Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
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Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
@Elizafox
Flash storage is more expensive than ever and only improving in quality because it supports the AI bubble. When the bubble pops, the storage will briefly become near-worthless and manufacturers will stop making it, which will only make the crisis worse in the long run.I straight-up do not believe you about Amtrak. You're telling me more people are riding it now than in any of its first 10 years? And the per-capita statistics have got to be very different.
The unions we have are useless. Everyone in my store is unhappy with their job, the company keeps cutting our hours and taking it as a sign to keep doing it when it doesn't immediately kill the store. Yet nobody seriously believes we have the power to stop or reverse it.
Murder rates may be falling but have you considered that people being murdered by stochastic terrorism are generally not being counted? We're caught in the middle of several genocides brought on by public figures who affect societal behaviors in such a way that it makes their targets suicidal. Not to mention, victims of bombings during wars (and "illegal military operations") are also counted separately. The crime isn't going away, it's just centralizing to those with power.
We may have to create entirely new infrastructure to escape the corporate internet, access to it today is much less useful than it was 10-15 years ago thanks to corporate meddling like ads, generated content (AI), social media algorithms (AI), and age verification (AI). So long, and thanks for all the technological progress!
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Cancer treatments are getting better. Slowly but surely. (Other areas of medicine may be improving too but circumstances pushed me to learn oncology as a layperson and I still keep up with it.)
@angelastella @Elizafox Not just treatments but we are actually discovering vaccines for some types of cancer!
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Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
@Elizafox it's even better - BYD flash charging does 10-70% in 5 minutes, or 10-97% in 9 minutes (12 minutes if operating at -30°C). And others (Zeekr, CATL, Dongfeng, ...) have similar capabilities.
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@aburka EU weather forecasting is good!
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@YinYinFalcon @Elizafox 24h is a luxury. Saturday morning the forecast was completely dry. 1pm urgent text warning of thunderstorms, flash floods, the works. It did rain for a little bit but just the usual kind. This is normal
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Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
@Elizafox And in a lot of places, things like electricity access and computing storage failure can be attributed to a failure of policy/business decisions, NOT a failure of tech.
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@YinYinFalcon @Elizafox 24h is a luxury. Saturday morning the forecast was completely dry. 1pm urgent text warning of thunderstorms, flash floods, the works. It did rain for a little bit but just the usual kind. This is normal
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@Elizafox Great book trying to focus on such positive things, worth a read for anyone who is feeling down: "Enlightenment Now", by Steven Pinker
@d1 Not trying to be a downer, but before recommending Pinker, I think its important to know who he is.
https://epsteinexposed.com/persons/steven-pinker
https://www.independent.com/2018/10/11/enlightened-denials/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jun/07/harvard-steven-pinker-aporia-podcast
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@angelastella @Elizafox Not just treatments but we are actually discovering vaccines for some types of cancer!
Yes, we've had immunotherapy for bladder cancer using the BCG vaccine since the 1970s, a vaccine for hepatitis B (major cause of liver cancer) since 1981, and one for papillomavirus (cervical cancer and many others) since 2006, which strangely didn't make sex-crazed fiends out of the kids who received it.
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Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
@Elizafox in the US weather forecasting got so much worse, since the NWS fired half their employees lmao -
Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
@Elizafox I want to add this to the good news: the ban on greyhound racing in New Zealand just went into effect at the beginning of the month
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Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
Oh and mRNA vaccines are the quintessence of vaccine technology - barely any side effects, surprisingly effective and flexible, and can be ramped up from development to production in record time - which is great for seasonal infections like the flu, or quickly-developing ones like ebola -
@YinYinFalcon @aburka @Elizafox Thank you! I knew I couldn't be the only one who thought weather forecasts have become terribly unreliable (and I'm also in the EU)! Could it be that they haven't updated their models for climate change yet?
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Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
@Elizafox seems like housing access pressures might actually slow down or even reverse in a lot of areas as the population ages (which will have it's own problems but can be addressed) and governments are increasingly pressured via a younger voter block to address the housing crisis. As we're starting to experience in Aus where I live with new tax policies to punish investors speculating and wealth storing whilst encouraging new homes to be built.
There's also efforts to densify and de-car-ify cities with increasing in teaching kids how to ride bikes (which might install long term habit changes). Because cities need to and because there's more public awareness for good transit infrastructure.
Internet infrastructure looks like it will continue to get expedentially faster relative to other technologies and cheaper.
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@Elizafox seems like housing access pressures might actually slow down or even reverse in a lot of areas as the population ages (which will have it's own problems but can be addressed) and governments are increasingly pressured via a younger voter block to address the housing crisis. As we're starting to experience in Aus where I live with new tax policies to punish investors speculating and wealth storing whilst encouraging new homes to be built.
There's also efforts to densify and de-car-ify cities with increasing in teaching kids how to ride bikes (which might install long term habit changes). Because cities need to and because there's more public awareness for good transit infrastructure.
Internet infrastructure looks like it will continue to get expedentially faster relative to other technologies and cheaper.
@Elizafox Electrification is actually going pretty well when one considers the inherent efficiency of it, even if renewable electricity produced is a fraction compared to total energy usage, the gap is much smaller when considering how much energy is lost under legacy methods.
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@aburka EU weather forecasting is good!
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Some apps give a diff but I don't know if anyone has a list of which ones do that.
Tusky (android only) https://tusky.app/ does, for example
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Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
@Elizafox Improvements in medicine in recent decades have been staggering. I wish they were covered more.
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@YinYinFalcon @aburka @Elizafox part of the reason for that is climate change, makes weather much more changeable and unpredictable.
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Everyone thinks everything has gotten worse
Here’s some things that actually haven’t:
- Weather forecasting: it’s better than ever (outside of the US)
- Solar: cheaper than natural gas
- Coal: essentially dying from not being cheaper than natgas or solar
- Timekeeping: now accurate over galactic timescales
- Flash storage: surpassing spinning rust
- Public transit ridership in the US: Amtrak is posting the best numbers ever
- Union membership in the US: rising
- Murder rates: falling in the US and worldwide on average, believe it or not
- CFC’s: essentially abolished and gone, the biggest environmental win of our lifetimes
- Acid rain: increasingly a nearly-solved issue
- Electrical access: still rising worldwide
- Internet access: most people are now connected everywhere
- China is leading the way in green tech and actively working to get off fossil fuels
- You can charge an EV from 0 to 80% in 15 minutes with the newest chargers and tech, and it’s still getting faster
And so much more. Lots of quiet wins that people never hear about because all they do is doomscroll.
@Elizafox Yes thanks for reminding, some things got better. As Max Roser puts it: "The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better.
It is wrong to think these three statements contradict each other. We need to see that they are all true to see that a better world is possible."
https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
#owid #ourworldindata
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