fbpx

Human Progress Logo Human Progress

01 / 05
1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023

Blog Post | Human Development

1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023

A necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.

Malcolm Cochran —

Reading the news can leave you depressed and misinformed. It’s partisan, shallow, and, above all, hopelessly negative. As Steven Pinker from Harvard University quipped, “The news is a nonrandom sample of the worst events happening on the planet on a given day.”

So, why does Human Progress feature so many news items? And why did I compile them in this giant list? Here are a few reasons:

  • Negative headlines get more clicks. Promoting positive stories provides a necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.
  • Statistics are vital to a proper understanding of the world, but many find anecdotes more compelling.
  • Many people acknowledge humanity’s progress compared to the past but remain unreasonably pessimistic about the present—not to mention the future. Positive news can help improve their state of mind.
  • We have agency to make the world better. It is appropriate to recognize and be grateful for those who do.

Below is a nonrandom sample (n = ~1000) of positive news we collected this year, separated by topic area. Please scroll, skim, and click. Or—to be even more enlightened—read this blog post and then look through our collection of long-term trends and datasets.

Agriculture

Aquaculture

Farming robots and drones

Food abundance

Genetic modification

Indoor farming

Lab-grown produce

Pollination

Other innovations

Conservation and Biodiversity

Big cats

Birds

Turtles

Whales

Other comebacks

Forests

Reefs

Rivers and lakes

Surveillance and discovery

Rewilding and conservation

De-extinction

Culture and tolerance

Gender equality

General wellbeing

LGBT

Treatment of animals

Energy and natural Resources

Fission

Fusion

Fossil fuels

Other energy

Recycling and resource efficiency

Resource abundance

Environment and pollution

Climate change

Disaster resilience

Air pollution

Water pollution

Growth and development

Education

Economic growth

Housing and urbanization

Labor and employment

Health

Cancer

Disability and assistive technology

Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Diabetes

Heart disease and stroke

Other non-communicable diseases

HIV/AIDS

Malaria

Other communicable diseases

Maternal care

Fertility and birth control

Mental health and addiction

Weight and nutrition

Longevity and mortality 

Surgery and emergency medicine

Measurement and imaging

Health systems

Other innovations

Freedom

    Technology 

    Artificial intelligence

    Communications

    Computing

    Construction and manufacturing

    Drones

    Robotics and automation

    Autonomous vehicles

    Transportation

    Other innovations

    Science

    AI in science

    Biology

    Chemistry and materials

      Physics

      Space

      Violence

      Crime

      War

      Bloomberg | Motor Vehicles

      Uber Partners With WeRide to Offer Robotaxi Rides in UAE

      “Uber Technologies Inc. is partnering with Chinese autonomous car company WeRide Inc. to expand its robotaxi offering to the United Arab Emirates.

      Users of the Uber app in Abu Dhabi will be able to book a ride in a robotaxi from later this year, the companies said in a statement on Wednesday.

      Uber has signed a string of deals with driverless car companies including Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and Cruise LLC as part of an effort to position itself as a platform for commercializing autonomous vehicles.”

      From Bloomberg.

      Ars Technica | Infrastructure & Transportation

      Driverless Semis Could Be Months Away

      “On a sunny morning in December, an 18-wheeler will pull into a truck depot in Palmer, Texas, just south of Dallas. The driver will step out of the cab and help transfer his trailer to a second rig outfitted with powerful sensors.

      This second truck will head south on Interstate 45 toward Houston. It will move cautiously, mostly cruising in the right lane at 65 mph despite the 75 mph speed limit…

      Trucks travel the 200 miles between Dallas and Houston all the time. But there will be something special about the middle leg of this trip: There will be no one in the vehicle.

      A startup called Aurora has spent seven years—and hundreds of millions of dollars—preparing for this driverless trip, which it hopes to complete before the end of the year.”

      From Ars Technica.

      Newsletter | Motor Vehicles

      Weekly Progress Roundup

      Malcolm Cochran —

      Sign up for our newsletter to receive these emails in your inbox.

      City by city, Waymo is making self-driving taxis a reality.

      Across its operations in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, the company now delivers one hundred thousand rides every week. That’s not a lot for a taxi company—New York City taxi drivers pick up more fares in a day—but it’s an incredible achievement for autonomous driving. Almost exactly a year ago, Waymo provided just ten thousand rides per week.

