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Learn how China was able to catch up to the US as an AI superpower and discover the future of artificial intelligence. As we live in a world where cars no longer need drivers, phones can be unlocked with facial recognition, and the internet can even provide advertisements based on your browsing history, it's becoming more and more apparent that artificial intelligence (AI) is only going to get better. While the AI movement began in the United States, other countries have quickly caught up, including China who is now one of the largest AI superpowers in the world. However, the two countries continue to compete in the AI race and the two take drastically different approaches. For instance, China is determined to become the world leader and is doing whatever it takes to get there, including funneling billions of dollars into AI tech start-ups and making it as easy as possible to launch a new start-up. As Silicon Valley competes with its Chinese counterpart, Zhongguancun, Kai-Fu Lee discusses everything, including what led to China's success, what the future of AI looks like, and how a change in values can make our world a better place.

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Learn how China was able to catch up to the US as an AI superpower and discover the future of artificial intelligence. As we live in a world where cars no longer need drivers, phones can be unlocked with facial recognition, and the internet can even provide advertisements based on your browsing history, it's becoming more and more apparent that artificial intelligence (AI) is only going to get better.

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I read the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman and it drastically changed how I think.

Kahneman argues that we have two modes of thinking, System 1 and System 2, that impact our choices.

Read below to learn how the book (audiobook also available) helped me think more mindfully.

During the pandemic, I embraced quarantine life by pursuing more of my hobbies. There was just one problem: All of them led to a much busier schedule. From writing to taking a dance class to volunteering, I felt like I was always hustling from one thing to the next.

As my days continued to fill up with more and more activities, it felt like I was constantly checking off something on a list and moving to the next item as quickly as possible. Groceries? Check. Laundry? Check. Zumba? Check.

While thinking fast is helpful for minuscule decisions like choosing an outfit, it's not beneficial when making big choices in my personal and professional life, like wondering if I should start a new business. At times, I've even been guilty of assuming things instead of thinking through them clearly, which negatively affected my actions.

To effectively slow down, especially for high stake situations, I needed to understand why I'm so prone to thinking quickly in the first place. In my quest to learn more about how my mind works, I came across " Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, a world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

" Thinking, Fast and Slow" is all about how two systems - intuition and slow thinking - shape our judgment, and how we can effectively tap into both. Using principles of behavioral economics, Kahneman walks us through how to think and avoid mistakes in situations when the stakes are really high.

If you're prone to making rash decisions that you sometimes regret - or feel too burned out to spend a lot of time weighing out the pros and cons of certain choices - this book is definitely worth checking out.

3 important things I learned from "Thinking Fast and Slow":

Solving complicated problems takes mental work, so our brain cuts corners when we're tired or stressed.

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

Sometimes we think fast and sometimes we think slow. One of the book's main ideas is to showcase how the brain uses these two systems for thinking and decision-making processes. System 1 operates intuitively and automatically - we use it to think fast, like when we drive a car or recall our age in conversation. Meanwhile, System 2 uses problem-solving and concentration - we use it to think slowly, like when we calculate a math problem or fill out our tax returns.

Since thinking slow requires conscious effort, System 2 is best activated when we have self-control, concentration, and focus. However, in situations when we don't have those - like when we feel tired or stressed - System 1 impulsively takes over, coloring our judgment.

I recognized that my fast thinking was attributed to the fact that I was busy all the time and didn't incorporate very many breaks into my schedule. I felt exhausted and distracted at the end of long days, so I was using System 1 to make decisions instead of System 2. To gain more concentration and focus, I started practicing more mindfulness strategies and incorporating more breaks, which have helped me tremendously in making better choices for myself.

One of the main reasons we jump to conclusions is confirmation bias.

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

Kahneman says our System 1 is gullible and biased, whereas our System 2 is doubting and questioning - and we need both to shape our beliefs and values. When I was making a decision, I found that I was searching for evidence that supported my choice, rather than finding counterexamples. I made decisions so quickly using System 1 that I didn't start questioning those decisions until I realized I didn't make the right choice.

Now, I make sure I'm truly weighing the pros and cons of each decision, especially when the stakes are high. For example, I'm moving to a different city in the next few months and am currently looking at apartments. I first thought about moving to a particular place based on a friend's recommendation, which seemed like the easiest thing to do.

But, after reading the book, I learned I was actually rushing the decision and looking for evidence to support moving there, instead of really thinking things through. Now, I'm making sure to look at a wide variety of options with things I like and things I dislike about each apartment, such as price, location, and amenities.

When making a decision, we should always focus on multiple factors.

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

When I read this part of the book, I found this point extremely relatable. Most decisions are tied to weighing multiple factors, but sometimes we only focus on the one factor we're getting the most pleasure from, which can be a big mistake, because the factor that we initially find fulfilling often gives us less pleasure as time progresses.

Using this logic, I look at the bigger picture and make sure I am attracted to a commitment for multiple reasons. In my apartment hunt, I'm now prioritizing moving into buildings with a rooftop, gym, and lobby, so I can not only enjoy those amenities but easily meet new people in a new city. There are always a few apartments I come across with a beautiful, renovated kitchen, and while it would be so nice to cook with a luxury oven and stove, I realize that I'd get used to those appliances and it wouldn't make a difference to me as much as being able to hang out with my neighbors or friends on the roof.

The bottom line

If you're having a tough time slowing down and making decisions, it can be a great time to explore and understand your thinking patterns to improve, and this book can help you do it.

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This bestselling self-help book vastly improved my decision-making skills - and helped me spot my own confirmation bias

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I read the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman and it drastically changed how I think. Kahneman argues that we have two modes of thinking, System 1 and System 2, that impact our choices. Read below to learn how the book (audiobook also available) helped me think more mindfully.

