A Geek Looks at 60

I’m starting this while on a plane with Julie (the missus) heading to Cancun for a 5-day jaunt.  For those of you who aren’t aware, her birthday is the 2nd, mine is the 3rd.  And our anniversary is on the 4th.  Yup, makes the whole concept of celebrating much easier and forgetting (which, alas, I’m sure I would) dates near impossible.  For the second year in a row we’re actually taking a trip for the occasion(s).  For those keeping score, she and I are celebrating (well, I’m celebrating…I’m sure she’s ruing bad decisions<g>) 15 years married.Btw, if you read my monthly intros specifically for info about Simplex-IT...well, you can stop reading.  For once (in about 10 years) there's nothing here about Simplex-IT (specifically).I’m also hitting the big 60 this year.  Spoiler alert:  no midlife crisis (well, yet, anyway).  And no plan on slowing down or anything like that.  Actually, probably the opposite (more on that next month).That said, I’d like to share some personal reflective thoughts on things.  I recently read the books “Factfulness:  Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think” by Hans Rosling, and “Enlightenment Now:  The Case for Reason, Science Humanism and Progress” by Steven Pinker.  I might add that Bill Gates thought so highly about Rosling’s book that he arranged to give an electronic copy to all 2018 college graduates.  Not from any particular college.  All college graduates.I’ve also read a couple interesting books on Expert Systems, including “AIQ:  How People and Machines are Smarter Together” by Nick Polson and James Scott.  Oh, and “Algorithms to Live By:  The Computer Science of Human Decisions”.  Finally, I was fascinated by Anni Duke’s book “Thinking in Bets:  Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts”.I’ve read all of those books within the past few months.  And prior to that I’ve been studying a fair amount on the future impact of technology on careers, jobs and deployment of goods and services.  And I’ve read them with the backdrop of all of the issues happening in the world.  Keep in mind, I’m a liberal.  Actually more of a Humanist with a liberal bent.And I’ve come to this inescapable conclusion:Wow, the world is on the whole for the most part a much better place to live today than how it was when I was born.  Or actually any other time.I’m just saying that overall, for the most part…it’s really getting better.  And this has nothing to do with our current President.  Actually it has nothing to do with any particular leader, one way of another.It has to do with real data.  Meaningful data, not numbers cherry-picked and presented to promote a single mindset or agenda.  Unfortunately,But let’s think about it.  How would you measure quality of life?Ø  Life expectancy.  Throughout the world, life expectancy has consistently been on the rise over the past half century.Ø  Infant mortality.  Similarly, infant mortality has been on the decline.  Significantly.Ø  Extreme poverty.  This is amazing.  Did you know that the number of people in extreme poverty has been cut in half over the past 20 years?  I didn’t know that either.Ø  War.  This has been by far and away the most peaceful half-century this planet has seen.  Do you realize there are no organized conflicts in the Americas (North, South or Central)?  Do you know the last time that happened?  Try never.  And the same holds true when you ask when was the last time there was no major armed conflict between major powers for half a century.  Amazing.When I first had the idea about writing this, I was full of ideas of charts, graphs and the like.  Well, that didn’t last.I want to stress.  I’m not saying things are great.  I’m not saying everything is peachy, any problem you see are your own.There are a lot of things that are bad in this world.  But for the most part, they’ve been getting better.Now, that’s an easy thing to say from my point of view.  If you took an inventory of my attributes when I was born:Ø  WhiteØ  MaleØ  Middle Class parentsØ  College educated parentsØ  HealthyØ  Married parentsØ  HeterosexualØ  Christian householdØ  AmericanØ  Suburban lifeEvery single one of those metrics I had zero control over.  And every single one of them (and probably more) increased the percentage of my being successful regardless of efforts (or lack thereof) on my part.  I never had to worry about a next meal.  Never wondered where I was going to have a warm bed.  Never had to worry about a certain attribute of mine that I was born with would work against me throughout my career.Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked hard to get where I am.  Damn hard.  