#max roser

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Die Welt ist schrecklich. Die Welt ist besser. Die Welt kann viel besser sein. Alle drei Aussagen gelten zugleich.

The world is terrible. The world is better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true simultaneously.

Max Roser (*1983), German economist and statistician

[probablyasocialecologist]

The Unbearable Anthropocentrism of Our World in Data

How billionaire elites help fund an Oxford statistics lab that makes the destruction of Earth look just great. Roughly a decade ago, a

Given the support that Roser enjoys from billionaire oligarchs at the pinnacle of the capitalist system, one wonders if it is a coincidence that so much of the data he headlines for public consumption happens to valorize that system. The chief narrative that OWID deploys is that progress is due to economic growth driven by profit-seeking private enterprise and breakneck industrial productivity. He has made this view explicit in his essays published on OWID’s website. No mention that poverty mostly has been alleviated by the power of the state regulating capital, redistributing wealth, and providing services, counter to a system of immense inequities. Roser never mentions the labor, civil rights, and anti-colonialist movements that have pressed for social welfare benefits, safety nets, legal protections and political liberation for the poor. In his superficial telling, “The history of economic growth is the history of how societies leave widespread poverty behind by finding ways to produce more of the goods and services that people need.” While in the vast piles of data at OWID you will find no mention of political movements that have bettered the human condition by challenging the supremacy of capital, you will also find nothing that reveals the complex realities of what happens when societies outside the vaunted system of economic growth are absorbed into it and made to conform to its rules.

[thesociologicalcinema]

Case fatality rates: COVID-19 vs. US Seasonal Flu

Source: Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser 

[jeroenapers]

Hoe de bevolkingspiramide van de afgelopen jaren de komende eeuw een bevolkingsstolp wordt. Datavisualisatie van Max Roser, meer info over de inhoud bij Our World in Data.

[haikuyosef]

Three Truths

The world is awful. The world is better. The world can be much better.

[tempestofbenares]

New Optimism Ignores Our Potential for Catastrophe

New Optimists such as Steven Pinker emphasize the triumphs of modern civilization. But modernity has also created a grim left tail of potent

Part of why Neoliberal Democracies are blindsided by the rise of Fascism is the "New Optimism" Movement. Similar to "Effective Altruism" it is a tool to supress change and preserve the status quo.

[binsofchaos]

Three things are true at the same time. The world is much better; the world is awful, and the world can be much better.

Max Roser

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For me, the shopping is as much a part of cooking as the peeling and the chopping, and I linger in the butcher shop, the farmers’ market, and the cheese store. Food people are eager to share their knowledge, and the small exchanges that take place across the counter are precious to me. It’s not about the recipes; these daily conversations ground me in the world, anchoring me in time and place.

The physical act of cooking gives me enormous pleasure, but I also like watching what it does for others. Even the angriest person is soothed by the scent of soup simmering on the stove. The aroma of flour, sugar, and butter mingling in the oven is a better tonic than any alcohol. And the best recipe for a good evening is a dish so fragrant that it makes the tongue-tied start to talk. The formula is simple: when you cook for people, they feel cared for.

- My Kitchen Year | Ruth Reichl

[rivertalesien]