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The Book in Three Sentences

Human history has been shaped by three major revolutions: the Cognitive Revolution (70,000 years ago), the Agricultural Revolution (10,000 years ago), and the Scientific Revolution (500 years ago). These revolutions have empowered humans to do something no other form of life has done, which is to create and connect around ideas that do not physically exist (think religion, capitalism, and politics). These shared "myths" have enabled humans to take over the globe and have put humankind on the verge of overcoming the forces of natural selection.

Sapiens summary

This is my book summary of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. My notes are informal and often contain quotes from the book as well as my own thoughts. This summary also includes key lessons and important passages from the book.

Human cultures began to take shape about 70,000 years ago.

There have been three major revolutions in human history: the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution, and the scientific revolution.

Prehistoric humans (2 million years old or so) were no more important and impressive than other mammals.

Homo Sapiens means "wise man."

Humans first evolved in Africa about 2.5 million years ago.

The author believes it is unlikely Homo sapiens will survive for another 1,000 years.

From about 2 million years ago until 10,000 years ago, multiple human species roamed the earth together. The depiction of man evolving from hunched over to upright incorrectly displays human evolution as a linear trajectory. In fact, the species lived simultaneously.

Humans have huge brains for their body size.

Human brains account for 2-3 percent of body size, but use 25 percent of energy.

Human kind was very much in the middle of the food chain until 400,000 years ago and didn't leap to the top of the food chain until 100,000 years ago.

Most animals at the top of the food chain made it there gradually over millions of years. Humans, however, jumped to the top relatively rapidly. This means that the rest of the food chain wasn't ready and neither were we. Hence we feel anxious and stressed because we aren't used to being at the top.

The advent of fire and cooking food may have opened the way for the evolution of a smaller intestinal track and a larger brain.

There are two theories of how Homo sapiens evolved: Interbreeding theory and Replacement theory. The reality is probably a combination of both theories.

Perhaps this is why Homo sapiens wiped out the Neanderthals: "They were too familiar to ignore, but too different to tolerate."

The last dwarf species of humans died out 12,000 years ago.

Homo sapiens conquered the world because of its unique language.

The Cognitive Revolution occurred between 70,000 to 30,000 years ago. It allowed Homo sapiens to communicate at a level never seen before in language.

As far as we know, only Homo sapiens can talk about things we have never seen, touched, or smelled. Think religions, myths, legends, and fantasies.

The telling of myths and stories allow Homo sapiens to collaborate in large numbers in extremely flexible ways. This separates us from all other animals.

Chimps can't form groups of more than 50 or so. For humans, the group size is usually 150 or so. Beyond that, you can't rely on gossip and personal communication. You need something more to get large numbers of people working together.

Large numbers of people can collaborate by sharing common myths and beliefs.

In academic circles, stories are known as fictions, social constructs, or imagined realities.

An imagined reality is not a lie because the entire group believes it.

Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, humans have been living in a dual reality: the physical reality and the imagined reality.

The way people cooperate can be changed by changing the stories as myths we tell.

Because Homo sapiens shared myths were not genetically based, they could adapt and change their behavior as soon as they adapted their new belief. They didn't have to wait millions of years for a genetic change.

Homo sapiens are the only animals that conduct trade.

As far as we know, the humans of 30,000 years ago had the same physical, emotional, and intellectual capabilities that we have today.

Evolutionary psychology claims that most of our psychology was developed during the period before the Agricultural Revolution about 10,000 years ago.

The instinct to gorge on high calorie food is wired into our DNA.

Ever since the Agricultural Revolution, there hasn't been one predominant way of life for all humans. There have only been options from a variety of cultures.

The dog was the first animal domesticated by humans around 15,000 years ago.

In ancient human groups (over 10,000 years ago) there was very little privacy, but also very little loneliness.

Most of our ancient ancestors had much wider and deeper knowledge of their physical surroundings than we do. They were not unintelligent at all.

The human collective today knows far more overall than the whole population of 15,000 years ago. However, at the individual level we are much more specialized today. Ancient foragers were the most knowledgable and skillful people in history.

It is far easier to pass "unremarkable" genes along today than it was 10,000 years ago.

Our lack of knowledge about prehistoric religions and beliefs is one of the biggest holes in our understanding of human history.

Humans traveling across the sea and landing in Australia was one of the most important expeditions in history. It marked the moment humans cemented themselves at the top of the food chain.

Homo sapiens first made it to America about 16,000 years ago.

The settling of America - across the Siberian peninsula through Alaska into Canada and the United States down through Mexico and Central America into the Andes and the Amazon and all the way to the tip of South America - was one of the most rapid and incredible invasions by a single species the world had ever seen.

Incredibly, the Agricultural Revolution sprang up independently in many different parts of the world.

There is no evidence modern humans have become more intelligent with time.

The Agricultural Revolution actually didn't make the life of the average human better at first. It did, however, allow humans to collect more food per unit area and thus the overall population multiplied exponentially.

Fascinatingly, the first few thousand years of the Agricultural Revolution actually made life harder for humans by creating more work, less leisure, and a ballooning population that created more mouths to feed. Each individual generation didn't see how their life was becoming worse because the small changes were so tiny.

One of history's few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people begin to enjoy new luxuries they tend to become expected and then count on them.

The evolutionary success of the Agricultural Revolution (greater population) was actually cause for much suffering on the individual level. Not just for humans, but for domesticated animals like cows, sheep, and chickens as well.

The advent of the Agricultural Revolution marked the time when worries of the future became prevalent: the weather, the crop yield this year, etc.

The myths that surround us and make up our lives dictate so much of what we believe and what we do.

Like the ancient Egyptians, most people dedicate their lives to building pyramids. It's just that the names, shapes, and sizes of the pyramids change from one culture to another.

