It's not all gloom and doom
December 20, 2023 3:28 PM Subscribe
66 Good News Stories You Didn't Hear About in 2023 [FutureCrunch]
Thank you, hippy bear.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:35 PM on December 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:35 PM on December 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
How is "44. The United States pulled off an economic miracle" not being blasted at 100% volume into every media outlet by the Democratic party?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:36 PM on December 20, 2023 [26 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:36 PM on December 20, 2023 [26 favorites]
Ooh, yay, a little fatphobia in #4 as a treat.
posted by smirkette at 3:40 PM on December 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by smirkette at 3:40 PM on December 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
Those wind and solar energy uptake numbers are astonishing. Just jaws on the floor astonishing.
posted by mhoye at 4:02 PM on December 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 4:02 PM on December 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
Oh, hippybear, thank you. I love these round-ups, and I hadn't seen this one yet.
Some of the ones I personally am happiest about:
* Malaria vaccines started arriving in Africa
* We're winning the war on AIDS - "In July, the United Nations revealed that in 2022, deaths fell to 630,000, there were an estimated 1.3 million new infections, the lowest since the early 1990s, and only 130,000 new infections in children, the lowest since the 1980s."
* The greatest year ever for clean energy + Solar installations changed our climate future
* More girls are getting an education + More children are getting fed at school
* The world moved closer to a fairer international tax system
* Reproductive rights activists fought back in America
* More girls got a chance at childhood
* The greatest conservation victory of all time - "In March this year, 193 countries reached a landmark deal to protect the world's oceans" (I didn't hear a single thing about this before now. WOW.)
(I kind of thought previous years' lists linked to the stories, but I'm not seeing links in this one. Huh. Oh well.)
Abehammerb Lincoln, How is "44. The United States pulled off an economic miracle" not being blasted at 100% volume into every media outlet by the Democratic party? - The fact that the media is not choosing to report this stuff (see also "Crime plummeted in the United States") doesn't mean the Democrats aren't blasting the message; it only means the media's failing to share it. (As I'm sure you know.) I'm pretty sure the White House press office is doing plenty of work promoting the many, many accomplishments of the current administration, but they can't force editors to focus on these facts.
This is a fabulous list, hippybear, and I am super glad to get to read it today. Thank you so much for posting it!
posted by kristi at 4:08 PM on December 20, 2023 [13 favorites]
Some of the ones I personally am happiest about:
* Malaria vaccines started arriving in Africa
* We're winning the war on AIDS - "In July, the United Nations revealed that in 2022, deaths fell to 630,000, there were an estimated 1.3 million new infections, the lowest since the early 1990s, and only 130,000 new infections in children, the lowest since the 1980s."
* The greatest year ever for clean energy + Solar installations changed our climate future
* More girls are getting an education + More children are getting fed at school
* The world moved closer to a fairer international tax system
* Reproductive rights activists fought back in America
* More girls got a chance at childhood
* The greatest conservation victory of all time - "In March this year, 193 countries reached a landmark deal to protect the world's oceans" (I didn't hear a single thing about this before now. WOW.)
(I kind of thought previous years' lists linked to the stories, but I'm not seeing links in this one. Huh. Oh well.)
Abehammerb Lincoln, How is "44. The United States pulled off an economic miracle" not being blasted at 100% volume into every media outlet by the Democratic party? - The fact that the media is not choosing to report this stuff (see also "Crime plummeted in the United States") doesn't mean the Democrats aren't blasting the message; it only means the media's failing to share it. (As I'm sure you know.) I'm pretty sure the White House press office is doing plenty of work promoting the many, many accomplishments of the current administration, but they can't force editors to focus on these facts.
This is a fabulous list, hippybear, and I am super glad to get to read it today. Thank you so much for posting it!
posted by kristi at 4:08 PM on December 20, 2023 [13 favorites]
I don't see where fatphobia is a focus in #4, smurkette. I've been overweight and fighting it for over 25 years, and I was ecstatic when my cardiologist proposed trying one of these drugs. The big take on this is that these drugs ...drastically reduce symptoms of heart failure and the risk of heart attacks and strokes... (They forgot to mention increased use for type 2 diabetes.) Losing weight would help so much with my stroke risk, reduce the stress on my heart, lower genetically high cholesterol, and help ease my joint pain. Plus fewer pills for these issues. Yeah!
