"The psychological temperament of an optimist is not a sunny disposition or a pollyanna delusion that everything is ideal. Rather, optimists believe that bad things are produced by temporary causes that can be overcomed, while pessimists believe bad things always happen, and if anything good happens it’s temporary."
"Being optimistic puts you in alignment with the long arc of history, and a part of something much bigger than yourself. "
The introduction of such a program, which is offered to any students registered to any of the state’s 22 federally recognized tribes, is the first of its kind in an Arizona public university. However, other public universities in California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, and Oregon are already offering free tuition to Native students.
The national program has reduced such occurrences from 40% to below 1% since it was launched 23 years ago.
“This is a huge accomplishment for a country that has one of the most severe HIV epidemics in the world—Botswana demonstrates that an AIDS-free generation is possible,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
“This groundbreaking milestone is a big step forward in ending AIDS on the continent.”
Globally, 15 countries have been certified for eliminating mother-to-child HIV transmission. None of them had an epidemic as large as Botswana. In 1999 the HIV prevalence rate was as high as 30%.
In 1990, about 36 percent of the global population — and nearly half of people in developing countries — lived on less than $1.25 a day, the World Bank’s definition of extreme poverty at the time. (It’s now $1.90 a day.) In 2000, United Nations member states pledged to cut extreme poverty worldwide — specifically to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, from 1990 levels, by 2015.
Bottom line: The U.N. goal was met. By 2015, the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty fell to 12 percent from 36 percent in 1990, a steep decline in just two and a half decades. During a single generation, more than a billion people around the world climbed out of extreme poverty, surpassing the goal.
Black women are the fastest growing demographic of entrepreneurs in the U.S., with nearly 2.7 million businesses nationwide. The number of businesses owned by Black women grew 50% from 2014 to 2019, representing the highest growth rate of any female demographic. Black females accounted for 42% of all women who opened a new business during that time2 and represented 36% of all Black employers.3
The Chinese approach on this is fascinating to study. on the one hand they’ve been incredibly effective. On the other, there’s a lot of forced relocations, barring people from ancestral villages and lands, and very likely using it as a way to restrict and destabilize minority ethnic groups. And to me it begs a fascinating question- is it “good” to lift people from poverty conditions if they don’t want that/want how you’re doing it?
Anyway, it’s a really interesting and complex topic. South China Post and DW both have some good videos on YT on the topic.
I think it’s exceptionally rare that very new progress is 100% positive with no downsides, no one left behind, no critique to be made, etc.
Summary
For example: quit smoking campaigns. They worked, right? I assume most of us are happy about the fact that fewer people smoke and fewer people die due to smoking. But was it discriminatory? Did it disproportionately target poor people and people with less education, who already had very few luxuries? Did it rely on shaming? Are the insane taxes on cigarettes unfair? People certainly think they are if they’re applied to fast food or soda. Did anti-smoking campaigns embolden people to make rude comments to smokers (as a former smoker, yes!). Did that social pressure work? Also yes. Was it a net good? I think so. Was it perfect in every way with no downside to anyone? No. People who worked in the tobacco industry lost their jobs, people got shamed, poor people paid more taxes.
Perfect truly can be the enemy of good. I think it’s really important to look at progress and give that progress a moment of recognition on its own, because it shows us what is working and that change is possible. It’s kind of like, if you were at a graduation ceremony for someone getting a bachelors degree, you wouldn’t go up to them and be like, “yeah but you don’t have a masters degree yet”, even if they need a masters degree to work in their field of choice. Things take time and like a physical recovery I think societal recovery is not linear, there are natural ups and downs and nothing will ever be without fault.
I also think negativity is the natural human inclination, the default, so we don’t have to work as hard at remembering it. Especially in our current culture, which actively stokes fear at every opportunity, and smashes down any indication of goodness. We evolved to see threats and focus on them, to remember them more than non-threats, to be attracted to dramatic stories, etc. I think that’s why it’s vital to present progress as an achievement just for the sake of celebrating, seeing what we are capable of, and reminding ourselves that MASSIVE groundbreaking progress is happening all the time.
OTOH I think groups that are actually making decisions (governments, aid groups, etc.) do have a responsibility to critique what they are doing, how to make it better, invite in-group people to give critique and have power in the org, etc.
I mean, I personally don’t find that at all comparable to forcibly relocating people in order to monitor their birth rates and try to minimize or even extinguish their ethnic group.
Did you see what proportion of the people lifted from extreme poverty were from china? Right now I don’t trust their government generally, but hopefully we can celebrate other groups being lifted out of poverty?
I know both domestic and foreign aid are messy globally, but I think in most cases they are in the bucket of better than watching people die (whereas in china the government is eager for minorities to die unfortunately)
Perhaps it is not a perfect comparison. How about mental healthcare? For most of human history our way of treating mentally ill people was to banish them from civilization or just straight up kill them. Then we developed early mental healthcare, and for many years it was essentially torture. In sanitariums women could be committed by their husbands for things like being “strange” or having a hysteria. Disabled people were often forced in, as well as racial minorities, as they had no other place to go or were considered “strange” based on behavior or mannerism. They were subjected to literal torture under the guise of medicine and many were ripped away from their children and forcibly sterilized. Many died in custody. It was horrible, but was it a step towards the mental healthcare we have now? Yes. Has it gotten better? Yes. Is it perfect yet? No.
What about the founding of Planned Parenthood? It was quite literally founded on the basis of eugenics. The main aim was to eradicate black people, poor people, and disabled people, via forced sterilization. Is that still what’s happening at Planned Parenthood? No. Good can come out of horror, eventually. Things are intertwined in this world, IMO, and rarely is something pure good or pure evil; things can change radically over time and progress can still come out of something marred by horror. Japan is a great example, they did exactly what the Nazi’s did, but in South Korea. Look at Japan now, look at Germany.
I am not denying the atrocities of China by celebrating the global lessening of poverty any more than people who still buy Apple products are happy about their mass genocide, or people who buy chocolate support slave labor, or people who watch pornography love human trafficking. I feel almost as if I’m being accused of something when it’s like, this is the one thread dedicated to the celebration of positive things. Should we not celebrate the fact that Malaysia is gradually getting rid of the death penalty because it’s still one of the most systemically racist and homophobic countries on earth? I think we should! It’s a step.
I’m sorry this was upsetting. I saw it more globally and on a larger span of time, and not purely China specific, so I didn’t feel like I was celebrating an end met exclusively by the means of atrocities. I’ll not post on it anymore either. I don’t want this thread to upset people and take them to dark places.
But instead I got a half naked parrot lol