In order to change the imagined order, you must first find a group that believes in a current imagined order. New myths must build upon or evolve from previous myths.

The main purpose of writing is to record numbers, which our brains did not evolve to manage well. Our brains are much better at remembering biological, zoological, and social information.

There is an ancient writing system used by the Incas known as a quipu. They are not written words at all, but a series of knots of different colors and strings that represent words and numbers.

Writing has actually changed the way humans think. We can use writing and record keeping to think far more categorically than ever before.

Numbers are the world's most prevalent language.

Social hierarchies, inequality, and so on are human inventions.

Most rich people are rich because they were born into rich families. Most poor people are poor because they were born into poor families.

Unjust discrimination often gets worse, not better, with time.

As of 2006, there were still 53 countries where a husband could not be legally prosecuted for raping his wife.

When it comes to gender inequality: biology enables, culture forbids. The idea of "unnatural" behaviors is actually a result of Christian theology, not biology.

If it is possible biologically, then it is natural. From a scientific perspective, two men having sex is natural. Traveling at the speed of light is not natural.

Why are men valued in many cultures more than women?

All human cultures are filled with inconsistencies. For example, America currently values individual freedom and equality. But these two ideals don't always play nicely. It is part of the human experience to reconcile them. These inconsistencies aren't necessarily bad. They force us to think critically. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.

History is moving relentlessly toward unity. The whole planet is moving toward one world culture.

The creation of money was purely an intellectual revolution. It doesn't exist except in our minds.

More than 90 percent of all money is just electronic data, not physical money.

Everyone always wants money precisely because everyone else always wants money.

Empires have been the world's most common form of political organization for the last 2,500 years.

In general, empires do not fall because of uprisings. They almost always succumb to outside invasion or splits from within the empower class.

Most of what we firmly believe is part of "our culture" was actually forced upon us by other empires who conquered our ancestors.

Despite the obvious negatives of empires taking over a culture, there are many benefits too. Art, music, governance, and more are the result of empires forming. Often, they blended new together with the conquered people to create a new culture.

It seems obvious that we are moving fast toward a singe global empire. Global markets, global warming, and commonly accepted concepts like human rights make it clear we all need one collective entity, not man states and countries.

Religion is the third great unifier of humankind, alongside money and empires.

The Agricultural Revolution was accompanied by a Religious Revolution.

Interestingly, polytheism is more open and accepting of multiple beliefs even though we often look at it as more barbarian and uneducated than our current beliefs.

Monotheism seems to push away polytheism, but actually is very similar to polytheistic gods with the use of patron saints. Praying to the patron saints of farmers isn't much different than praying to the god of rain.

The central tension with monotheism is how to deal with the fact that there is evil in the world while the omnipoten God is believed to be good and caring. If God is good why would he allow evil things to happen?

Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied.

According to Buddhist tradition: the mind naturally craves more in all situations. And all suffering arrives from craving.

There are a variety of "natural law religions" that are popular today like communism, capitalism, and liberalism.

Over the last 200 years, science has increasingly revealed that human behavior is determined by hormones, genes, and neurological synapses. If this is true, then for how much longer will we ignore that biology does not agree with the concept of free will?

To describe how something happened means to reconstruct the series of specific events that led from one point to another.

To describe why something happened means to find causal connections that led to this particular series of events to the exclusion of all others.

The deeper your knowledge of a particular area of history, the harder it becomes to explain why one particular outcome occurred and not another.

It is an inevitable rule of history that what seems obvious in hindsight is impossible to predict beforehand.

The are level one and level two Chaotic Systems. Level one does not respond to predictions about it, like the weather and weather forecasts. Level two does respond to predictions about it, like the stock market and analyst reports about rising oil prices.

There is no proof that history is working for the benefit of humans or that human well being increases overtime. It's good for the victors, but is it good for us all?

The Scientific Revolution started in Europe around 500 years ago. The last 500 years have witnessed an unprecedented growth of human impact.

One difference between religion and science is that science assumes humankind does not know the answers to many of life's biggest questions. Religion, however, assumes that the important stuff is already known. Science assumes human ignorance.

Modern culture has been able to admit ignorance more than any previous culture.

Previous cultures and belief systems compiled their theories using stories. Science compiles its theories using mathematics.

The story of how Scottish Widows was founded is an awesome example of the power of probability.

Scientists generally agree that no theory is 100 percent correct. Thus, the real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility. Science gives us power. The more useful that power, the better the science.

The military arms race drives science forward in rapid fashion. The truth is war prompts many scientific discoveries.

In the past, the best minds of the day worked on finding ways to give meaning to death. Today, our best minds work on preventing death through biological, hormonal, and genetic means. Science does not take death as an inevitability.

The economic, religious, and political interests that impact the flow of money into scientific and technological research have a huge impact on the output of science.

It is not enough to consider science in a vacuum. Economic and capitalistic interests, for example, determine what we research and what to do with the research findings.

Why did Europeans discover and conquer the Americas? Why not the Chinese or those from India or the Middle East who possessed just as much knowledge and technology as the Europeans? The European ideology to explore the world was the primary difference.

For most of human history, per capita production remained the same. Since the launch of capitalism, however, per capita production has skyrocketed.

Modern capitalism has exploded the growth of humankind thanks to the creation of credit, which allows you to borrow money now because we collectively trust that the future will be better than the present.

Adam Smith's brilliant insight about capitalism in The Wealth of Nations was that increasing private profits is the basis for increasing collective wealth and prosperity. In other words, by becoming richer you benefit everyone, not just yourself. Both parties get a bigger slice of pie. (Note: this only works if profits get reinvested, not hoarded.)

For capitalism to work, profits must be reinvested in new production.

The "religion" of capitalism says economic growth is the supreme because justice, freedom, and happiness requires economic growth.

