Skip to content

Human Life Is Getting Better. Faster Than Ever Before.

2017-02-14 · explainer · John · 4:34 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook, heavy topic

Prompted by the 2017 Gates letter, John contrasts 1998 with today (falling child mortality and absolute poverty, rising vaccination), relays the letter's case that foreign aid, vaccines, infant care, nutrition and contraception work, and argues that ending absolute poverty and child mortality within 20 years is possible and up to all of us.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John at nearly 40, twice the median viewer's age; himself as a college sophomore in 1998

  • ★ John says he is nearly 40, about twice the median Vlogbrothers viewer's age; at their age, in 1998, he was a college sophomore newly in love and taking his first creative writing class. — 00:00:01 · Vlogbrothers

00:00:17 — 1998 versus today: child deaths, vaccination and absolute poverty

  • ★★★ John says that in 1998 more than 10 million children under 5 died and over half of kids in low-income countries were not vaccinated. — 00:00:22 · child mortality, vaccine
  • ★★★ John says that in 1998 30% of all humans lived in absolute poverty, surviving on less than $2 a day in current US dollars. — 00:00:29 · extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says that today 80% of kids in low-income countries are vaccinated, fewer than 10% of people live in absolute poverty, and fewer than 6 million children will die this year (2017). — 00:00:36 · vaccine, extreme poverty, child mortality, Earth
  • ★★ John says child mortality is not just falling: the rate of its fall has been accelerating for two decades. — 00:00:44 · child mortality
  • ★★ John says that after very slow progress for most of the 20th century and all of human history, the cycle of poverty is suddenly breaking worldwide. — 00:00:49

00:00:58 — The Gates letter: government funding of global health, US foreign aid and why it works

  • ★★ John calls Melinda and Bill Gates's annual letter required reading: the news tells him what happened yesterday, the letter lets him zoom out to the larger human story. (hedged) — 00:01:02
  • ★ John says this year's (2017) letter is addressed to Warren Buffett, another billionaire who has pledged almost all his wealth to charity. — 00:01:13
  • ★★ John relays the letter's point that most funding for global health initiatives comes from governments, not private individuals. — 00:01:18 · global health
  • ★★ John says the US spent about $32 billion on foreign aid last year (2016), less than 1% of the federal budget, but it goes a long way. — 00:01:24 · United States
  • ★★★ John says foreign aid has a reputation for not working but is in fact extremely effective. — 00:01:31
  • ★★ John strongly believes foreign aid is in the US national interest: poverty and poor health raise conflict risk, and microbes ignore borders, so better health systems abroad lower everyone's disease risk. — 00:01:36 · global health, United States

00:01:49 — Why child mortality matters; vaccines, infant care, nutrition and contraception

  • ★★ Citing an In a Nutshell video, John says that when child mortality falls, families choose to have fewer children, which ultimately slows population growth. — 00:01:49 · child mortality
  • ★★ John says lower child mortality also means healthier kids more likely to go to school and parents freer to work, benefiting whole social orders. — 00:01:59 · child mortality
  • ★★ Bill Gates (quoted): Bill Gates, as John relays him, says saving children's lives is the best deal in philanthropy. — 00:02:11 · child mortality
  • ★★ John says saving children is often inexpensive: many vaccines cost less than a dollar, and vaccination is the number one reason child mortality has declined. — 00:02:15 · vaccine, child mortality
  • ★★★ John says most children who die still die only because they were born poor, which is unacceptable and need not be accepted. — 00:02:23 · child mortality, extreme poverty
  • ★★ John says we must keep closing the vaccination gap between rich and poor countries, improve infant health care and improve nutrition beyond preventing starvation. — 00:02:32 · vaccine
  • ★★ John says 45% of child mortality now occurs within the first month of life. — 00:02:37 · child mortality
  • ★★ Bill Gates (quoted): Bill Gates, as John relays him, says malnutrition destroys the most human potential on the planet. — 00:02:49
  • ★★ John says malnutrition can stunt cognitive development as well as physical growth, compounding the disadvantages of the poorest kids. — 00:02:53
  • ★★ John says the letter also focuses on access to contraception, another case where what is good for families has positive impacts on the community. — 00:03:01
  • ★★ Melinda French Gates (quoted): Melinda Gates, as John relays her, points out that no country in the last 50 years has emerged from poverty without expanding access to contraceptives. — 00:03:18 · extreme poverty

00:03:24 — Poverty and child mortality could be rare in 20 years; success judged by the poor; it's up to all of us; recommending the letter

  • ★★★ John says that in 20 years (by 2037), when today's median viewer is his age, absolute poverty and child mortality may be rare everywhere on Earth. (hedged) — 00:03:25 · extreme poverty, child mortality, Earth, Vlogbrothers
  • ★★★ John believes humanity's success is best judged not by how the richest or best connected live but by how the poor, oppressed and vulnerable live. — 00:03:36 · extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says absolute poverty and child mortality may feel beyond our control, as if only the Gateses and Buffetts can move the needle, but in reality it is up to all of us. — 00:03:46 · child mortality
  • ★★ John says that when his kids get through a diarrheal illness with Pedialyte and Advil, it is up to him to remember and prioritize kids who die of the same disease for want of rehydration solution. — 00:03:55
  • ★★ John says that how we vote, talk to friends about what matters and choose whose lives to pay attention to decides what our future will look like. — 00:04:05
  • ★★ John recalls Hank telling him bad news happens all at once and good news slowly, making good news hard to notice; we still need it, maybe now more than ever. (hedged) — 00:04:13 · Hank Green
  • ★★ John hopes viewers check out the Gates letter in the description: honest and level-headed while still optimistic, which is what he wants to be when he grows up. — 00:04:24

In the description and comments

  • ★★ John recommends Our World in Data as an amazing resource for understanding changes in the human condition over time, from literacy to life expectancy, praising its overviews of child mortality and absolute poverty; the In a Nutshell video he references was made with it. — video description · child mortality, extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says the 2014 Gates letter pretty well destroyed the argument that foreign aid doesn't work. — video description
  • ★★ John grants that Cold War foreign aid was often minimally effective at reducing poverty and improving health, but says it was designed to sway governments toward capitalism or communism; aid since 1990 has been better targeted, especially in health care, and he points to an OECD research overview. — video description · capitalism, global health
  • ★★ Citing The Washington Post, John repeats that less than 1% of the US federal budget goes to foreign aid, or about 1.2% if defense aid is counted. — video description · United States

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: child mortality · extreme poverty · Gates Foundation annual letter

Also: People: Bill Gates · Melinda French Gates · Warren Buffett

Organizations: Kurzgesagt

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: birth control · cycle of poverty · demographic transition · Development aid · diarrhea · global health · malnutrition · oral rehydration therapy · progress · vaccine

Places: Earth · United States

Products: Advil · Pedialyte

Only in the description or credits: capitalism · Cold War · communism · OECD · Our World in Data · The Washington Post

Also centred on Gates Foundation annual letter: Are Poor Countries Doomed? · Will Life Get Better for the Poor? · How Energy and Time Change Everything · I Predicted the Pandemic (over and over and over again)

← Previous: Valentines Candy Taste Test with Hank and Katherine · Next → As Cold as The Milk: Learning Spanish with Luzu