Life has become better: 5 indisputable achievements of mankind from Bill Gates' favorite book
No wonder the richest man on earth is an avid reader. And in his personal blog, Bill Gates even takes the time to regularly share with netizens his thoughts and impressions about the books he has read.
In a recent post, the billionaire admitted that his new favorite book is the historical bestseller Enlightenment Now by Harvard scientist and professor Steven Pinker. The book was published in February of this year, and Gates managed to get a copy even before it appeared on the shelves.
In his blog, the billionaire talked about what ideas intrigued him the most, and offered readers five of the most interesting, in his opinion, facts from the book.
In "Enlightenment Today", the author carefully examines human history, sorting it by facts, and comes to an optimistic conclusion — humanity is now experiencing the most peaceful and safe time in history.
Pinker goes through 15 different categories like literacy, quality of life and safety and compares these indicators over the centuries using statistical calculations.
Steven Pinker
Despite all the negativity that we constantly see in the news, the scientist's conclusions are striking. He proves that, judging by any objective indicator, people today live safer than ever before in history.
Bill Gates
1. The time spent on laundry decreased from 11.5 hours a week in 1920 to one and a half hours in 2014
Pinker in his book calls the washing machine the greatest invention of the industrial revolution — after all, it freed up a whole working day a week for a person. In general, according to his calculations, the time a person spends cleaning the house has fallen from 58 hours a week at the beginning of the XX century to 15 hours today.
2. You have almost no risk of dying at work today
3. The probability of death from a lightning strike is 37 times lower than a hundred years ago
After all, this danger has practically disappeared from our lives, not because there are fewer thunderstorms today, but because humanity today has the necessary technologies to monitor the weather. The improvement of security education also plays a role, as well as the fact that many more people live in cities today.
4. The average IQ around the world grows by three points every ten years
5. The war has become illegal
The conflicts, of course, have not gone away — in his book, the author even makes an edit for a deviation in statistics due to what is happening in Syria today. However, the attitude towards the war has changed. If a couple of centuries ago it was considered commonplace, and the risk of being on the battlefield was very high, today in the minds of people war is something unacceptable. But such an attitude is an exception rather than the norm in history.
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