And will continue to do so.  But for me to rant about being a “self-made man” or look despairingly at others who have not had my success (such as it is) would be minimally disingenuous.  Ok, it would make me an ass.It would be equally disingenuous for me to take my own personal life and extend it to others in a sweeping “the world is great!” statement, dismissing the suffering in the world.I’m not doing that.  Absolutely not.There’s a lot of suffering in the world.  Way too much.But by most serious metrics, there’s less suffering overall.  And it’s a trend that’s actually been going on for much longer than my lifetime.In my lifetime (or abouts), do you realize that we’ve conquered measles?  Smallpox?  Malaria is a shadow of what it was in terms of severity?  And the impact of what we call an epidemic today pales in comparison to what our grandparents went through.Oddly enough, this comes through an odd connection of resources.  “Big Government” like the UN (oooh, conservatives hate them) working with national resources like the CDC (yup, conservatives hate them) and big pharmaceutical companies (wait, liberals hate them), funded by taxes paid by rich people (liberals hate them, too).Think about it.  The poster children that rallies stereotypical conservatives and liberals, working together, having a fantastic impact on the world.  And it’s been happening under our very noses for the past 50 plus years.I grew up during the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s.  My mom was quite involved and was very quietly inspirational.  I remember back then…being a racist was acceptable open behavior.  It might have been frowned upon, but it was ok.  I also remember a married couple at church.  He was black and she was white.  I didn’t realize at the time (I was probably 10) what a big deal that was, or how much courage they had.  I’ll never forget when the first African-American family to move onto our street in Cleveland Heights (at that time a very white suburb) was firebombed.  Ok, maybe firebombed is a bit much.  My understanding (I was about 12 at the time if memory serves) was a road flare was lit wedged into their sofa, and thankfully was done prior to the family moving in.My mom was pissed.  This happened on her street.  Our street.Similarly, I remember one guy (today I’d say “kid”) who was openly gay in high school back in the mid-70’s.  To say he was ostracized would be an understatement.  We chatted on several occasions.  I wish I would have supported him more.Now, I have to be careful here.  As a heterosexual white guy, making light of racial or LGBT issues from today or half a century ago is downright stupid from a personal experience standpoint.  It would be the height of hubris for me to make any claim to understanding what people have gone through, either back then or today.For many, it still sucks, and much work remains to be done.But my point is, it used to be much worse.So, enough soapbox here.  Like I said, I’m hitting 60 years old.  When I was 20, I was a cocky, self-absorbed jerk who wasn’t willing to really put in the work necessary to do important things.  When I was 40, I was a reasonably successful guy with a failed marriage who came to terms of having no family and was ok with that.Now, I’m 60.  I have a beautiful wife.  3 great daughters (they’re outsourced, as I like to say), all successful at being who they want to be.  6 fantastic grandchildren.  To be clear, the youngest TBD (prounounced Tabeedah) is only 6 months old.  So far she’s still pretty much all about making noise, eating and leaking, so the jury’s out on her.I’ve got a great team working together under the flag of my company (Simplex-IT, for those who forgot<g>) that I’m proud of.  And I think there are great things in store for Simplex-IT in the next couple of years.  And again, I’m not going anywhere.And with the help of my wife, looking for ways to help the world get even better a bit quicker.Here’s my bottom line message.  I’m not saying everything is wonderful.  Far from it.  There’s injustice in this world.  There’s suffering.  There’s tragedy.  There’s heartbreak.My point is that overall, there’s less than there used to be.  It’s bad, but it used to be worse.  I understand that’s little comfort to someone suffering today.We’re winning.  Not liberals, not conservatives.  But people who want good things for all people.  And yeah, there are setbacks.  There’s so much energy engaged in dividing us.  So many people (on both sides) whose only message is one of “there’s no time, act now or all is lost!”Keep it up.  But don’t keep it up from fear, or from despair.  Keep it up because we’re winning.