Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
‘The world has never been less bad’
‘The world has never been less bad’
Dec 14, 2025 8:20 AM

A new interactive tool shows that men, women, and families from around the world have a lot more similarities than differences.

With the U.S. presidential election, confusion over Brexit, and seemingly crumbling international relationships, 2016 feels like it’s been months and months of anger, resentment, and disharmony. Americans—and non-Americans too—are feeling like we have nothing mon with anyone anymore. It’s worth taking a moment to look at the data and realize that just isn’t true.

Gapminder recently launched a new project, “Dollar Street,” with the tagline, “where country stereotypes fall apart.” This project is a study of 240 homes in 50 countries that includes more than 30,000 photos. Imagine that the entire world lives on one street, Dollar Street, and the houses are lined up by monthly e, those making $26 are on the far left and, the highest in study, a family making $11,381/month are on the far right. Everyone else falls somewhere between them. Gapminder asks, “Where would you live? Would your life look different than your neighbours’ from other part of the world, who share the same e level?”

Gapminder is an “independent Swedish foundation” that calls itself a “fact tank” rather than a think tank. They produce “free teaching resources making the world understandable based on reliable statistics.” Its founders saw, what they call a “global ignorance” about development among leaders, journalists, activists, and pretty much everyone else. There is always news about drama, nastiness, and things getting worse. Gapminder founders were curious if the world really is as bad as it seems. It isn’t. “The world has never been less bad,” the website notes. Dollar Street is just the newest tool in Gapminder’s box to help us understand the world in which we live.

You can break down the data on Dollar Street so it shows everyone or shows specific regions or countries. Then you can see photos of the families’ pets, teeth, toys, hands, toilets, families, homes, beds, bathrooms, stoves, front doors, sitting areas, books, bathrooms doors, bedrooms, toilet paper, light sources, phones, and more.

The thousands of pictures show, more than anything else, how similar the human experience is across the globe. Looking at the toys from around the world, there are plenty of recognizable types and brands even in countries we might be tempted to believe have nothing mon with the United States. Scrolling through, there are many Teddy Bears, there’s a collection of rubber ducks in Cambodia, A “minion” toy in India, A Barbie collection in Nepal, but there’s also a collection of old plastic bottles in Cote d’lvoire, armless and footless dolls in Indian and Liberia, and a plant pod in Burundi. It would be naïve to say children are all enjoying the same luxuries, but there are more recognizable toys than unfamiliar ones.

Another interesting find involves access to technology. A family with a $29/month e has a color screen, simple cell phone. There are many phones like this, but also many smart phones. On the far right side, a family living in the Ukraine taking in more than $10K/month uses an iPhone. Despite being in almost every American home for decades, there are very few landlines pictured. The creation and adoption of cell phones has helped connect us all and make someone living on less than a dollar a day enjoy similar technology to someone living on hundreds of dollars a day. A simple phone isn’t the same as an iPhone, but they both use technology that was unheard of not that long ago.

One of the best finds in the pictures? People from all countries, e levels, and climates have one thing mon: We love cats and dogs (and pigs and chickens, but cats and dogs are the mon pets). Whether we’re struggling to get by or have an abundance of wealth, we love our panions.

All photos in the project are available to be used and shared under the Creative Commons license and all content is free.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Commentary: The Progressive Captivity of Orthodox Churches in America
Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse looks at what was behind the criticism of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary’s partnership with the Acton Institute on a recent poverty conference. He points out that some who adhere to the “ancient faith” of Eastern Orthodoxy have very left-leaning ideas about economics and politics. The poverty conference, Fr. Hans writes, reveals to Orthodox Christians that their thinking on poverty issues is underdeveloped and that those who objected “relied solely on ideas drawn from Progressive ideology.”...
Schmemann on Socialism
Man’s nature is to reject it, because it can only be thrust on people by force. The most fallen possession is closer to God’s design for man than malicious egalitarianism. Possession is what God gave me (which I usually (mis)use selfishly and sinfully), whereas equality is what government and society give me, and they give me something that does not belong to them. (The desire for) Equality is from the Devil because es entirely from envy. – Fr. Alexander Schmemann,...
If ‘Disability’ Were a U.S. State It Would Be the 8th Most Populous
In March I wrote about the government’s largest—and mostly hidden—social safety net: federal disability programs. The government spends more money each year on cash payments for these Americans than it spends on food stamps and bined. This group is so large that if every family receiving disability payments were put into one state it would rank eighth in ing in after Ohio but ahead of Georgia: The total number of people in the United States now receiving federal disability benefits...
IRS Caught on Tape: Keep Faith to Yourself
Alliance Defending Freedom has released a transcript and audio of a phone conversation an IRS agent placed to a non-profit organization that provides support to women in abusive pregnancy situations. In the recorded phone conversation, the agent lectures the president of the organization about forcing its religion and beliefs on others and inaccurately explains that the group must remain neutral on issues such as abortion. Agent Sherry Wan (:06-:41) – “…so you have your right. You have your freedom. You...
Art and the Common Good
Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper, in his work Wisdom & Wonder, explores humanity’s relationship to creativity: Whereas idol worship leads away from the spiritual, obscures the spiritual, and drives it into the background, symbolic worship by contrast possesses the capacity, by repeatedly connecting the visible symbol with the spiritual, to direct a people still dependent on the sensuous toward the spiritual and to nurture that people unto the spiritual. Art should lead us to look beyond the created object, the artist...
George Wallace, Post-Traumatic Stress, and Black Voting
On June 11, 1963 Alabama Governor George Wallace became a national symbol for racial segregation by blocking the doors of a school to physically prevent the integration of Alabama schools. According to the Alabama Department of Archives, Governor Wallace “stood in the door-way to block the attempt of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, to register at the University of Alabama. President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard, and ordered its units to the university campus....
Religion & Liberty: The Moral Crisis of Crony Capitalism
Today’s new rich is the “government rich” according to Peter Schweizer. Massive centralization of money, resources, and regulation has allowed our public servants and many big businesses to thrive. The poor, new business start ups, the taxpayer, and the free market are punished. Washington and corporate elites profit from the rules and regulations they create for their own benefit and their cronies. As daily news reports currently reminds us, Washington is a cesspool of corruption and abuse of power. It’s...
Why Jesus is (Probably) Not a Keynesian
In a recent interview with Peter Enns, author and theologian N.T. Wright notes that in America, “the spectrum of liberal conservative theology tends often to sit rather closely with the spectrum of left and right in politics,” whereas, in other places, this is not quite the case: In England, you will find that people who are very conservative theologically by what we normally mean conservative in other words, believing in Jesus, believing in his death and resurrection, believing in the...
Enterprise is the Most ‘Effective Altruism’
Many of you know Jay Richards from his regular lecturing at Acton University. He has a newly co-authored piece in The Daily Caller, “Enterprise is the most ‘effective altruism.’” There’s more to be said on plex issue of helping the poor than can be put in a single op-ed, of course, but there’s some great food for thought here, particularly for those who view business and markets as necessarily part of the problem. Jay and Anne Bradley use the example...
Econ 101 for Father Finn
In a May 28, Huffington Post article, Rev. Seamus P. Finn, OMI, exhibits a woeful lack of economic knowledge. In most cases members of the clergy can be forgiven somewhat for getting it so utterly pletely wrong. After all, few people go into the ministry because they’re fascinated with things like lean manufacturing techniques or monetary policy. But in this instance Finn must be taken to the proverbial woodshed for a lesson in what truly benefits the world’s poor. Why...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved