Progress Daily

In 1900, the West ruled the world. From the Bosphorus to the Bering Strait and beyond, nearly all of what was then known as the Orient was under some form or another of Western imperial rule. The British had long ruled India, the Dutch the East Indies, the French Indo-China. The Americans had just seized the Philippines; the Russians aspired to control Manchuria. All the imperial powers had established parasitical outposts in China.

This Western dominance was remarkable in that over half the world’s population were Asians, while barely a fifth belonged to the dominant countries of the West.

What enabled the West to rule the East was the former’s systematic application of scientific knowledge. In 1900, the West produced more than half the world’s output and the East barely a quarter. Democracy, liberty, and equality: all of these concepts originated in the West. So did nearly all the significant scientific breakthroughs from Newton to Einstein.

The story of the 20th century was the crisis of the European empires, the ultimate result of which was the inexorable revival of Asian power and the descent of the West.

From The War of the World by Niall Ferguson

Until relatively recently, scientists thought that no new neurons grew in the brains of adults and that every blow on the head or glass of wine after adolescence cut the number of brain cells. Over the past decade, though, neuroscientists have realised that young neurons do continue to appear in the brains of mature mammals. Many of these new brain cells are found in the hippocampus, a structure used to remember events, people and places. This suggested to Tracey Shors that the cells might be involved in forming such memories.

To learn the fate of these new neurons, Dr Shors and her team used a chemical tag that attaches itself to cells that are dividing. On a given day, the researchers injected this chemical into the brains of rats. As a result, only the new brain cells that were born that day were labelled and thus the team could follow a cohort of new neurons over time.

The rats were treated in three different ways. Some of them were killed one week after the chemical tag had been injected and their brains were examined. About 5,000 labelled cells were found in each hippocampus. Members of a second group were placed in a dull, unstimulating environment for a further week. When the brains of these rats were examined, the labelled cells had all died.

Dr Shors and her colleagues trained members of further groups to learn something new in their final week. The researchers played a sound and then, after a set period of time that varied between each group, blew a puff of air into the rats’ eyes, making them blink. After several repetitions, the animals learned to blink after hearing the noise in anticipation of the puff of air, and they timed their blinks to avoid it.

Looking at the brains of these animals, the researchers found that the labelled neurons had not only persisted but also appeared to mature into functionally wired neurons. Moreover, the rats that successfully completed the more difficult task, which involved a longer gap in time between the sound and the puff of air, had retained more new neurons than those assigned easier tasks, with shorter gaps.

“Use it or lose it,” The Economist

Studies consistently find that when the incomes of everyone in a community grow over time, conventional measures of well-being show little change.

Growth makes the poor happier in low-income countries but not in developed countries, where those at the bottom continue to experience relative deprivation. But economic growth also matters in wealthy countries.

Growth enables us to expand medical research and other activities that clearly enhance human welfare but have little effect on measured happiness levels.

Subjective well-being is typically measured from responses to survey questions like “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life these days?” People’s responses tend to be consistent over time and are highly correlated with assessments of them made by their friends.

People who report high levels of subjective well-being are more likely to initiate social contacts with friends and more likely to respond to requests for assistance from strangers. They are less likely than others to suffer from psychosomatic illnesses, seek psychological counseling or attempt suicide.

Across developed countries, higher growth rates are actually associated with cleaner environments. The US is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases not because of its wealth but in spite of it.

Benjamin Friedman reports that societies in which incomes are growing more rapidly tend to support their poorest members more generously. Growth supports continuing investments in workplace safety and frees people to spend additional time with their families.

“Money isn’t a cure-all, but it can improve health” by Robert H. Frank

The Roman Empire in the West lasted a total of 422 years. The Roman Empire in the East lasted a total of 1,058 years. The Holy Roman Empire lasted from 800, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Romans, until Napoleon ended it in 1806. The “average” Roman empire therefore lasted 829 years.

The average Near Eastern empire (including the Assyrian, Abassid, and Ottoman) lasted a little more than 400 years; the average Egyptian and East European empires around 350 years; the average Chinese empire (subdividing by the principal dynasties) ruled for more than three centuries. The various Indian, Persian, and West European empires generally survived for between 200 and 300 years.

After the sack of Constantinople, the longest-lived empire was clearly the Ottoman at 469 years. The East European empires of the Habsburgs and the Romanovs each existed for more than three centuries. The Mughals ruled a substantial part of what is now India for 235 years. Of an almost identical duration was the reign of the Safavids in Persia.

The British, Dutch, French, and Spanish empires can all be said to have endured for roughly 300 years. The life span of the Portuguese empire was closer to 500.

The empires created in the 20th century, by contrast, were comparatively short. The Bolsheviks’ Soviet Union (1922–91) lasted less than 70 years. Japan’s colonial empire lasted barely 50 years. Technically, the Third Reich lasted 12 years; as an empire in the true sense of the word it lasted barely half that time.

Leaving aside American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which remain American dependencies, U.S. interventions abroad have typically been brief.

