ALL LINKS ARE NOW WORKING.
Online book, first draft, 24 March 2024. (170 pages).
Chapter 2 notes four recent reports (3 pages).
Chapters 3 to 9 have appeared elsewhere over the past ten years.
Is the world getting better?
2 Climate; fertility; happiness; and democracy.
3 Value Trajectories: Wellbeing, Wealth, Health, Peace and the Environment.
4 Social and psychological space - geographical variation.
5 Time series: social value, violence and population.
6 The World Economy: Growth and Inequality.
7 Gender: Culture and Psychology, Literacy and Education.
8 Better world, worse democracy? (I hope this link works)
9 Divided world? Opinion distribution trajectories.
“Violence is not the only unpleasant thing that has changed: disease,
poverty, illiteracy, premature death, and other scourges of the human
condition have decreased as well.” Steven Pinker, 2015.
“All the problems we face are solvable despite all the terrible news that
you see. If you had to choose a moment in human history in which you
would want to be born you’d choose today because the fact is that the
world is healthier, wealthier, better educated and more tolerant, more
sophisticated and less violent.” Barack Obama, 2017.
Gordon Burt, gordonjburt@gmail.com