Are Things Getting Better or Worse?

Principle of Charity

How should we think and feel about so many things that are still so so bad, but, crucially here, so much better, than they were. Consider child mortality. Apparently, five million children under 5 died in the last year. Yet that number has more than halved in the last 30 years, which is again a huge reduction from the 20 million children under 5 who died each year in 1950. What do we do with information like this? Five million child deaths is an unacceptable tragedy. At the same time, 15 million children are essentially saved each year as compared to 1950.

In this episode we explore the fascinating and intellectually consistent but emotionally incongruent thought - that things are bad, but better. Our guests bring to light data that seldom features in newsfeeds and help to unpack both the great advances being made on the one hand, alongside the worsening situations confronted by many millions of people.

Guests

Francisco Ferreira is the Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies at the London School of Economics, where he is also Director of the International Inequalities Institute.

Francisco is an economist working on the measurement, causes, and consequences of inequality and poverty in developing countries, with a special focus on Latin America. His work has been published widely and been awarded various prizes, including the Richard Stone Prize in Applied Econometrics and the Kendrick Prize from the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth.

He is also an Affiliated Scholar with the Stone Center at the City University of New York; Francisco currently serves as President of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA).

Prior to joining the LSE, Francisco had a long career at the World Bank, where his positions included Chief Economist for the Africa Region He has also taught at the Paris School of Economics.

Francisco was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Emma Varvaloucas, is the executive director of The Progress Network, where she writes the weekly What Could Go Right? newsletter and co-hosts the What Could Go Right? podcast. She was formerly the executive editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. In addition to The Progress Network and Tricycle, her writing has also appeared in the New York Post and Forbes, and has been syndicated by Apple News.

Emma is a 2021 Dialog Emerging Fellow, a graduate of New York University, where she double-majored in journalism and religious studies.

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You can be part of the discussion @PofCharity on Twitter, @PrincipleofCharity on Facebook and @PrincipleofCharityPodcast on Instagram.

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman.

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and Twitter.

This Podcast is Produced by Jonah Primo and Bronwen Reid

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

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