In most years the world gets better. It seldom feels that way, admittedly, but that is human nature: we worry about the catastrophe in the news — the earthquake, war, famine or pandemic — and miss the gradual but relentless growth of production, technology and understanding. During recent decades, as charted by social scientists such as Hans Rosling, Max Roser and Steven Pinker, those forces have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. By stopping to do a careful accounting, you can see the process in action, year by year.
When I last did this exercise in 2019, it was easy to conclude life had improved. But some years are different. The chaos wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic has been the greatest challenge to humanity’s grip on its own condition since the height of the nuclear stand-off during the cold war. It is interesting then to ask: did the world get better during 2020 and 2021? Or did the pandemic mark an actual setback to human progress? My answers are: probably and no.
Perhaps the best place to start is with the pandemic itself. Although the statistics are mere estimates, it has directly caused about 275m infections and 5m deaths, as well as having a drastic secondary impact on living standards, with lockdowns and travel restrictions keeping us from our families.