All credit is based on the idea that science and technology will advance. Scientists ultimately foot the bill of capitalism.

The annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from nearly zero in the early 17th century to 18 pounds in the early 19th century.

The life expectancy, child mortality, and calorie intake are significantly improved for the average person in 2014 compared to 1914, despite exponential population growth.

Until the industrial revolution, human behavior was largely dictated by solar energy and plant growth. Day and night. Summer and winter. Everything was determined by man power and animal power, which were determined by food, which is determined by photosynthesis.

"This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped in the wild continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer really necessary for survival and reproduction."

Harlow's infant monkey studies from the 1950s (and a variety of followup studies) have shown that animals have strong psychological needs as well as purgative physical needs. Note to self: never disregard your psychological needs.

Each year the United States population spends more money on diets than the amount needed to feed all the hungry in the rest of the world.

Most people don't realize just how peaceful of the times are we live in.

In recent years, more people die from suicide each year than from war and violent crime. The same can said for car accidents.

Live a safe community, drive as little as possible, and love yourself. Violent local crime, car accidents, and suicide are some of the biggest killers of humans.

War is at an all time low because the costs of war have increased because of nuclear weapons, the benefits of war have decreased because physical resources drive less of the economy and international trade is more lucrative than conquest, and the tightening of international connections because a worldwide culture is less likely to battle itself.

Our view of the past is heavily influenced by recent events.

Researchers have investigated nearly all aspects of history, but have rarely have asked whether historical changes have made humans happier.

Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

If happiness is based on pleasurable feelings, then increasing our happiness is a matter of increases biochemical release. If happiness is based on meaning, then increasing our happiness is a matter of deluding ourselves about the meaning of our lives.

One uncommonly cited benefit of religion: belief in the afterlife gives meaning to your life in the present.

Buddhism has studied happiness for over 2,000 years. Interestingly, Buddhism shares many viewpoints on happiness with science. Most notably, that happiness results from processes within the body and not from the outside world.

The Buddhist philosophy of happiness centers around the idea that you are not the events that happen to you, but you are also not the feelings you have. You are not your feelings. They are just feelings. Thus, if you understand this, you can release the needs to keep chasing the need to feel happy or to not feel angry or to not feel sad. In other words, you have to understand yourself.

For close to 4 billion years, every organism developed according to evolution. But in recent decades, humans have begun to evolve according to intelligent design. In other words, there are people who would have been selected out of the gene pool millennia ago, but not today.

Genetic engineering is allowing humans to break the laws of natural selection.

The next stage of human history will not only involve biological and technological changes, but also changes in human consciousness and identity. Changes that are this fundamental will call the very term "human" into question.

Many people think the question we should ask to guide our scientific pursuits is, "What do we want to become?" However, because we seem to be on the path to genetically engineering and programming nearly every facets of our wants, desires, and consciousness, the real question we should ask is, "What do we want to want?"

In the past 1000 years, humans have evolved to take over the world and are on the verge of overcoming natural selection and becoming gods. Yet, we still seem unhappy in many ways and we are unsure of what we want. Is there anything more dangerous that dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?

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This is a book summary of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Read this Sapiens summary to review key ideas and lessons from the book.

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The United States Department of Agriculture keeps track of food availability for over 200 items, which can be used to estimate food consumption at the national level. They have data for 1970 through 2019, so we can for example, see how much beef Americans consume per year on average and how that has changed over four decades.

So that's what I did.

How long will chicken reign supreme? Who wins between lemon and lime? Is nonfat ice cream really ice cream? Does grapefruit ever make a comeback? Find out in the charts below.

The rankings are broken into six main food groups: proteins, vegetables, fruits, dairy, grains, and added fats.

Proteins
pounds per year per capita
Beef still makes up a large portion of protein consumed, but pounds per capita continues to decrease, whereas chicken continues to increase. Chicken took took away the top spot from beef in 2004 and has reigned supreme ever since.

Vegetables
pounds per year per capita
This chart shows the data for fresh vegetables (as opposed to canned or frozen). By pounds per day per capita, potatoes made up about half of all fresh vegetables in 1970. In 2019, that rate was about half, while overall vegetable consumption increased spread out through more varieties.

Fruits
pounds for fresh and gallons for juice, per year per capita
Among fresh fruits, apple consumption didn't change much, but bananas appear to have increased in popularity. Strawberries, grapes, and avocados started towards the bottom but are now higher up in the rankings. Oranges are down significantly.

While fresh apples dipped a little, apple juice continues a stead climb in the fruit juice category. Grapefruit juice, which is the best kind of juice, continues to decline like its fresh counterpart. Same goes for orange juice.

Dairy
gallons for beverage and pounds for food and frozen, per year per capita
We split dairy into three categories: beverage, food, and frozen.

Whole milk used to be the most common dairy beverage by a lot, but volume is more evenly split between whole, two percent, one percent, and skim. Eggnog appears to remain a holiday treat.

On the other hand, dairy food consumption is up, namely cheese and yogurt. Yogurt is especially more popular, which probably explains the wide variety at the grocery store.

Ice cream and other frozen dairy has changed just a little, mostly in the regular ice cream department.

Grains
pounds per year per capita
Flour is up almost across the board, with the exception of barley and rye flour. What was popular in 1970 is more popular now.

Added Fats
pounds per year per capita
The changes for added fats is a bit more challenging to see, because estimates are only available from 1979 to 2010. The USDA also changed their methodology to estimate fats in 2000, so it's probably more useful to compare relative distributions for pre-2010 against post-2010. The decrease for margarine and the bump for butter seems right though.

The Changing American Diet

Here's an animated version of this data from 2016.

The data is from the USDA Food Availability Data System. I used the loss-adjusted estimates, which account for food loss and try to get closer to what people actually consume.

