2014 was not a great year for the world by any means. If you haven’t seen this great cartoon from The Nib summarising just some of the shitty things that happened, you should.
So naturally, what did 2015 do so far? Promise to be a much much shittier year, if these trends continue. On which, all I’ll have to say is that there’s been tragedy in Nigeria on an unimaginable scale which (1) deserves the title “War on Terror” a lot more than what it’s normally used for and (2) has been completely overshadowed by [pretty important] discussions around #JeSuisCharlie.
But I bet most of us would welcome some good news, of which there’s actually been plenty in 2015 so far. It just hasn’t gotten much coverage. I haven’t done a link roundup post in a while, so here are some good news you might have missed:
- New Discovery Channel chief promises no more fake documentaries about bullshit like mermaids, conspiracy theories, Megalodon nonsense etc. “This was…was a message that it’s very important to us, and to me, that when people are telling stories and they’re delivering information that it is true and can be entertaining as well,” he said (emphasis mine). If you think this is not an important piece of good news, just poke around the media and public opinion and tell me that our societies can’t use more critical thinking and less lies to deal with all sorts of hurdles this year and beyond.
- A top-level Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen surrendered in the Central African Republic. (Wait, do you mean that the LRA’s been active all this time since #Kony2012? </sarcasm>) This could be a major nail in the coffin for the LRA’s continued existence. He is now set to be tried by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. This is controversial because he himself was kidnapped by the LRA, forced to be a child soldier and indoctrinated into their ideology. Which is exactly the type of conversation we should be having about LRA members in 2015 – how to ensure justice, restoration and reconciliation – not about how to capture them.
- Shell has agreed to $80 million in compensation payouts to 15,600 Nigerians whose fishing livelihood was devastated by major oil spills. “Each individual will receive around £2,200, equivalent to around three years’ income on the Nigerian minimum wage.” A much higher payout would have been nicer obviously, but it is a stepping stone in terms of accountability, especially since this has historically been so difficult in countries like Nigeria with extremely high corruption rates. They are also set to begin the clean-up in the devastated area. “Stvyn Obodoekwe from the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development, which works on environmental and development issues in the Niger Delta, described the settlement as ‘very, very significant’.”
- Intel will be investing $300,000,000 over the next 5 years to improve “the underrepresentation of women, as well as minorities in the technology industry”. Their internal goal, as announced by their CEO Brian Krzanich is full representation on all levels (including executive+management) by 2020. I guess GamerGate may end up having an outcome after all, just not the one they were intending…
- A potential new antibiotic has been discovered (for the first time in 30 years!) and the current results are promising. Antibiotic resistance has been making current antibiotics more and more useless and has been edging us closer to a bygone era where a minor infection can kill. The problem hasn’t gotten much coverage outside of science news and we haven’t made progress in creating new classes of antibiotics to replace the ones that don’t work as well. This is the most promising breakthrough yet, especially since for reasons I don’t understand, this potential antibiotic is believed to not be as prone to antibiotic resistance as current classes.
- Obama has unveiled an initiative for helping all US students get 2 years of free community college. Which is pretty big in US news but hasn’t seemed to make it to Australia. The devil is in the details but at least it’s an important step in acknowledging just how absurd the US’s education system is – it completely standard to finish hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with a degree that barely guarantees you a regular job at minimum wage. There are of course some countries with free tertiary education and plenty with better systems than the US’s.
So while many of these are preliminary and may not pan out, it’s not all doom and gloom. When looking for some images around good news, I came across this wonderful fake Google News screenshot, in case you’re up for some wishful thinking:
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