During the course of the 20th century, the United States occupied Panama for 74 years, the Philippines for 48, Palau for 47, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands for 39, Haiti for 19, and the Dominican Republic for 8. The formal postwar occupations of West Germany and Japan continued for, respectively, 10 and 7 years, though U.S. forces still remain in those countries, as well as in South Korea. Troops were also deployed in large numbers in South Vietnam from 1965, though by 1973 they were gone.

In 1920, when it successfully quelled a major Iraqi insurgency, Britain had one soldier in Iraq for every 23 locals. Today, the United States has just one soldier for every 210 Iraqis.

It took less than 18 months for a majority of American voters to start telling pollsters at Gallup that they regarded the invasion of Iraq as a mistake. Comparable levels of disillusionment with the Vietnam War did not set in until August 1968, three years after U.S. forces had arrived en masse, by which time the total number of Americans killed in action was approaching 30,000.

“Empires with Expiration Dates” by Niall Ferguson

Our nation’s population recently reached 300 million. To help spotlight this occasion, the Census Bureau steps back in time by comparing contemporary life and statistics to those in the time periods in which the nation reached other noteworthy population milestones in 1967 (when the population reached 200 million) and in the year 1915 (when it reached 100 million).

Note: If data are not available for the specific year highlighted, we have provided data available closest to that year.

President
2006: George W. Bush
1967: Lyndon B. Johnson
1915: Woodrow Wilson

Price of a new home
2006: $290,600
1967: $24,600 ($149,147 in 2006 dollars)
1915: $3,200 ($64,158 in 2006 dollars)

Cost for a gallon of regular gas
2006: $3.04 (as of Aug. 7)
1967: 33 cents ($2.00 in 2006 dollars)
1915: 25 cents ($5.01 in 2006 dollars)

Price of milk
2006: $3.00 gallon
1967: $1.03 gallon ($6.24 in 2006 dollars)
1915: $ .36 gallon ($7.22 in 2006 dollars)

World Population
2006: 6.5 billion
1967: 3.5 billion
1915: 1.8 billion

Median age at first marriage for men and women, respectively.
2006: 27.1 and 25.8
1967: 23.1 and 20.6
1915: 25.1 and 21.6

Number of foreign-born people.
2006: 34.3 million (12% of the total population). Mexico is the leading country of origin.
1967: 9.7 million (5% of the population). Italy was the leading country of origin.
1915: 13.5 million (15%). Germany was the leading country of origin.

Average household size.
2006: 2.6 people
1967: 3.3 people
1915: 4.5 people

Death rate from tuberculosis per 100,000 population.
2006: 0.2
1967: 3.5
1915: 140.1

Percentage of the nation’s householders who owned the home in which they lived.
2006: 68.9%
1967: 63.6%
1915: 45.9%

Number of people age 65 and older.
2006: 36.8 million
1967: 19.1 million
1915: 4.5 million

Median Age of the Population
2006: 36.2
1967: 29.5
1915: 24.1

Life expectancy at birth.
2006: 77.8 years
1967: 70.5 years
1915: 54.5 years

Percentage of women in the labor force, age 16 and older (10 and older for 1915).
2006: 59%
1967: 41%
1915: 23%

Percentage of the population, age 25 and older, who had at least a high school diploma.
2006: 85.2%
1967: 51.1%

Number of motor vehicle registrations.
2006: 237.2 million
1967: 98.9 million
1915: 2.5 million

Number of traffic fatalities.
2006: 42,643 (This amounted to 1.5 fatalities per every 100 million vehicle miles traveled.)
1967: 51,559 (5 fatalities for every 100 million vehicle miles of travel.)
1915: 6,779 (35 fatalities for every 100 million vehicle miles of travel.)

Active-duty military personnel.
2006: 1.4 million
1967: 3.4 million
1915: 174 thousand

Number of farms.
2006: 2.1 million
1967: 3.2 million
1915: 6.5 million

“300 Million,” US Census Bureau

Using fmri, researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke peeked into the brains of 19 volunteers who were choosing whether to give money to charity, or keep it for themselves.

The subjects were each given $128 and told that they could donate anonymously to any of a range of potentially controversial charities. The volunteers could choose to accept or reject choices such as: to give away money that cost them nothing; to give money that was subtracted from their pots; to oppose donation but not be penalised for it; or to oppose donation and have money taken from them.

The brain that was active when a person donated happened to be the brain’s reward center, the mesolimbic pathway, responsible for doling out the dopamine-mediated euphoria associated with sex, money, food and drugs.

Donating also engaged the part of the brain that plays a role in the bonding behaviour between mother and child, and in romantic love. This involves oxytocin, a hormone that increases trust and co-operation. When subjects opposed a cause, the part of the brain right next to it was active. This area is thought to be responsible for decisions involving punishment. And a third part of the brain, the anterior prefrontal cortex, which lies just behind the forehead, evolved relatively recently and is thought to be unique to humans — was involved in the complex, costly decisions when self-interest and moral beliefs were in conflict. Giving may make all sorts of animals feel good, but grappling with this particular sort of dilemma appears to rely on a uniquely human part of the brain.

“The joy of giving,” The Economist

65% of Americans are overweight or obese.

