Indisputable achievements of mankind according to Bill Gates

No wonder that the richest man on earth - an avid reader. In his personal blog, Bill Gates even paid time to regularly share with users on the network their thoughts and impressions about the books they read.

In a recent post, the billionaire admitted that his new favorite book - a historical bestseller "Education today" (Enlightenment Now) scientist and Harvard professor Steven Pinker. The book was printed in February of this year, and Gates was able to get a copy before it appeared on the shelves.

The blog billionaire told what the idea intrigued him most, and offer readers five most interesting, in his opinion, the facts from the book.

The "Enlightenment today," the author carefully examines human history, touching her on the facts and come to an optimistic conclusion - humanity is now experiencing the most peaceful and safe time in history.

Pinker is passed through 15 different categories such as literacy, quality of life and safety, and with the help of statistical calculations compares these figures over the centuries.

"Like any start measuring people's well-being - the human species has made impressive progress, but nobody talks about it."

Steven Pinker

"Educating today," Steven Pinker (2018)

In spite of all the negativity that we see regularly in the news, the scientist conclusions are striking. He argues that, based on any objective measure, people today live safer, than ever before in history.

"I often talk about reducing poverty and child deaths, as it is such an obvious, a clear indication of progress. Pinker is looking at is not the obvious facts. "

Bill Gates

Steven Pinker (left) and Bill Gates

1. The time spent washing, decreased from 11, 5 hours per week in 1920 to one and a half hours in 2014.

"This piece, of course, sounds like a small thing in the" grand scheme of things "," - wrote in his blog Gates. But technological innovation in the field of household gave humanity - in particular its beautiful half - a huge amount of free time and contribute to overcoming the gender division of labor.

Pinker in his book calls the washing machine the greatest invention of the industrial revolution - because it freed a man a whole day a week. In general, according to his calculations, the time that a person spends on cleaning the house, fell from 58 hours a week at the beginning of the XX century up to 15 hours in our day.

2. You have now almost no risk to die on the

In 1929, the number of deaths from accidents at work was 20 000 lives in the United States per year. Today, that figure has fallen by 4 times - up to 5000, despite the fact that the population has grown at 2, 5 times.

A key role in the progress in this direction was played earlier reforms such as the introduction of the employer's liability and compensation for workers. It is this practice of law, today spread all over the world, stimulated the creation of more secure jobs.

3 from the lightning strike probability of death is 37 times less than a hundred years ago,

"Overcoming mankind everyday hazards - it is extremely underrated form of progress," - says Pinker. And the risk of dying from a lightning strike - only the most obvious example.

After all, this danger has almost disappeared from our lives, not because today fewer thunderstorms, but because humanity today has the necessary technology to monitor the weather. Play a role in improving the security of education, as well as the fact that many more people now live in cities.

4. The median IQ worldwide grows by three points every decade

The brain in younger generations is developing rapidly thanks to the good food and a clean environment. Pinker also indicates greater demand for analytical thinking in everyday life.

To understand what he has in mind enough to think about how often and in what quantities we process information, checking the home screen of your phone or looking at a map in the subway. Despite some of the negative effects such as habituation to the devices handling large amounts of information encourages abstract thinking from an early age, and it makes us smarter.

5. The war was illegal

This idea seems obvious, however, to create a single UN regulations did not exist in 1945 or even in the constitution of the international standards, according to which the country would not be able to join with each other in a war, if it suits them.

Conflicts, of course, have not gone away - in his book, the author even makes correction for deviation in statistics because of what is happening today in Syria. However, the attitude to the war has changed. If a couple of centuries ago, it was considered commonplace, and the risk of being on the battlefield was very great, but today in the minds of the war - this is something unacceptable. But such an attitude - it is the exception rather than the norm in history.