Tuesday, October 18, 2016

A powerful comic that'll put this election cycle into perspective.

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Lately it feels like everywhere we go, in everything we do, we're surrounded by the same 4-letter-words. (A passing car swears at a pedestrian.) No, not THOSE four-letter words.

FEAR and HATE fill the news each day.

It feels like there's always more GUNS, more WARS, more RAPE and PAIN.

A lack of JOBS and CASH has left the POOR with DRUG use, HURT, and RAGE.

We're told to VOTE for what we want to win the race. But RACE itself is still a factor in so many things.

We're SICK. We're tired. And no matter what we do, the HEAT keeps rising.

We focus on the bad because it keeps us SAFE from harm. It's how our brains avoid danger.

But sometimes that survival instinct gets too loud, and we end up tuning out the other thing that gets us through the day: HOPE.

Right now, for the first time in human history, extreme poverty affects less than 10% of the population. More than a billion people have risen out of poverty in the last 25 years.

You know what else is down? Crime in general, across the whole United States. And believe it or not, gun homicides are half of what they were in 1993.

On average, people are living for more than twice as long as they did at the turn of the 20th century, too. And infant mortality rates are down.

Renewable energy is cheaper than ever, with some places going 100% green. We've even managed to reduce the global rate of oil spills by more than 90% since the 1970s.

Even better is that global war deaths have dropped to about a quarter of what they were in the 1970s. That's right: we're living in the most peaceful era ever. And we're more informed than ever about what our own governments are doing. (For the most part.)

Across the United States, diversity is up, tolerance is up, and wrongful, harsh imprisonments are being commuted at higher rates than ever. Despite some loud and stubborn voices, we're learning and getting better as humans all the time.

So sure, there are a lot of crazy things going on right now. Enough that it makes 'hope' sound naive, or obscene.

But hope is actually the secret to surival. It's the spark that gives us reason to go on. It keeps us fighting.

In a world where people try to take advantage of our fears, hope is revolutionary. It's inspiration.

It's the only way to win.

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Some of these facts might seem unbelievable, which is kind of the point. So here are some handy sources, if you want to find out more:

The vast majority of people were very, very poor for the vast majority of human history, especially as compared to the present.

The last few decades of globalization were not without their struggles. But people are living a lot longer, and in general, things are looking pretty good.

And yes, crime is actually down, on average, over the last 25 years — including deaths from gun violence. (Although the proliferation of bullets is still causing trouble overall.)

Don't get me wrong: Climate change is still a very serious problem. But across the world, we're finding remarkable ways to address it, and we're certainly doing a better job than we did before.

And while there's still a ways to go before we find absolute world peace, it's nice to know that war is on the decline, to the point where there are actually no active armed conflicts in the entire Western hemisphere right now.

I'd say that things are looking up. Wouldn't you agree?



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