Other health results are heartening to me also.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:12 PM on December 20, 2023 [39 favorites]
Other health results are heartening to me also.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:12 PM on December 20, 2023 [39 favorites]
Wow, so many great stories here, including 16. China's carbon emissions are likely to start falling next year.
posted by joannemerriam at 4:25 PM on December 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by joannemerriam at 4:25 PM on December 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
"drastically reduce symptoms of heart failure and the risk of heart attacks and strokes" is great! Assuming all fat people have these health issues by dint of being fat is not. (A starting place for the genuinely curious). I don't want to hijack a feel-good post, but basically, treating fatness as an illness to be cured instead of normal human variation is by definition fatphobic, medical fatphobia literally kills and harms, and I'm going to bow out of this thread now.
posted by smirkette at 4:41 PM on December 20, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by smirkette at 4:41 PM on December 20, 2023 [13 favorites]
Don't miss the list at the end of recovering endangered species, with pictures! The horn on the black rhino in the foreground of the second pic is magnificent. Also, hooray for monarch butterflies, olive ridley turtles, golden eagles, and, well, all of them, really!
Despite the bad, there are indeed good things happening in the world, and I can only hope for bigger and better in the year to come.
posted by May Kasahara at 5:00 PM on December 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
Despite the bad, there are indeed good things happening in the world, and I can only hope for bigger and better in the year to come.
posted by May Kasahara at 5:00 PM on December 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
"14. The greatest year ever for clean energy" - this is something Bill McKibben's been telling the world about. So important.
posted by doctornemo at 5:16 PM on December 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 5:16 PM on December 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
I love that this list is full of actual substantive progress! Thanks hippybear!
posted by JHarris at 5:27 PM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 5:27 PM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Eric Topol was a bit less enthusiastic about #4.
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-big-trial-of-a-glp-1-drug-wegovy
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-big-trial-of-a-glp-1-drug-wegovy
This well conducted GLP-1 drug randomized trial is important for documenting reduction of cardiovascular events in a high-risk cohort. But the absolute reduction (1.5 per 100 treated for >3 years) is quite low, especially given the high risk of the population and the high cost of the drug.posted by zymil at 5:56 PM on December 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm a big cynic and opened up the link expecting to get grouchy about feel-good cheesiness. But it was actually great to read and I appreciated it. I'll save my quibbles with some of the details for another discussion, this should stay positive.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:38 PM on December 20, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 6:38 PM on December 20, 2023 [12 favorites]
In bad news about my vision, I stared at that otter picture for 15 minutes wondering why it was eating a rambutan.
posted by mittens at 7:07 PM on December 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by mittens at 7:07 PM on December 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
And now you have otter after image everywhere?
And even if you don't saying the phrase "otter after image everywhere" is a fun thing for your mouth to do.
posted by hippybear at 7:10 PM on December 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
And even if you don't saying the phrase "otter after image everywhere" is a fun thing for your mouth to do.
posted by hippybear at 7:10 PM on December 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
How is "44. The United States pulled off an economic miracle" not being blasted at 100% volume into every media outlet by the Democratic party?
Abehammerb Lincoln
They're going about it really badly. There was a recent New York Times article about White House efforts to counteract negative economic views pervasive on TikTok that was essentially, "You don't get it, morons, things are actually great but you're too stupid too see it."
It just feels...fishy. They quote all these stats but it just doesn't add up with my own experiences, and I think that's true for a lot of people. Somehow all the numbers are going up but things just seem to be shitty and getting shittier and more expensive and tougher all the time.
Yeah yeah, anecdotes aren't data and I'm not seeing the big picture and not taking into account blah blah blah, but something just seems off. And I don't think it's just an issue of media focus. If we're living in good times shouldn't it actually feel that way?
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:44 PM on December 20, 2023 [18 favorites]
Abehammerb Lincoln
They're going about it really badly. There was a recent New York Times article about White House efforts to counteract negative economic views pervasive on TikTok that was essentially, "You don't get it, morons, things are actually great but you're too stupid too see it."
It just feels...fishy. They quote all these stats but it just doesn't add up with my own experiences, and I think that's true for a lot of people. Somehow all the numbers are going up but things just seem to be shitty and getting shittier and more expensive and tougher all the time.
Yeah yeah, anecdotes aren't data and I'm not seeing the big picture and not taking into account blah blah blah, but something just seems off. And I don't think it's just an issue of media focus. If we're living in good times shouldn't it actually feel that way?
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:44 PM on December 20, 2023 [18 favorites]
how good this economy is mostly depends on how many homes you own
rent % + yoy (blue) vs wages % (red):
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1cYiV
posted by torokunai at 8:43 PM on December 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
rent % + yoy (blue) vs wages % (red):
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1cYiV
posted by torokunai at 8:43 PM on December 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
It'll be a while before I'm sure it's real, but the new generation of geothermal plants is really intriguing. They use deep drilling technology (developed for fracking) to get to heat sources in places with no apparent surface energy (ie, this isn't about Iceland or other "hot spots".) In addition, there's some suggestion that they can reduce daytime power consumption and ramp it up at night. It could be a valuable way of controlling total load when combined with the much cheaper but less reliable wind and gas.
