How We're Dying: A Sign of Progress

It's easy to follow the news and feel like we're living in the most extreme times in history. Democracies are devolving into right wing authoritarian regimes. Another gang, drug cartel, or run-of-the-mill psychopath has just gone on a killing spree. There's ongoing violence and unrest in the Middle East. Still. Some militaristic dictator has just killed a bunch of dissenters. Three people were murdered in a neighborhood near you. Politicians can't agree on an issue and people are upset. The planet is melting. And the Muslims... well I'm sure they're up to no good. I don't wish to trivialize any of those stories (the ones based in reality, anyway) which are tragic and almost always feature grave injustice. Even in mock form those headlines give the impression that things are generally terrible and probably couldn't get worse

But I wanted to see if there was any data to support or refute that idea. So I decided to look up some data on how people are actually dying. So join me for a couple of minutes, take a break from the news, and let's look at the bigger picture for a couple of minutes. When we do, we will see that things can get worse for humanity, and in fact they used to be much worse. Which might, I mean it's possible, that it could maybe indicate, that things are getting... better?

This next statement might not appear like a positive piece of news, but it is: More and more people these days are dying of good old fashioned age-related illness¹. That's is good news because it means that they aren't dying from other more discouraging things like violence and war, easily preventable diseases, or malnutrition. People are still dying from those things, but as a percentage of the world's population it is much less than it used to be. Here is a breakdown of how we collectively died in 2016 as a percentage of the total 54.7 million global deaths:

Why Atheists Are Illogical Too

If you ask someone today how the universe was created, and were able to really press them with questions, somehow defying the odds and avoiding a fist fight, and forced them to answer I believe you would get one of two responses: "God" (or another word referring to the same concept, some all powerful creative force or entity, perhaps multiple gods etc), or "I don't know". Except maybe from the Buddhists who would dodge the question and tell you your personal liberation is what you should be thinking about. Some will respond that the Big Bang created the universe and might tell you as much as they know about that theory, but you, the whip snap learned person you are, would ask them what created the high density, high temperature state which precipitated the Big Bang, and at a certain point in the conversation they would not be able to give any further explanation as to how the universe was created.

Of course, the question itself might be bullshit. It's possible that the universe was never created and has simply always just existed. But you could then try the same line of questioning on “Why does the universe exist?” and get the same two answers.

Human (vs) Nature

I am not a fan of rock stacking. This is my controversial opinion of the day. I'm sure it will incense... someone. Perhaps it will set off such a series of arguments that result in an increase of my number of Twitter followers, my ultimate goal. To avoid confusion I am referring to the act by which humans, usually in some outdoorsy location like near a beach or a hiking trail, take some number of rocks and stack them on top of each other to make a vertical column, pyramid, or some other artistic shape.

I'll take a quick moment to differentiate this from cairn stacking (which can look exactly the same) but serves the purpose of signaling where a path is located, which is perfectly acceptable. Cairn stacking is minimally destructive to the natural environment and can even bring a net decrease in environmental destruction by keeping people on the trail while allowing them an opportunity to experience a natural environment. Also, some cultures will stack rocks on the outskirts of town to signify the beginning of a journey and the intent to return, and since those cultures are much older than I am, I'm not going to tell them it's wrong.

Who built it better, nature or man? (Near Ama Dablam, Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal)  -Photo By Ariel Gardiner