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Technological and medical breakthroughs are incrementally making our lives better Here is a taste of the progress humanity made in 2017

Here is a taste of the progress humanity made in 2017 How has humankind advanced in 2017?

The end of 2017 is barely a week away. So now is the perfect time to reflect upon the positive difference humanity has made to the world over the past 12 months. How have we advanced as a species? We often underestimate the progress we make because it is incremental: an algorithm here, a genetic tweak there… But all these things combine to improve our future. As Kevin Kelly from Wired wrote, “Ever since the Enlightenment and the invention of Science, we’ve managed to create a tiny bit more than we’ve destroyed each year… That few percent positive difference is compounded over decades in to what we might call civilisation … [Progress] is a self-cloaking action seen only in retrospect.”

My website, Human Progress, tracks technological, medical and scientific improvements that make the lives of ordinary people better. Here are the ones that have caught our attention in 2017, doubtless only a tiny fraction of all the advances humanity has made this year.

Marian L. Tupy is senior policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity

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