I spent decent parts of my decades long professional career working on drugs for HIV infected people that are used widely today, I'm very proud of that.
posted by mark k at 9:02 PM on December 20, 2023 [12 favorites]
I spent decent parts of my decades long professional career working on drugs for HIV infected people that are used widely today, I'm very proud of that.
posted by mark k at 9:02 PM on December 20, 2023 [12 favorites]
Yeah yeah, anecdotes aren't data and I'm not seeing the big picture and not taking into account blah blah blah, but something just seems off. And I don't think it's just an issue of media focus. If we're living in good times shouldn't it actually feel that way?
Is it helpful to think about it as an absence of a recession? The big feat of the year was avoiding a recession, and this time last year it seemed like a foregone conclusion that we'd be in one now. But we're not, and that's nice!
posted by knotty knots at 9:22 PM on December 20, 2023 [13 favorites]
Is it helpful to think about it as an absence of a recession? The big feat of the year was avoiding a recession, and this time last year it seemed like a foregone conclusion that we'd be in one now. But we're not, and that's nice!
posted by knotty knots at 9:22 PM on December 20, 2023 [13 favorites]
Soooo good to read. Thanks hippybear!! Sharing this with my friends and folks.
posted by storybored at 9:31 PM on December 20, 2023
posted by storybored at 9:31 PM on December 20, 2023
>it seemed like a foregone conclusion that we'd be in one now
there was a lot of talking one up from certain circles to try to make Biden look like Carter coming into the election season but I never saw any endogenous recession drivers.
(I saw the 2008 recession forming two years ahead of time thanks to having spent way too much time on economics blogs reading about how bad mortgage lending standards and practices had been compromised by the Bush crew 2002-2005.)
Recent consumer credit expansion has been far lower than the laissez-faire / le bon temps rouler Bush era of 2002-2006, so we don't have that overhang to worry about now.
Basically every year of the baby boom in the 50s saw 4M births, so we're having ~4M retirements each year now. I think this is good news for labor since these retirees will still create consumer demand from their SSA and other retirement resources, and also leave a hole in the workforce for someone else to fill.
Plus https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1cYou – real (2023 dollars) total gov't spending per working-age adult (age 15-64) is at $4000/mo now. I actually don't understand how that's possible, but there it is.
posted by torokunai at 11:14 PM on December 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
there was a lot of talking one up from certain circles to try to make Biden look like Carter coming into the election season but I never saw any endogenous recession drivers.
(I saw the 2008 recession forming two years ahead of time thanks to having spent way too much time on economics blogs reading about how bad mortgage lending standards and practices had been compromised by the Bush crew 2002-2005.)
Recent consumer credit expansion has been far lower than the laissez-faire / le bon temps rouler Bush era of 2002-2006, so we don't have that overhang to worry about now.
Basically every year of the baby boom in the 50s saw 4M births, so we're having ~4M retirements each year now. I think this is good news for labor since these retirees will still create consumer demand from their SSA and other retirement resources, and also leave a hole in the workforce for someone else to fill.
Plus https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1cYou – real (2023 dollars) total gov't spending per working-age adult (age 15-64) is at $4000/mo now. I actually don't understand how that's possible, but there it is.
posted by torokunai at 11:14 PM on December 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
TBH "otter after image" is a great name for a shoegaze band. Not sure "otter after image everywhere" works as a band name, though -- maybe they do lofi hip-hop?
posted by Quasirandom at 7:40 AM on December 21, 2023
posted by Quasirandom at 7:40 AM on December 21, 2023
Thanks for sharing, love the Future Crunch newsletters!
posted by ellieBOA at 8:05 AM on December 21, 2023
posted by ellieBOA at 8:05 AM on December 21, 2023
Hadn’t realized how much I needed this until I started reading. Thank you, hippybear!
posted by AdamCSnider at 10:18 AM on December 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by AdamCSnider at 10:18 AM on December 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Basically every year of the baby boom in the 50s saw 4M births, so we're having ~4M retirements each year now. I think this is good news for labor since these retirees will still create consumer demand from their SSA and other retirement resources, and also leave a hole in the workforce for someone else to fill.
It is a bit of a nightmare when it comes to the "current generation of workers pays for current generation of retirees" equation, however.
posted by hippybear at 3:07 PM on December 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
It is a bit of a nightmare when it comes to the "current generation of workers pays for current generation of retirees" equation, however.
posted by hippybear at 3:07 PM on December 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
The treatment of sickle cell using CRISPR is, in my mind, such a huge thing.
posted by eckeric at 3:25 PM on December 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by eckeric at 3:25 PM on December 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
"Not a recession" isn't exactly good times, but many people have been holding their breath waiting for another crash for about a year now. That it hasn't happened is good, but I think inflation is making it hard to see on a personal level. Those massive layoffs in anticipation of the recession need to stop now, please.
posted by soelo at 4:20 PM on December 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by soelo at 4:20 PM on December 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:22 AM on December 24, 2023
posted by taz (staff) at 2:22 AM on December 24, 2023
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posted by hippybear at 3:32 PM on December 20, 2023 [21 favorites]