Reasons to be cheerful
Most of my personal and professional acquaintances voted – like me – for Britain to remain a member of the European Union and are – like me – deeply troubled by the narrow decision to leave the EU. But there are still many reasons to be cheerful that we live at this special time in history.
I am currently reading a fascinating book called “Age Of Discovery” written by Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna. The theme of the book is that we are living in a time which is in effect a New Renaissance and we should learn some of the lessons from the original Renaissance some 500 years ago.
In the introductory chapter, the authors write:
“For the first time ever, the number of poor people in the world has plummeted (by over one billion people since 1990) and the overall population has swelled (by some two billion) at the same time. Scientists alive today outnumber all scientists who ever lived up to 1980, and – in part thanks to them – average life expectancy has risen more in the past fifty years than in the previous 1,000.”