemen are not beings from an ancient time. More than two billion people walked the earth before the last of these business moguls died.
Despite the luxuries of modern day living, people dubbed 2017 the ‘worst year ever’. Apparently the Great Depression and the Holocaust were a hoot.
While the world is far from perfect, it’s much better than it was.
- Just in the last 30 years, the frequency of homicides and wars have shrunk. As well as cases of pollution and extreme poverty. In fact, roughly 140,000 people escape poverty every day.
- Today’s average person can expect to live roughly as long as the wealthiest person in the ‘50s.
- The world is more democratic than ever. Two out of three countries are a democracy.
- Fatal plane crashes have shrunk with every passing decade. Now the odds of plummeting to your death is about 1 in 29 million.
- In the ‘40s, less than half the world was literate. Now 80% of all people can read or write.
- Back in the 80s, the Commodore 64—the best selling personal computer of all time—would run you (including inflation) $1,576. Today, that type of cash can get you a machine that’s thousands of times more powerful with enough money left to buy a year’s worth of coca-cola and a case of BICs.
Progress isn’t a matter of faith. It’s a fact. Let’s work our hardest to keep it that way.