Chart Type Used

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The United States Department of Agriculture keeps track of food availability for over 200 items, which can be used to estimate food consumption at the national level. They have data for 1970 through 2019, so we can for example, see how much beef Americans consume per year on average and how that has changed over four decades.

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These days, it's nearly impossible to escape thinking about COVID-19. Everywhere we look-from headlines to grocery lines-we're reminded of this pandemic's painful disruptions, and the suffering of countless individuals around the world.

As we continue to self-isolate at home, we often find ourselves daydreaming out the window, imagining what the future might hold.

Inspired by these windowside daydreams (and with the hope to bring a little sunlight to others too), we're searching far and wide for Happy Data: small but mighty numbers that, while insignificant to the more urgent statistics about the virus' toll, help us to picture a new reality post-pandemic.

Heartwarming, surprising, encouraging-we hope these numbers brighten your day and help you cope with this unprecedented moment.

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These days, it's nearly impossible to escape thinking about COVID-19. Everywhere we look-from headlines to grocery lines-we're reminded of this pandemic's painful disruptions, and the suffering of countless individuals around the world. As we continue to self-isolate at home, we often find ourselves daydreaming out the window, imagining what the future might hold.

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Visual narrative of six asylum seekers' routes.

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The Rhythm of Food — by Google News Lab and Truth & Beauty

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Google News Lab and Truth & Beauty investigate the Rhythm of Food. What can we learn about food culture by analyzing the yearly cycles in search interest for food, dishes, ingredients, recipes, …?

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MAMMALS

Given the natural extinction rate, we would not expect more than one mammal species go extinct per century. However according to the scientists, 1,469 are currently in danger of extinction in that time. Primates are highly at risk, especially the lemur family. Rhinos, bears, and big cats are also in trouble.

REPTILES

According to the natural extinction rate, we should not see more than one reptile extinction per century. However, 1,163 are currently at risk for extinction in that time. Especially endangered groups include the order of turtles, as well as the chameleon and iguana families.

AMPHIBIANS

According to the natural extinction rate, we should not see more than one amphibian extinction per century. However, 2,341 are currently at risk for extinction. Frogs have been hit hard, with families like the water frog, shrub frog, and dancing frog in great danger.

BIRDS

According to the natural extinction rate, we should not see more than one bird extinction per century. However, 2,200 are currently at risk for extinction. Albatrosses, penguins, hornbills and parrots are particularly at risk.

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Can you imagine a world without these guys?

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Animal species are going extinct anywhere from 100 to 1,000 times the rates that would be expected under natural conditions. According to Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction and three recent studies, the increase results from a variety of human-caused effects including climate change, habitat destruction, and species displacement.

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How many high school stars make it in the NBA?

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Every year the top high school basketball recruits get hyped up. How often do they pan out?

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the goalkeepers report 2019

How geography and gender stack the deck for (or against) you

The UN published a helpful diagram last year that shows how complex inequality can be, with five overlapping categories, each of which can be broken down into subcategories. We will focus this report on geography and gender, a subcategory of demographics.

We were born in a wealthy country to white, well-off parents who lived in thriving communities and were able to send us to excellent schools. These factors, among many others, put us in a great position to be successful.

There are billions of people on the other side of these dividing lines, however. For hundreds of millions of people around the world, hardship is all but guaranteed.

We believe that's wrong. Every person should have an equal opportunity to lead a healthy, productive life.

For the past 20 years, we've invested in health and development in low-income countries, because the worst inequality we've ever seen is children dying from easily preventable causes. In the United States, we've invested primarily in education, because a good school is a key to success, but you're less likely to have access to one if you're low-income, a student of color, or both.

Goalkeepers is our annual report card on the world's progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 17 ambitious goals the member states of the United Nations committed to reaching by 2030. As we write, billions of people are projected to miss the targets that we all agreed represent a decent life. If we hope to accelerate progress, we must address the inequality that separates the lucky from the unlucky.

let's take a closer look at the layers of inequality

Each time we zoom, we see yet another layer of disadvantage. These disadvantages don't need to pile up on top of one another to make life hard-but when they do, as for the marginalized girl in Chad, the effect is brutal.

What is her life like? The data says she has probably been close to starving to death several times. The odds are that she never got the nutrients her body and brain needed to develop fully. It is likely that she can't read or write, and that she will get pregnant well before she turns 20, although her body won't be ready for the rigors of childbirth.

And when the time comes, there is a good chance she will give birth alone.

She deserves a better life. And we believe she can have one, as long as the world understands the many challenges she faces and gets to work on addressing them.

The series of charts that follow tell you a lot about geography and inequality.

We plotted health and education because they are the key components of what economists call human capital, which we highlighted in last year's Goalkeepers Report as "the best way for a country to unlock productivity and innovation, cut poverty, create opportunities, and generate prosperity."

Investments in human capital today help people increase their incomes tomorrow. But without human capital-that is, for those who are unhealthy and uneducated-it is virtually impossible to escape poverty.

health and education are improving everywhere in the world

We are plotting developing countries by child mortality and years of schooling in 2000 and 2017.

The first thing you can see is universal progress. Think of the most challenged country you can imagine. The people there are healthier and better educated than they used to be.

Inequality between countries has narrowed but remains large.

The second thing you see, however, is that in many countries, even though life is better, it is still bad. The gap between Chad and Finland is closing, but it remains enormous. More children die every single day in Chad than die in Finland in an entire year.

The third thing you see is that this pattern, big progress and big gaps, also holds true inside countries. Let's look at India and Nigeria.

For the first time ever, we have human capital data at the district level. (Different countries have different names for this political subdivision. In the United States, they are counties; in India, districts; and in Nigeria, local government areas, or LGAs.)