People think they make 15 food decisions a day on average, but research by Prof. Brian Wansink shows the number is well over 200. The bigger the plate, the larger the spoon, the deeper the bag, the more we eat. We sometimes moderate our intake by more than 20% up or down to match our dining companion.

Moviegoers in a Chicago suburb were given free stale popcorn, some in medium-size buckets, some in large buckets. What was left in the buckets was weighed at the end of the movie. The people with larger buckets ate 53% more than people with smaller buckets.

Dr. Wansink devised a bottomless soup bowl, with insulated tubing, plastic dinnerware and a pot of hot tomato soup rigged to keep the bowl about half full.

People using normal soup bowls ate about nine ounces. The typical bottomless soup bowl diner ate 15 ounces. Some of those ate more than a quart, and didn’t stop until the 20-minute experiment was over. When asked to estimate how many calories they had consumed, both groups thought they had eaten about the same amount, and 113 fewer calories on average than they actually had.

Dr. Wansink outlines a weight-loss plan based on simple awareness. Sit next to the person you think will be the slowest eater when you go to a restaurant, and be the last one to start eating. Plate high-calorie foods in the kitchen but serve vegetables family style. Never eat directly from a package. Wrap tempting food in foil so you don’t see it. At a buffet put only two items on your plate at a time.

“Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You” by Kim Severson

On or around October 17th, the number of people in the US hit 300m, up from 200m in 1967. By as early as 2043 there will probably be 400m Americans. As America adds 100m people over the next four decades, Japan and the EU are expected to lose almost 15m.

American women today can expect to have an average of 2.1 children. That is the number needed to keep a population stable.

The fertility rate in the EU is 1.47. By 2010, deaths there are expected to start outnumbering births. The fertility rate in Italy and Spain is 1.28, which, without immigration, would cause the number of Spaniards and Italians to halve in 42 years.

People in very poor countries tend to have lots of babies because they expect some of them to die in infancy, and because they need help in the fields and someone to care for them in their old age. The fertility rate in Niger and Mali, for example, is over 7 children per woman.

According to Philip Morgan and Miles Taylor, birth rates are lower in more patriarchal rich countries, such as Japan and Italy, than in places where the sexes are more equal, such as America and Scandinavia.

Space also make child-rearing more attractive. The world’s lowest fertility rates are in super-crowded Hong Kong (0.95), Macau (1.02) and Singapore (1.06). In America the average family-home has doubled in size in the past half-century, from 1,000 square feet (93 square metres) in 1950 to 2,100 square feet in 2001.

The mean center of America’s population — ie, the point at which an imaginary, flat US would balance if only the people on it weighed anything — keeps moving south and west. In 1800 it was still near the eastern seaboard, in Maryland. By 2000 it was in Phelps County, Missouri, and heading for Oklahoma.

According to Joel Kotkin, as the US’s population surges, it will become more ethnically mixed and especially more Hispanic. Whereas in the EU by 2050 there will be fewer than two adults of working age for every person over 65, the proportion in America will be almost three to one.

The fertility rate in China is only 1.7, and there are almost no immigrants.

“Now we are 300,000,000,” The Economist

Whereas European countries looked to other parts of the world for new markets, resources, and territorial conquest, America focused its energies on its own Western frontier. Because westward expansion required little in the way of a massive army or colonial infrastructure, America developed a much leaner central state than its European competitors.

For example, Russian colonial staff eventually accounted for roughly 2% of Turkistan’s population, whereas American territorial staff in the West never exceeded 0.8% of the area’s population.

Unlike colonial subjects of European states, residents of the American West were represented in the national government. Upon achieving statehood, Western territories enjoyed representation disproportionate to their small populations, by virtue of having two seats each in the Senate. In the US colonial subjects were citizens who enjoyed an outlet to vent their frustrations.

As immigration drove down industrial wages, many native-born Americans picked up stakes and moved West. While the foreign-born population stood at about 15% in 1910, homegrown migrants, most of whom traveled westward, accounted for 19% of the total population.

In the colonial West anger was aimed primarily at immigrants (who drove down wages) and Eastern and foreign financial institutions.

The West may have been “tamed” by Americans, but its conquest was financed largely by foreign capital. Whereas Britain normally placed between 20% and 66% of its foreign investments in government securities — thus aiding the development of large, public-sector infrastructure projects in countries like Canada — in the United States, which had a leaner central state, only 6% of British capital went directly to the federal government. 60% went to private firms, such as railroad companies.

That is why American-style radicalism was more anticolonial than socialist, and why the demands of American radicals focused more on the regulation of utilities, railroads, and banks than on the construction of a European-style welfare state.

“Is America Really So Unique?,” Joshua Zeitz’s review of Eric Rauchway’s Blessed Among Nations

In a study at Pittsburgh’s Montefiore Hospital, surgery patients in rooms with ample natural light required less pain medication, and their drug costs were 21% lower, than their counterparts in traditional rooms. (See “Sunlight reduces need for pain medication” by Marilyn Elias.)

A study at Georgetown University found that even if the students, teachers, and educational approach remained the same, improving a school’s physical environment could increase test scores by as much as 11%. (See The Value of Good Design.)

A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink