Is Our World just part of an Experiment?

‍ ‍ What if we’re 100,000 years into a million-year experiment? Crazy? Maybe, but if you think about the present day in those terms, how do you think we’re doing? I posed that question to some people I know from a diverse grouping of backgrounds and was caught off-guard by nearly all of them starting out with a one-word response of either terrible or horrible. Ouch! To be fair, none of the people I asked were scientists who are accustomed to following a response with solid evidence. Still, I found myself greatly concerned with this negative perspective which prompted me to initiate a deep dive into searching for my own answer that would embrace the good over the bad. Was there enough evidence out there to support that we’re currently a society that’s truly doing great?

                  Since our country has been celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, my focus on how we’re doing narrowed down to the prior 250 years. If I were to meet our forefathers up in heaven, what would I want to share with them the most regarding what they had a hand in starting all those years ago? And not just about our country alone, but about the world as a whole including the influence the United States has had on the world.

                  I’d share with our forefathers the role industrialization and productivity growth has had on ending the near-universal subsistence level poverty that characterized almost all of human history before it. I’d share that even though the world population grew by roughly 8 times, the share of people living in extreme poverty fell from the vast majority to a small minority. I’d add that life expectancy more than doubled, from around 30 years globally in 1800 to over 70 today, which was driven by medicine, sanitation, and nutrition. I’d be so happy to share an update on child mortality that went from losing a third or more of children before adulthood during their time to being extremely rare in most of the world today.

                  How wonderful it would be to share that smallpox was eradicated, and that diseases like polio, measles, and diphtheria went from routine killers to rare occurrences. I’d be thrilled to share that slavery has been abolished as a legal institution across virtually every country, a practice that had persisted in nearly all civilizations for millennia previously. It would be exciting to tell them about current women’s rights. Women have acquired legal personhood, voting rights, property rights, access to education, and inclusion in the workforce from near-zero to substantial (if still incomplete) equality.

                  How please would our forefathers be to hear that some form of democracy is now the norm in most countries with monarchy and autocracy having receded in what was once the default form of government. And how about the growth of universal public education? Literacy has gone from a minority privilege to a near-universal expectation. Yay!

                  There are some things that we all currently take for granted that would cause our forefathers to spin in their graves if they knew. Things like Germ-free surgery and anesthesia that has transformed medicine from a last resort in their day into a reliable, low-risk intervention today. And what about the “Electrification” of our world which has reshaped daily life, work, and safety in ways unimaginable 250 years ago. Add to that the modernization of transportation where vehicles, planes, and trains have transformed what used to take weeks into a couple of hours.

                  I feel like they’d be proud of the green revolution that’s taken place. Agricultural science has ended most famine in the regions of the world that historically suffered from it cyclically. And our society has made huge and significant strides in how we view the treasures the earth provides to us and the responsibility we have to be caretakers of this generation and of all generations to follow. My guess is that while our forefathers would be impressed with where we’re at, they’d also tell us that we can do better, much better, to which we’d humbly have to agree. Still, environmental regulation and conservation movements were essentially nonexistent before the 20th century and are now a standard part of governance in most nations.

                  I’ll bet it would please our forefathers to know that there’s been a decline of great-power war frequency, especially since 1945. War still exists but is mostly isolated rather than what would be considered a “World War” similar to what occurred in the past. Can some of that be a result of Global communications networks that currently offer an instant exchange of information across the world? Think of how long our first group of Presidents had to wait to receive critical information that traveled by boat from countries abroad that had impact on decisions they were making at the time. How would we ever explain the internet to them. And yet, the internet dominates every one of our lives today from social media to email to news and information, and now to the use of AI.

                  Do we have scars from the past and a host of current blemishes? Absolutely! They’re just like my own. You wouldn’t believe all the scars (with stories for each of them) that I get to share with my grandkids, and I’m loaded with blemishes (I’m an imperfect human, just like you). But as I’ve aged, I’ve created a rich history of constant and never-ending improvement which allows me to be comfortable with my current set of character traits that are exposed to the world every day.

That’s why I enthusiastically feel that, as a society deep within a vast world experiment, we’re really doing great. I’m also super excited about all the room for improvement that currently exists. I hope that you’ll discover this same powerful perspective that I have. It provides an instant enhancement to the life you’re living today. Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!