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In 1920, tires only lasted around 1,000 to 2,000 miles.
Today's tires last upwards of 50,000.
humanprogress.org/tire-abund…
Probabilistic Bias Correction improved the accuracy of a leading physics-based weather model from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts for 98% of precipitation targets and 92% of temperature targets.
humanprogress.org/ai-improve…
Waymo is on an exponential learning curve, with every mile driven adding to its knowledge base.
humanprogress.org/waymo-driv…
Explore the data: humanprogress.org/dataset/ce…
Read more about this trend: humanprogress.org/trends/yie…
Thanks to hybridization, nitrogen fertilizer, improved pest controls, and genetically enhanced crops, the global average cereal yield has tripled since 1961.
Do you struggle with distraction, eat too much, and worry about distant crises?
Two thousand years ago, those were the problems of an emperor. Today, they’re the problems of ordinary people.
For most of human history, few people had those problems. Scarcity imposed its own discipline: food was limited, physical exertion unavoidable, entertainment scarce, and everyday survival demanded attention.
Now, calories are abundant, physical exertion is optional, and entertainment is endless. The challenge increasingly isn’t gaining access to things, but regulating our access to them.
From @AdamOmaryPhD: humanprogress.org/first-worl…
Order your copy today: amazon.com/Grim-Old-Days-Int…
Public executions were once considered wholesome entertainment.
Crowds traveled from far and wide to watch, and spectators could even take home grisly souvenirs from the condemned.
Learn more about how attitudes toward violence and cruelty have changed in The Grim Old Days, our latest book.
🤖 Made with AI
To believe things are getting worse when they have, in fact, never been better is a classic misdiagnosis.
And like a medical misdiagnosis, it risks ill-advised treatment: public demand for government action gives populist leaders every incentive to oblige.
Yet such policies often have the opposite effect—exacerbating the problems they’re intended to address.
humanprogress.org/how-pessim…
The same hours of work that bought a US blue-collar worker one basket of 75 finished goods in 1971 bought 5.19 baskets in 2024.
humanprogress.org/the-growin…
Vietnam signed a free trade agreement with the EFTA countries that waives or reduces customs duties on imports of industrial, fish, and agricultural products.
humanprogress.org/vietnam-si…
Resource abundance—understood as the number of work hours required to acquire something—has improved over recent decades by an average of 2-4% per year, effectively doubling every 20 to 35 years.
humanprogress.org/superabund…
Since 1950, the time price of gasoline for US blue-collar workers has fallen by 35%.
For the time it took to earn enough money to buy a gallon of gasoline in 1950, a blue-collar worker in 2025 could buy 1.54 gallons.
humanprogress.org/gasoline-a…
In 1980, an hour of US blue-collar labor could buy 152 kWh; in 2025, it bought 207 kWh—a 36% increase in energy abundance.
humanprogress.org/time-prici…
The Grim Old Days is out now.
@chellivia’s new book takes readers inside the preindustrial world, drawing on firsthand accounts and historical research to reveal the poverty, violence, disease, filth, and hardship that shaped everyday life.
Learn the truth about the preindustrial past.
Order your copy today: amazon.com/Grim-Old-Days-Int…
Human Progress retweeted
Before you romanticize the past, read The Grim Old Days by Cato’s @chellivia.
Unthinkable poverty. Bloodletting. Streets turned into open sewers. The preindustrial world was more gruesome than modern minds can fathom.
Order now: ow.ly/NL8j50ZY9JW
Smartphones are increasingly accused of fueling the global decline in fertility, but the evidence that smartphones reduce fertility is weaker than many think.
humanprogress.org/what-if-sm…
Great Ormond Street Hospital in London has implemented same-day metagenomic testing for critically ill children.
Unlike conventional targeted diagnostic tests, which look for a limited, predetermined set of pathogens, metagenomic testing sequences genetic material in a sample, allowing doctors to identify a much broader range of infections.
humanprogress.org/same-day-t…
Human Progress retweeted
Defying predictions, the reading of books is trending up. Add 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘮 𝘖𝘭𝘥 𝘋𝘢𝘺𝘴 to your reading list:
“Actually, in America, the reading of books is up. Sales of print books have increased nearly twenty-five per cent from a decade ago. The number of independent bookstores in the United States has climbed steeply since 2009, with a seventy-per-cent increase since 2020.”
These nuggets & more in this delightful @NewYorker profile of James Daunt, founder of Daunt Books, CEO of Barnes & Noble, and Managing Director of Waterstones: newyorker.com/magazine/2026/…
