Advances in science and technology and other areas of society in the last 100 years have transformed the way we live as well as postponing the day we die. There is no better lime to be alive than now. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

The last fifty years or so of the 20th century have involved generous investments into scientific and technological advancement, bolstered by president J. F. Kennedy and his idea that knowledge inevitably determines power over our destiny. It cannot be excluded how developments in fields such as virology, medicine, physics and chemistry have pushed our living standards for the better. Recent data gathering from the UN has revealed how, as the years passed, death rates at natality have collapsed while overall life expectancy has drastically increased, more so in the so-called western countries. On the other hand, stating our period us the best one to be alive may sound rather too simplistic and would not account for the numerous realities of extreme ignorance and poverty that still exist around the world. Firstly, as previously specified, improvements of life expectations are usually qualified by referring to advanced countries, where scientific and technological literacy is combined with political and social improvements. Western countries are usually open towards freedom of research and knowledge, as well as respecting someone’s rights. This combination of factors has certainly sparked a dramatic improvement of life conditions. People have enough food to live and not starve anymore, thanks to agricultural improvements, enough medical knowledge to fight viruses and microbes and enough wealth to live relatively free of risks which were common 100 years ago. At the same time, such considerations may not be applied to third-world countries such as India, Bangladesh and many countries in Africa. Here, respecting the most basic human rights may not be common sense and advancement in everyone’s well-being, despite being enshrined in their respective constitutions, might come in second place as totalitarian dictators would govern for personal interests. In countries of this kind, life conditions have not improved and could have actually worsened, giving birth to entire communities and societies where the future is not bright but rather murky and full of terrible unknowns. Secondly, the same improvements that have blessed western countries do not sign the end of the numerous hardships encountered in the past. Advancements in one field would solve a recurring problem just to open the doors of other more complex riddles. For instance, the introduction of antibiotics has brought benefits to medical conditions such as tonsillitis, microbial infections and many more, but the excessive use of such remedies has also caused microorganisms to adapt rapidly and make current drugs already inefficient and ineffective. In conclusion, we definitely live in a world in the middle of unseen changes. A world were improvement feeds more improvement and new exciting economic, social and scientific challenges. We should not, however, rest assured that the peak has been reached. These years are undoubtedly the best ever seen by advanced countries, but the same cannot be extended to other regions of the world.