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A lot of readers tell me that my fundamental optimism about the world is one of the reasons they appreciate my blog. I think my usual sunny attitude springs from my above-average skill at resisting the negativity bias inherent in the media. It’s very easy to read the news every day and conclude that the world is in a never-ending hydra-headed “polycrisis”; if you have a cool, detached perspective, you’ll realize that things are rarely so dark.
That said, this year I was a bit of a downer. The coming of the second Trump administration means the end of the era of stability that the world enjoyed after World War 2. Even if the U.S. can fix its domestic problems (which are not all Trump’s fault by a long stretch), the ascendance of China and Russia as the world’s dominant power bloc will not be so easily undone, and the ramifications of that shift are only getting started. That’s what motivated the somewhat darker tone of my blog this year.
But that doesn’t mean I think the world is going to Hell in a handbasket. From India’s resilient economic growth to Europe’s timely rearmament to the ongoing technological revolutions in AI, electric technology, and biotech, there is plenty to be happy about.
Even when it comes to American society, I see lots of quiet reasons for optimism. Our politics is dysfunctional and our media landscape resembles a demon-haunted wasteland, but underneath the surface, I see signs that our society is starting to knit itself back together after the unrest and chaos of 2014-2021. Health is improving. Violence is falling. Americans are starting to use technology more responsibly. Some of the economic sclerosis of the pre-pandemic years seems to be falling away.
I suspect that there are “macrosociological” forces at work. To my knowledge, sociologists haven’t really modeled a cycle of aggregate social division and health,¹ but if you look at events like the collapse of the USSR and the decade of violence and self-destructive behavior that followed in Russia, or the multi-decade rise in pro-social behavior around the mid-20th century in America, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that such forces exist.
But I’ll leave the grand theorizing for another day. Today I just want to document ten positive trends in American society. It’s been a tough year; you all deserve a little optimism!
Life expectancy is up
This is probably the most encouraging recent social trend in America. One of the biggest downsides of life in the U.S., compared to other rich countries, is our low life expectancy. A big gap opened up a few decades ago, and in recent years, and in the late 2010s, Americans’ life expectancy fell outright for several years. Then came the pandemic, of course, and it fell right off a cliff.
But I’m happy to report that this trend has now reversed! Not only has U.S. life expectancy more than bounced back from the pandemic, but the negative trend of the 2010s seems to be over as well. The gap with other rich countries remains, but the U.S. is no longer falling further and further behind:
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Why is U.S. life expectancy improving? There are two main reasons why Americans live shorter lives than their rich-world counterparts: Unsafe behavior, and obesity. The first of these — overdoses, suicides, murders, and traffic accidents — surged after the pandemic but is now on the wane.
Murder is down (and violence is down in general)
The most important way in which life in America differs from life in other rich countries is our high level of violence. Murder rates — the most reliable measurement of violence — are typically around 5 or 6 per 100,000 people in America. That’s about five times as high as in Europe and ten or twenty times as high as in East Asia. And it’s a proxy for a bunch of other kinds of public violence — assaults, robberies, etc. — that are harder to compare across countries or across time.
I believe that America’s high violence levels are the main reason our cities are so car-dependent — many people refuse to take public transit or walk on shop-lined streets if they’re in danger of getting mugged or attacked. That means that some part of our obesity and boredom is also downstream of violence.
In the late 2010s, U.S. murder rates went in the wrong direction, rising from their low point in 2014. Then in the pandemic they spiked alarmingly. But in late 2021 or 2022, murder rates started falling, and they haven’t stopped falling since. There are several data sets that record murder rates, based on reporting by hospitals, police agencies, and so on. But they all closely agree. Here are two sources:
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