Human capital has increased in more than 99 percent of districts in developing countries in the past 17 years. No matter how many times you hear the opposite, life is getting better, even for the very poorest.

However, the inequality between districts in countries is massive.

Consider India. In Kollam district in Kerala state, 1 percent of young children die, and the average person has more than 14 years of education, almost comparable to the most developed countries in the world.

By comparison, in Budaun district in Uttar Pradesh state, more than 8 percent of children die, and the average person has approximately six years of education. Budaun, by the way, is not small. Approximately 4 million people live there.

In Nigeria, the data says the same thing: world-class achievement juxtaposed to serious deprivation.

For example, the average person in Ado-Ekiti, in Ekiti state, has more than 12 years of education, whereas the average person in Garki, in Jigawa state, has five.

Let's go back to the country level dots for 2017.

When we model these charts into the future, you see that many countries are not catching up fast enough.

Very few developing countries are projected to meet the health and education SDGs. Nearly two thirds of the children in low- and low-middle income countries live in districts that, at their current rate of progress, won't reach the SDG target for child mortality by 2030. One third live in districts that won't even reach it by 2050.

If we are serious about the SDGs, then we have to accelerate the fight against geographical inequality and make sure that more districts are excelling.

The proportion of girls who do at least two hours per day of unpaid domestic work almost doubles after they reach the age of 15; by the time she is an adult, the average woman spends more than four hours every day doing unpaid work. Men, by comparison, average just over one hour per day.

These obligations inside the home are just one example of social norms that conspire to limit girls' opportunities as they approach adulthood. Across sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, girls average two fewer years of education than boys. And even when girls are well educated, they are much less likely to translate their years of schooling into a job in the formal work force. Globally, there is a 24 percentage-point gap between men's and women's labor force participation.

This lack of access to education and jobs is destructive for everyone. It keeps women disempowered, limits their children's life chances, and slows down economic growth.

education is necessary but not sufficient to close the gender gap in economic opportunity.

China achieved dramatic reductions in maternal and child mortality over the past 30 years by investing in primary health care, targeting services for women and children, and making them affordable for all.
Learn more

In the case of health, the priority needs to be primary care. If primary health care systems are well designed and fully funded, they reach everyone and address the vast majority of people's health needs.

In this report, Githinji Gitahi, who runs the largest health NGO in Africa, describes what countries like Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Thailand are doing right when it comes to delivering basic care to all their citizens and explains what other countries can learn from their experience.

In the case of education, not that long ago, conventional wisdom held that poor children didn't really need to be educated. That idea has been discredited in every region in the world in the past 50 years, and most countries in the world are approaching universal primary school enrollment. The priority now is to make sure that all schools provide a high-quality education. There are proven approaches to teaching literacy and numeracy in a single classroom, but there is not yet consensus about what it will take to improve basic skills at the massive scale of every single child in every single school in every single country. Last year, this report highlighted promising innovations being tried in Côte d'Ivoire, India, and Zambia, as well as Vietnam's nationwide success. All the human capital in the world, though, won't lead to equality and prosperity if healthy, well-educated girls are subject to social norms that disempower them.

Harmful norms can be hard even to see, much less change, but countries are taking steps to help women confront them.

A big part of the solution is policies that help women and girls carve out new paths for themselves. For example, in places like Peru, where women have the right to own land and other assets and have ready access to contraceptives so they can plan their families, women's labor force participation goes up. Later in the report, Arshi Aadil, an expert on digital financial inclusion, writes about policy reforms in India that are not only improving government services for the poor but also chipping away at the foundations of male supremacy.

Goalkeepers addresses just a few ways to create a better, more equal world. Thankfully, so many advocates are thinking creatively right now about inequality and its solutions. No one has gotten to the bottom of it yet, but we are all getting closer.

In the meantime, we know one thing for sure. No one's life should be a roll of the dice. Were you born, as we were, with the odds in your favor? Or are you one of the billions of people born with the odds against you? Our goal is to even the odds for everyone.

When that happens, the future won't be predicted by random factors like where you're born or how many X chromosomes you have. In fact, it won't be predicted at all. It will be made-by people's dreams and hard work.

See Examining Inequality data resources.

When we started our foundation, we focused on discovering and developing new tools and technologies. We quickly learned that we also needed to focus on delivering them to the people who need them. Primary health care is by far the most important health delivery system in the world. A strong primary health system reaches everybody, including the poorest and most vulnerable, and provides the vast majority of services a person needs to stay healthy. We know that, as governments invest more in primary health care systems, overall health outcomes improve, but unfortunately, low- and middle-income countries spend an average of just 36 percent of their health budgets on primary care. Some governments prioritize advanced health care for a minority of citizens, forcing the majority of citizens to pay out of pocket to meet their basic needs. This inequality feeds the vicious cycle of poverty and sickness. More-and more efficient-investment in primary care can help break it.

So, how do countries buy UHC when they have less than $51 to spend? The answer is: by investing in primary health care-that is, basic services near where people live and work. A good primary health system is just and equitable, is easily accessible to everybody, doesn't make the poor pay anything out of pocket, and addresses the vast majority of people's lifetime health needs. Its goal is to keep people healthy, because sickness is expensive for the individual, the family, the community, and the state!

When I think about primary health care, I remember walking hand in hand with my mum to our local dispensary in rural Kenya, which was about one kilometer away. That's where I got vaccinated. It's where my mum got prenatal care when she was pregnant with our last-born sister. And it's where everybody we knew went when they were sick and seeking advice or treatment.

Since the turn of the millennium, several African countries have invested in building far-reaching, high-quality primary health systems. Ethiopia and Rwanda, for example, have recruited tens of thousands of community health workers, women who are chosen by their neighbors and trained by the government to take care of people's health.