      Waymo’s journey has not been easy. Mobs and lunatics have attacked Waymo cars and even set them aflame, while local bureaucrats and unions see any misstep as an opportunity to rein in the company.

      So far, Waymo has kept its adversaries at bay with a strategy of extreme caution. Their safety record far surpasses the average human driver and, so far, no death or serious injury has come from an accident caused by a Waymo vehicle. If anything, Waymo has been too cautious. In unfamiliar situations, Waymos are programmed to freeze and call a human remote operator for help. This protocol has caused the vehicles to occasionally block first responders trying to access crash sites. Users have also complained about the cars refusing to drive down chaotic streets or make common but illegal maneuvers—such as pulling into a bus stop—to pick up passengers more quickly.

      However, Waymo’s caution turned out to be wise. After a series of accidents last year sparked major outrage, Cruise, a competing self-driving car company with a spottier safety record, was banned from San Francisco.

      On one hand, it’s frustrating to see self-driving cars held to unfairly high standards. Cruise’s vehicles, despite their high-profile accidents, were still safer than human drivers and likely would have reduced total traffic deaths in San Francisco. However, the backlash also isn’t surprising. Whenever a new technology arrives, threatened special interest groups and overwrought citizens join forces and attempt to ban it. The opposition often succeeds.

      Fortunately, there are signs that Waymo is winning the public relations battle. According to a recent article in The San Francisco Standard, safety-conscious parents are using Waymo to ferry their kids between home, school, and piano lessons. They prefer the driverless, remotely trackable vehicle over driving their children themselves or sending them in an Uber with a stranger. It would be hard to come up with a better testament to Waymo’s improving image.

      At this point, it seems likely that Waymo will survive the initial wave of pessimism. Already in San Francisco, their robotaxis are fading into the background while improving people’s lives in innumerable and unexpected ways.

      Malcolm Cochran, Digital Communications Manager

      Energy & Environment:

      Food & Hunger:

      Health & Demographics:

      Science & Technology:

      Curiosities:

      Tweets:

      Blog Post | Motor Vehicles

      Driving in 2021 Was 225 Percent Safer than in 1970

      Deaths per traffic mile have decreased by 69.3 percent while miles per gallon increased by 95.4 percent.

      Gale Pooley —

      Summary: Over the span of five decades, advancements in vehicle safety technology have contributed to substantial improvements in traffic safety. Meanwhile, significant enhancements in fuel efficiency have been achieved. If you define travel abundance as a combination of these two factors, then abundance has increased by 596 percent.

      Between 1970 and 2021, the rate of traffic deaths for every 100 million miles driven decreased by 69.3 percent, from 4.88 to 1.50, according to the National Safety Council.

      Vehicle miles driven increased 179.8 percent from 1.12 billion miles in 1970 to 3.13 billion in 2021. During this same period, the number of deaths decreased by 14 percent from 54,633 to 46,980.

      This graph shows an increase in miles driven over time with the death rate per mile decreasing.

      If traffic safety hadn’t improved since 1970, there would have been 152,842 traffic deaths in 2021 instead of 46,980. Adjusted for miles driven, for every traffic death in 2021, there were 3.25 in 1970 (4.88 ÷ 1.5 = 3.25).

      The opposite of the death rate would be the life safety rate. If we index traffic safety at a value of 1 in 1970, the rate would be 3.25 in 2021. Measured from this perspective, 2021 was 225 percent safer than 1970. Vehicle safety has been increasing at a compound annual rate of 2.34 percent, doubling every 30 years.

      Cars and drivers are both getting safer by getting smarter. Cars today have three-point seat belts, air bags, stability control, backup cameras, blind spot detection, anti-lock brakes, radial belted tires, headrests, tire pressure monitoring, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, adaptive headlights, adaptive cruise control, and anchors for child seats.

      We also get much better mileage. The full-size Ford Galaxie took the number-one spot in sales for 1970. It got 13 to 16 miles per gallon. Today’s bestseller is the Honda CRV, which gets 28 to 34 miles per gallon. Gas mileage has increased by 114 percent while safety has improved by 225 percent. If you define travel abundance as a combination of these two factors, then abundance has increased by 596 percent.

      This article was published at Gale Winds on 4/24/2024.