You are of course welcome to not find the issues we are talking about important but Trump and Brexit happened because of exactly that.
The article says life has improved dramatically for the majority of the Earth. Louisswiss is disappointed it doesn't prove the improvements will continue. Epistasis says they only show signs of increasing. You say you shouldn't use global averages to judge the condition of average people. I'm going to assume you meant median people, because otherwise your argument is nonsensical. Even so, the data in the article directly addresses your concern and demonstrates that the median person's situation on Earth is improving dramatically. That was my point.
After all that, Trump? What? The world's middle-rich (median Americans) are not getting richer on the schedule we all expected. That's an issue. But, it's not the current topic.
The point being discussed is that people have such a short-sighted view of the world. And, that view is distorted by fear-mongering media (TV's click bait). This leads people to a strong belief that the world is getting worse in contradiction to all data.
It seems that some people cannot be happy without bad news. 5 billion people doing so much better. And, much of that affects the other 4 billion as well. But, in the face of good news, you always see a people climbing over each other to declare "Sure... Maybe that's good. But, give me a second and I'll find something that's still bad somewhere!"
There is nothing new in the fact that globally the world is getting better but that primarily means the developing countries are getting better not the developed ones where the trend is either stagnating or seem to be reversing.
So can we please stop all the insinuations.
As someone who came from the developing world and still have a lot of family there, I find these statements pretty offensive.
Did you mean it was easy to achieve (not that I would agree with that either).
I was saying the fact that the living conditions are increasing in the developing world (which is a good thing) is a trivial fact. I.e. it's true and not really disputed.
What is more disputed is that it's also increasing for the developed world.
I hope that clears up any misunderstanding here.
I think you missed the point I was trying to make.
My point was simply that it's a not very controversial that the living conditions around the world are getting better, thats great.
But it does not mean that it's getting better for everyone and especially in the developed countries it's actually going the other way which is relevant to discuss as this might mean that things can't continue getting better.