Where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst.
- Francis H. Bradley
Barry McGuire - Eve Of Destruction (Lyric video)
🌍 Apocalypse Revisited: Humanity’s Stunning Progress and the Specter of Collapse
How far we’ve come – and how fast we’re sliding back
“Things can be both bad and better.” – Hans Rosling
“The world is going to hell – but at a higher standard of living.” – Anonymous cynic
“The facts say otherwise.” – The author who dared to revisit Apocalypse Deferred
Thirty years ago, amid a crescendo of global pessimism, a young journalist dared to swim upstream. While Robert D. Kaplan’s infamous 1994 Atlantic piece The Coming Anarchy painted a bleak picture of humanity spiraling into chaos, this journalist’s reply—Apocalypse Deferred—dared to proclaim something radical: things were getting better.
And he was right.
📈 The Greatest Story Never Told: Progress
Since 1994, the numbers speak for themselves:
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🌍 Life Expectancy rose from 64 to 73 globally. In Africa, it jumped from 50 to 64.
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💉 Child Mortality rates dropped to historic lows—cut by more than half.
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🥣 Undernourishment fell from 18.6% of the world to 8.9%.
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📚 Education expanded universally—girls included.
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📱 Technology and economic access exploded. Most of the world now has access to smartphones, mobile banking, and internet-driven economies.
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⚕️ Global health triumphs: Polio nearly gone. Smallpox eradicated. Diarrheal deaths slashed. Measles vaccine saved 94 million lives.
These are not the headlines you see on cable news. But they are the facts.
So why, in 2025, does it feel like the world is ending?
😡 A World on Fire (Again)
Because in many ways—it is. For all the progress, the chaos Kaplan warned about is here, just in another form:
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💣 Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine drags into a fourth year with unspeakable atrocities.
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☢️ Nuclear tensions are back—worse than in the Cold War.
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🌡️ Climate change has arrived. 2023 was the hottest year on record.
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🗳️ Democracy is retreating—Freedom House has documented 19 years of global backsliding.
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🇺🇸 The United States, once democracy’s lighthouse, is now flirting with authoritarian collapse.
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💰 Trade wars, nationalism, and populism threaten the economic cooperation that lifted billions.
We are progressing and regressing simultaneously—a paradox of our time. Civilization has never been more advanced, and yet the veneer of stability has never been so thin.
🔍 The Great Regression: Why Are We Sliding?
It’s not just geopolitics. It’s something deeper.
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Short-term thinking dominates our politics. We invest in military might, but not public health.
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Fear sells. A media and social media economy built on rage, tribalism, and catastrophe draws our attention away from long-term progress.
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Power is centralizing—into fewer hands, fewer tech companies, fewer political strongmen.
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Climate panic is becoming reality. We've crossed thresholds. Fires, floods, famines are no longer predictions—they’re current events.
🚨 The Real Risk: Losing Hope
Here’s the kicker: pessimism is now a threat to civilization.
When people believe everything is doomed, they disengage. They stop voting. They stop trusting. They stop dreaming. And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Robert Kaplan wasn’t wrong to be wary in 1994. But he was wrong to assume doom was inevitable. The data proves that we’ve made miraculous gains—because people believed in something better.
Now, 30 years later, we risk losing that belief.
🧠 The Path Forward: Radical Realism
Let’s be clear: optimism isn’t naiveté. It’s strategy.
We don’t need fairy tales. We need clear eyes and fierce resolve.
Yes, democracy is in peril—but it's not dead.
Protesters from Turkey to Gaza are risking everything for dignity.
Yes, war is back—but so are peace movements, ceasefires, and international resistance to tyranny.
Yes, the climate is breaking—but the green revolution has begun:
🇨🇳 China is outbuilding the world in solar and wind.
🇨🇦 Canada runs largely on nuclear and hydro.
🇩🇪 Germany is decarbonizing faster than ever before.
🚗 EVs are no longer luxury—they’re inevitability.
✊ Recognize the Marvels. Fight the Tragedies.
We must stop worshipping the “lugubrious conventional wisdom” that says collapse is the only future. It’s not.
We’ve dodged apocalypse before—through science, cooperation, and vision.
What we need now is unfiltered courage.
🧠 To recognize progress.
💥 To expose corruption.
🌱 To protect the planet.
🛡️ To defend democracy.
💡 To tell the truth—even when it’s not trending.
⚰️ Waste Land or Wonder World?
Kaplan’s latest book is called Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis. And sure, the crises are real. But the permanence? That’s up to us.
This isn’t Weimar. Not yet.
This is 2025. The most advanced, most dangerous, most decisive moment in human history.
We’ve come too far to let the world go to hell. Not without a fight.
📌 Further Reading:
📣 Join the conversation. Share this. Debate this. Demand better.
Because the world isn’t doomed.
It’s just unfinished.
Sincerely,
Adaptation-Guide
ADAPT OR DIE!
LESS IS MORE!
WE ARE READY! ARE YOU?
Credits: GLOBE & MAIL
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