Community health workers go to the people, instead of the other way around. And they don't interact with people only when they are sick. They also promote healthy behavior (like proper diet and hygiene) and provide or promote preventive care (like immunizations) to keep people from getting sick in the first place. And then, of course, they are trained to treat common illnesses (like diarrhea and malaria), provide basic family planning services, and refer patients to health facilities if they need more sophisticated care.

As a result of these investments, Ethiopia and Rwanda are among the leaders in the region in reducing maternal and child mortality. And by the way, the GDP per capita in both countries is well below the regional average.

Many other African countries have yet to make the necessary investments. My own country, Kenya, is much richer than Ethiopia and Rwanda, but the primary care system is weaker (though there is finally high-level political commitment to strengthening it). What matters are the choices that politicians make.

here are three choices they can make to achieve better health results with limited budgets:

1

spend a little more

In 2001, all 54 member states of the African Union committed to spend 15 percent of their state budgets on health. A precious few have ever met that commitment, and those who meet it year after year can be counted on one hand. Governments must balance countless priorities, so finding more money for health is not easy. But when you are making do with such small budgets, every extra dollar counts. Kenya currently spends $36 per person per year, or 7 percent of its budget, on health. If that went up to, say, $51, the universe of the possible would expand significantly. At $86, according to an analysis based on WHO data, governments of low-income countries could fully fund primary health care.

2

spend on right priorities

Many countries spend more on what is known as secondary and tertiary care than on primary care. That makes sense in one respect, because MRIs, X-rays, and many other features of secondary and tertiary care are expensive. But African governments can't afford to spend most of their money to meet some of some people's needs. In Thailand, which has one of the best primary care systems in the world, the government temporarily reallocated all its health infrastructure spending to rural areas because the health gap between rural and urban areas was so big. Now there is at least one health center in every single Thai village. African governments need to say, "Until we are sure primary health care has the investment it needs, we'll make do with what we have for secondary and tertiary care." It's a difficult position to take, but it's what countries that care about UHC have to do when there is so little money available.

3

spend more efficiently

Primary care systems can do a lot to stretch the dollars they spend. For example, they can invest in digital health, especially electronic medical records. Or they can focus on managerial innovation, like new ways for a continent with many countries and a large geographical area to pool purchasing and improve supply chains. This would ensure that the right products are available at the right prices and delivered to the right places at the right times.

Finally, it is crucial to use data to answer two key questions about UHC: What and who?

When you know you can't provide every service, choices about what to provide make a big difference. For African countries, I boldly prescribe prioritizing sexual and reproductive health and rights. But you still have to decide where to put your resources, based not on generic global calculations but on actual conditions on the ground. For example, vasectomies may look cost-effective on paper, and they are good and encouraged, but the return will be less in a country where few providers can perform them, men are resistant, or the biggest challenge is a burgeoning adolescent population.

Next, the who. To make sure no one suffers financial hardship, you need to subsidize the most marginalized and vulnerable, including women, children, and girls, as well as the indigent. However, in countries where most people work in the informal economy and data is unreliable, it's hard to know precisely who the indigent are. Kenya, with 80 percent of its population employed informally, is working on developing rigorous methodologies to target services more effectively. Ideally, as primary health systems begin to get the same results for less money, they'll invest what's left over in getting even better results.

When I was seven, the World Health Assembly announced its commitment to "health for all." The tragedy is that when it turned out to be hard to pay for, the world stopped thinking about it, even as a moral principle. Today I am 49, and we finally believe in health for all again. With the global dialogue about UHC, we are also thinking practically about how to achieve it. In other words, we have a second chance. Now leaders in Africa and around the world have to take advantage of it.

See Primary Health Care data resources.

Some pessimists warn that technology will usher in a dystopian future. Some naïve optimists predict it will create a utopia. The truth lies somewhere in between. Technology is disruptive, and countries need to invest to maximize the positive disruptions and manage the negative ones.

Few countries have been as innovative and thoughtful about using digital technology to make people's lives better as India. The government understood early on that technology made it possible to connect directly with citizens instead of working through layers and layers of bureaucracy. Then it started creating smart policies built around digital technology that improved both the quality and reach of government services. This essay, which describes the reform of cooking gas subsidies, demonstrates how aligning technology and policy can create a surprising domino effect.

The JAM Trinity

Most poor families, especially in rural areas, don't cook with gas; even if it's subsidized, it's still more expensive than building fires with wood or animal dung. However, wood and dung fires fill kitchens with hazardous smoke (household air pollution is responsible for nearly 500,000 deaths per year in India). To address this crisis, Ujjwala provides qualifying rural households with a 50 percent subsidy to purchase a gas connection and stove. (The other 50 percent can be paid in installments.) So far, approximately 75 million women have benefitted from Ujjwala. The government is now considering additional reforms to encourage Ujjwala recipients to refill their gas canisters, which are not necessarily affordable enough or easy enough to get.

For example, the average Indian woman spends more than 40 hours per week doing domestic work, leaving precious little time for anything else. Using cooking gas saves women several hours per day they had been spending gathering firewood, building and managing fires that made them sick, and then cleaning up the ashes and dust.

Moreover, the government made an important decision about how the benefits would be disbursed that is disrupting traditional power dynamics in the home. Unlike with traditional benefits programs in India, it is women-and not their husbands- who are eligible for Ujjwala. To receive the gas subsidy, women need to sign up for a bank account.

Merely having and using a bank account changes women's lives, by giving them decision-making power over the family's finances. A randomized control trial of a different Indian social benefit program, a work guarantee program, found that when women received payments directly into their own accounts (instead of accounts in their husband's names) and received training on how to use the accounts, they worked more and earned more. Their husbands also said they were more comfortable with their wives working outside the home. In other words, helping women gain control over financial resources ends up changing everyone's sense of who they are and what they are capable of.

