<story><title>Decline of Global Extreme Poverty Continues but Has Slowed</title><url>https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/09/19/decline-of-global-extreme-poverty-continues-but-has-slowed-world-bank</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blocked_again</author><text>A lot of people seems to be skeptical about this. There is a wonderful book called Factfullness which is written exactly for this kind of audience. In his book, Rosling suggests the vast majority of human beings are wrong about the state of the world. He believes his test subjects think the world is poorer, less healthy, and more dangerous than it is. Bill gates sponsored this book for all the students graduating from college and I can exactly see why by going through this thread.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>grecy</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been driving around Africa for over 2 years now. 25 countries in West and Southern Africa.&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;i&gt;a lot&lt;/i&gt; more development, infrastructure, happiness and success here than the majority of &amp;quot;First Worlders&amp;quot; have any notion of. Even when I tell my family directly they don&amp;#x27;t really believe me.&lt;p&gt;4G Internet, chip n pin (or contactless) Credit card payments, multi lane freeways, high rise buildings and of course electricity and drinking water.  That&amp;#x27;s not just South Africa either, all of those exist in Rep. Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali, Zambia just to name a few examples of where people think of &amp;quot;poverty&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I have come to the conclusion that anyone who hasn&amp;#x27;t actually set food on this continent (and ventured outside a guided &amp;quot;safari&amp;quot;) has no way to discover the truth about this place. There is no media outlet that actual portrays an accurate picture, I have never even seen one that gets close.</text></comment>
<story><title>Decline of Global Extreme Poverty Continues but Has Slowed</title><url>https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/09/19/decline-of-global-extreme-poverty-continues-but-has-slowed-world-bank</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blocked_again</author><text>A lot of people seems to be skeptical about this. There is a wonderful book called Factfullness which is written exactly for this kind of audience. In his book, Rosling suggests the vast majority of human beings are wrong about the state of the world. He believes his test subjects think the world is poorer, less healthy, and more dangerous than it is. Bill gates sponsored this book for all the students graduating from college and I can exactly see why by going through this thread.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GreeniFi</author><text>Rosling, Pinker and Gates are right to point out that there have been absolute improvements in living standards across the globe.&lt;p&gt;However as Jeremy Grantham (the British Warren Buffet) warns, these current improvements may have been bought at the expense of future losses as we have destabilized the climate and mined the soils to achieve the gains of recent years.&lt;p&gt;Grantham projects 40% loss in soil productivity in a much more populated world.&lt;p&gt;This is not to knock these fantastic advances, but we now need to double down on ensuring they are sustainable.&lt;p&gt;Here’s Grantham’s paper. It’s a long but fascinating and wel-written read.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gmo.com&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;default-source&amp;#x2F;research-and-commentary&amp;#x2F;strategies&amp;#x2F;asset-allocation&amp;#x2F;the-race-of-our-lives-revisited.pdf?sfvrsn=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gmo.com&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;default-source&amp;#x2F;research-and-comment...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>