Times feel rough - with natural disasters, major political conflicts and uncertainty
about the future.
But as the memes roll in about it being a horrible time to be alive, you might be surprised
to see your life now vs what it would have been in the past.
Much of history actually involves humans succumbing to malnutrition and hunger.
In Ancient Egypt, a severe drought could hit and 5-10% of the entire population would die.
Of course, things aren’t perfect today with 11% of even France suffering from food insecurity
- which means their diet is limited due to socio-economic status and they eat less nutritious
foods and excess amounts of carbohydrates and salt - but compare this to the years of
1692-1694 when 15% of France’s population literally died because food was simply too
expensive.
Today, while millions do suffer from malnutrition, advancements in technology, government agencies
and NGOs help to ensure that most are not dying.
In fact, for the first time in human history, more people are overweight than suffering
from malnutrition.
As homo sapiens began to live in cities, there was a massive increase in disease.
In the 1330’s a horrifying outbreak of what they believed were demons, bad air or angry
gods killed 75-200 million people.
We now realize it was the flea dwelling bacterium Yersinia Pestis, known historically as the
black plague.
But at the time, people really had no idea what was killing them.
In 1520 a spanish flotilla heading to Mexico had an individual on it, carrying an early
case of smallpox virus.
Within 2 months, the disease had killed 1/3rd of Mexico’ population.
In the years following, there were so many infectious disease outbreaks in Mexico, that
the population fell from 22 million to 2 million over the course of only 60 years.
People were constantly dying of diseases and nobody knew how to cure them.
Remedies at the time included praying, having cold baths, or rubbing black beetles on sores.
Even as recently as 1918, the Spanish Flu spread internationally and within a few months
1/3rd of the entire world population was infected, and 3-5% of the world died.
Today, most of our flu worries are based around the pain of needles.
Modern medicine saves millions of lives.
The smallpox vaccine fully eradicated the disease from our planet.
When diseases like SARS or Ebola appear and the world prepares for a severe public health
emergency, far fewer people die due to international organization, modern technology and continued
advancements in medicine.
When Europe colonized the Americas, an estimated 100 million people died, though pre-colonization
populations of indigenous people is not well documented making some estimates millions
higher.
As many as 85 million people died in WWII and in ancient agricultural societies, human
violence caused 15% of all deaths.
Today, human violence accounts for around 1% of deaths.
In 2012, only 120,000 died in war, whereas 1.5 million died of diabetes.
For the first time in human history when most people consider the future, they don’t assume
war.
As we look to this year, while there is still starvation, disease, war and inequalities,
it is drastically better than most of human history.
But we must continue to be critical of our government’s, challenge companies and rethink
the way human society is structured in order to continue progress.
By acknowledging the successful human efforts in medical research, economic reform, peace
initiatives and governmental support to decrease starvation, disease and violence, we can find
hope for the future.
Hope is a valuable notion to focus on as we look for a way to be content in a world that,
at times, can seem so overwhelmingly bad.
If you could use a little light hearted fun, check out our latest T-shirt “The rotation
of the earth makes my day” which we just launched and is available for the next 2 weeks
only at asapscience.com/merch.
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