{"id":339694,"date":"2017-04-30T21:00:09","date_gmt":"2017-04-30T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1483364"},"modified":"2017-04-30T21:00:09","modified_gmt":"2017-04-30T13:00:09","slug":"reasons-to-be-cheerful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/reasons-to-be-cheerful\/","title":{"rendered":"Reasons to be cheerful"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I know, I know, it\u2019s been a rough year. Fury, discord, and hatred seem to be on the rise. The super-elite keep getting richer, while young workers keep getting poorer<\/a>, and economic mobility has plummeted<\/a>. \u201cThe best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet. Quietly, stubbornly, defying the headlines, bit by bit, around the world, slow shifts are underway towards a better world. Could they be erased by some kind of sudden disaster? Sure. And yet it\u2019s hard to deny that profound changes for the better keep happening. I don\u2019t mean to minimize the bad things. But minimizing the good things is just as misleading. Let\u2019s itemize a few of them.<\/p>\n

Renewable power costs have fallen off a cliff<\/strong><\/p>\n

The world got 9% more new renewable energy in 2016 \u2026 while spending 23% less<\/em> on it. \u201cWind, solar, biomass and waste-to-energy, geothermal, small hydro and marine sources added 138.5 gigawatts to global power capacity in 2016, up almost 9 per cent \u2026 Investment in renewables capacity was roughly double that in fossil fuel generation; the corresponding new capacity from renewables was equivalent to 55% of all new power\u2026 The proportion of electricity coming from renewables excluding large hydro rose from 10.3 per cent to 11.3 per cent,\u201d reports<\/a> Science Daily<\/em>. In a single year. That is amazing. From the same report: \u201cUnsubsidised wind and solar can provide the lowest cost new electrical power in an increasing number of countries, even in the developing world \u2014 sometimes by a factor of two.\u201d While you aren\u2019t even looking, solar and wind are eating fossil fuels\u2019 lunch.<\/p>\n

Electrical self-driving cars are around the corner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sure<\/em>, you may sniff, but I still fill my car up with gas.<\/em> Not for all that much longer. Everyone, not just Tesla<\/a>, is going electric. Though admittedly only Tesla afaik is launching an electric transport truck<\/a>, oh, yes, and several new Gigafactories<\/a>. As for cleanly charging your electric car, I mean, they did buy SolarCity<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

The culture wars are over, and freedom won<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to think that we\u2019re in the midst of some kind of Neanderthal movement against greater liberty for individuals in the West. Let me remind you: this isn\u2019t an overwhelming authoritarian tide, this is futile backlash against unprecedented progress. Twenty years ago, the notion that same-sex marriage would both be legal and wildly popular was unthinkable<\/em>. The notion that broad swathes of America would legalize marijuana was a joke<\/em>. The notion that people could build businesses around talking frankly about sex was, likewise, laughable. But here we are today: marriage freedom, THC freedom (I don\u2019t even like the stuff myself, but it\u2019s obviously a win for everyone), and sexual freedom, as personified by eg walking force of nature Cindy Gallop:<\/p>\n

The era of privacy ignorance has ended<\/strong><\/p>\n

The NSA is ending<\/a> some of the surveillance it performs on US persons. As a non-US-citizen, this strikes me as a half measure \u2014 but it\u2019s a moot point, since this is clearly driven in part by the fact that, post-Snowden, the world is taking its privacy much more seriously. Vastly more Internet traffic is encrypted by default. More than a billion people now communicate via hardened end-to-end encryption by default (despite deeply irresponsible and ignorant hatchet jobs<\/a> by publications that should know better.) I mean, people may still consciously choose<\/em> to bug their homes with devices over which they have essentially no administrative control<\/p>\n

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Say what you will about the NSA, at least they don\u2019t charge you for the always-on home microphone and camera<\/p>\n

\u2014 Pinboard (@Pinboard) April 26, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/div>\n

but hey, at least now it\u2019s a choice.<\/p>\n

Poverty relief is getting better and more direct around the world<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have been anti-aid-industry<\/a> for many years. Now, at last, a valid alternative has arisen: the radical notion of letting aid recipients decide how to spend the money allocated to them. Charities like GiveDirectly<\/a> are doing just that, with a really admirable focus on gathering as much data as possible to test their thesis that this is effective aid and poverty relief, rather than claiming defensively that whatever they do must be unquestionably wonderful, which so often appears to be the aid-industry default. Meanwhile, in the developed world, my home province of Ontario is allocating a whopping C$150 million to a universal basic income<\/a> pilot project. It\u2019s an idea whose time has come.<\/p>\n

This<\/strong><\/p>\n

My friends are doing awesome things<\/strong><\/p>\n

OK, this is personal and idiosyncratic and obviously doesn\u2019t scale, but I\u2019ve noticed that there\u2019s been a huge upswing in people I know launching really excellent pro bono projects in the last six months, almost as if they feel there\u2019s a sudden altruism vacuum that needs to be filled. For instance:<\/p>\n