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2017 is the Best?

2017-12-12 · list · John · 3:53 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: Advocacy & fundraising · tags: calendar ritual, fundraising ask, civic or action cta, self promotion, heavy topic

Fed up with 2017, John lists five ways it is actually kind of the best: record charitable giving, polio nearly ended, record lows in poverty and highs in schooling and literacy, healthier babies (Liberia's child mortality down two-thirds) and the Project for Awesome, whose fundraiser for Save the Children and Last Mile Health begins tonight.

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 feels 'blech' about 2017 and the social internet and turns to encouraging trend lines

  • ★★ John says he has been feeling 'blech': he is kind of fed up with 2017 and finds large swaths of the social internet disheartening. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · Twitter
  • ★★★ Once a year John likes to look at encouraging global trend lines, and offers five ways that 2017 is actually kind of the best. (hedged) — 00:00:13

00:00:20 — Good news one to three: charitable giving, polio, poverty, schooling, literacy and cancer; the ways the world is getting worse

  • ★★ John says charitable giving is at an all-time high, even after adjusting for inflation, at least in the United States. — 00:00:20 · United States
  • ★★★ John says it's possible that 2017 will be the second-to-last year (2016) any human ever gets polio; its end will be a huge global health victory won by millions of donors and volunteers. (hedged) — 00:00:26 · global health
  • ★★★ John says there have been only 16 new cases of wild polio virus so far this year (2017), down from 37 last year (2016), while in his high-school years there were over 100,000 cases a year. — 00:00:37
  • ★★★ By some measures 2017 is the best year in history (not Twitter's): absolute poverty is at its lowest share, schooling and adult literacy at their highest, and cancer death rates are down globally. — 00:00:48 · extreme poverty, education, cancer, Twitter
  • ★★ John says the world is also getting worse in ways: in the US, opiate abuse is driving a huge increase in deaths by drug overdose. — 00:01:09 · United States
  • ★★ John says South Sudan is experiencing the world's first official famine since 2012, and several other countries are on the brink of famine. — 00:01:15
  • ★★ John says horrific ethnic cleansing in Myanmar has killed many people and forced hundreds of thousands more from their homes. — 00:01:21
  • ★★★ John says many tragedies demand better responses, but on average the human population is healthier, more prosperous and better educated than it ever has been. — 00:01:27 · progress

00:01:38 — Babies: Orin crawls, child mortality in Liberia and Portugal, falling fertility, progress as investment

  • ★★ Fourth, babies: they are amazing, and in 2017 a particularly amazing baby named Orin learned to crawl. (playful) — 00:01:38 · Orin Green
  • ★★ John says babies have never been as healthy or as likely to survive into adulthood as in 2017. — 00:01:44 · child mortality
  • ★★★ John says that in 1995, 24% of babies born in Liberia died before age five; today it is under 7%, still far too high but down by more than two-thirds in 22 years. — 00:01:51 · child mortality
  • ★★★ John rejects the worry that population growth is out of control: in Liberia, as everywhere, when health care improves and child mortality falls, families choose fewer children. — 00:02:09 · child mortality
  • ★★★ John says these changes are neither natural nor inevitable: they come from our investments as a species in research, health care systems, and training and paying health workers. — 00:02:23
  • ★★ John says for most of human history there was no expectation that lives would get healthier or food more abundant over time, because that did not happen. — 00:02:34
  • ★★★ John says that in the year his mother was born Portugal's child mortality rate was about 9%; in 2017 no country on Earth will have a rate that high. — 00:02:44 · child mortality, Earth

00:02:55 — Save the Children, Last Mile Health and the Project for Awesome fundraiser, perks and livestream

  • ★★ Of the many organizations keeping progress going, John highlights Save the Children, helping kids and families from refugee camps to remote villages, and Last Mile Health, which trains and employs community health workers in Liberia. — 00:02:55 · Save the Children
  • ★★★ John's fifth bit of good news: the Project for Awesome starts this Friday (15 December 2017) at noon Eastern, with more info and thumbnails at projectforawesome.com. — 00:03:08 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ John says noon Eastern on Friday is when viewers should upload their video about a charity they care about. — 00:03:13 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ The P4A fundraiser begins at midnight tonight; in this first half the money raised goes to Save the Children and Last Mile Health. — 00:03:18 · Project for Awesome, Save the Children
  • ★★★ Because of matching donations, every dollar donated will count as four dollars. — 00:03:26 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ John invites donations with perks such as tuatara coins, deleted scenes from Turtles All the Way Down and a personalized self-care bunny, some limited: 'no pressure, em dash, a little bit of pressure'. — 00:03:30 · Project for Awesome, Turtles All the Way Down, doobly-doo
  • ★★ John will see Hank and the rest of Nerdfighteria at noon Eastern this Friday (15 December 2017) for the 48-hour Project for Awesome livestream. — 00:03:45 · Hank Green, Nerdfighteria, Project for Awesome

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description asks viewers to say in the comments what the best of 2017 has been for them. — video description
  • ★★ The description highly recommends Our World in Data for understanding big trends in global human life. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: child mortality · polio · progress

Also: People: Orin Green

Projects: Project for Awesome

Works: Turtles All the Way Down

Organizations: Last Mile Health · Save the Children · Twitter

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: cancer · community health worker · Drug overdose · education · ethnic cleansing · extreme poverty · Famine · global health · hippopotamus · human overpopulation · inflation · literacy · refugee · total fertility rate · tuatara

Places: Earth · Liberia · Myanmar · Portugal · South Sudan · United States

Characters: Self-Care Bunny

Only in the description or credits: Our World in Data

Also centred on polio: Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Progress

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