277 – Is Life Better or Worse Today?

If you listen to the news, or read the comments on YouTube, you may think the world is getting worse.  All we hear about are political scandals, crime, and economic problems.  That’s not surprising; bad news sells; negative clickbait works! But as we discuss on today’s podcast, world health continues to improve, and extreme poverty is at its lowest level in history.  So why do we think things are getting worse?  It’s partly due to the “negativity instinct”, a concept discussed in the book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World, and Why Things are Better Than you Think by Hans Rosling.  On today’s show we discuss how to spot negativity, and how you can see the positive side of life.