There is yet another way that policies designed around the JAM trinity are empowering the poor-by making government more accountable. For example, with the new cooking gas subsidy, government officials in 640 Indian districts receive daily progress reports on PAHAL, including enrollment, cash transfer, and error rates, so they can identify and address problems as soon as they arise.

Various states are also experimenting with ways to proactively solicit citizens' input whenever they interact with government. In one state, for example, beneficiaries receive an automated call soliciting feedback on the quality of the service: Was the customer treated courteously? Did she receive the benefits she expected? Did she receive them without having to pay a bribe? Negative responses roll over into a human system to generate formal complaints.

On its own, the JAM trinity doesn't do much. It needs to be paired with smart, pro-poor policies and services built around digital technology. Even then, digitally powered policies and services by themselves won't end poverty and gender inequality. They need to be accompanied by analog reforms like changing discriminatory laws and policies. When all these pieces come together, though, the status quo can change fast.

See Digital Inclusion data resources.

The global climate change debate is mostly focused on how to limit carbon emissions. We are still waiting for the big technology and policy breakthroughs we need. Meanwhile, the climate is already changing. It is a terrible injustice that the people who suffer the most are the poorest farmers in the world. They didn't do anything to cause climate change, but because they rely on rain for their livelihoods, they are at the front lines of coping with it. These farmers already have no margin for error. They don't have the resources to adapt to droughts and floods, disease outbreaks among their herds, or new pests devouring their harvest. In Ethiopia, the government and millions of farmers have embarked on an impressive crash course in building resilience, and it is working. As State Minister Kaba writes, the 2015 drought didn't cause anywhere near the death or destruction of the infamous 1984 drought. Ethiopia's success offers hope. Worldwide, we need greater investment in developing and distributing improved crop varieties that tolerate stresses like extreme heat or floods. The world's agricultural research system needs more support.

Fortunately, the work we've been doing for the past 20 years will help our farmers respond to the changing climate in the next 20. In 2005, we launched a very large program that pays people to work on agriculture-related public works projects. The impact is twofold: The poor have the means to purchase food and other necessities when emergencies strike, and they build community assets like bench terraces, bunds, check dams, deep trenches, and microbasins that conserve water, prevent soil erosion, and ultimately contribute to higher yields. Three years later, we launched another program to foster a mass movement around sustainable land management.

We have also hired one of the largest cadres of agricultural extension agents in the world. They are a source of timely information; for example, they provide early warnings about droughts and advice about how farmers might adjust. They also focus on longer-term education. Our network of extension agents is one reason why Ethiopian farmers are more likely to use fertilizer, improved seeds, or irrigation than farmers in many neighboring countries.

We have no illusions about what we are up against. Several years ago, we launched our Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy, which recognizes that our future prosperity is riding on proper stewardship of our environment.

We cannot stop the droughts. We can flourish in spite of them.

We try to adapt to the conditions here and overcome. I want my children to get an education. I didn't get one when I was a child; I didn't go to school a day in my life. But all three of my children are enrolled. I must make sure that they are fed. If I grow wheat early this year, I will switch to barley during the next growing season because I want barley for my kids to eat. My children can't learn and study with empty bellies. Every decision I make is about what my family needs.

Based on an interview.

See Climate Adaptation data resources.

We started writing the Goalkeepers Report to track progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We believe that seeing where the world is succeeding will inspire leaders to do more, and seeing where the world is falling short will focus their attention. So we promised that, every year, we'd publish the most recent global data about the 18 indicators most closely related to the work our foundation does. This year, given our theme, we have tried to emphasize the role of inequalities in blocking the achievement of the SDGs. We have also explored maternal mortality, stunting, and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in more detail, because those stories provide insights about inequality and how to fight it.

Featured Global Goals Indicators

Last year we picked three indicators out of the 18 to explore in more detail with additional data. This year we've selected maternal mortality, stunting, and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and focused on highlighting countries and programs which are showing success at fighting inequality.

Global Goals Indicators

In addition to our three featured deep dives, below you can explore the other 15 indicators which we track annually. For each, we show the available data charting global progress since 1990. For select indicators, we show projections to 2030 based upon current progress and two additional scenarios, produced by our partner, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. This year we also explored a dimension of inequality for each indicator masked by the global averages.

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The UN published a helpful diagram last year that shows how complex inequality can be, with five overlapping categories, each of which can be broken down into subcategories. We will focus this report on geography and gender, a subcategory of demographics.

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3D modeling of various fry shapes reveals why you like some more than others.

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You know, cats and dogs can be utterly strange sometimes. Actually, more often than sometimes. Ever since getting a cat 14 years ago, I've come to realize how truly enigmatic animals can be. Why does my cat go crazy for my sweaty gym clothes? Why does she suddenly stop, in the middle of a playful frenzy, to lick her leg for a second? WHY the obsession with cardboard boxes?!

Since asking her directly won't work, I do the next best thing-I see what the internet has to say about it. Turns out I'm not alone; many people google to try and understand their cats and dogs better. But what "weirdness" is really common to them?

Let's try and answer this question by looking at what pet behavioral questions are searched for most often. In this project, I worked together with Google Trends to investigate the ~4400 most asked questions about cats and dogs that start with the word "why" in Google Search.

If you want to learn and explore what questions are most popular, what funny or unexpectedly intriguing questions people are asking, and in which countries dogs are more popular than cats and vice versa, then read on!

Btw, reading this story in Chrome shows more visually fun aspects ^.~

First of all, would you say you're a cat person or dog person?

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You know, cats and dogs can be utterly strange sometimes. Actually, more often than sometimes. Ever since getting a cat 14 years ago, I've come to realize how truly enigmatic animals can be. Why does my cat go crazy for my sweaty gym clothes?