The tourist industry and mentality is precisely what makes travel to another country less of a real experience. That&#x27;s actually exactly the sort of thing I&#x27;m talking about, but that is lost on people like you who base all their thinking on metrics, which are always collected to justify an agenda, and this particular metric is about the global, totalizing economy, which brings me to my second point:<p>More kids are in school? For what? To be a white collar slave? To be a white collar slavemaster (entrepreneur)? Death in menial labor, while undesirable, at least prevents one from fattening the elites&#x27; wallets with their brains.<p>Where are the African and Asian artists? Scientists that arent just the tools of whoever is in charge? Philosophers with real, valuable ideas? I&#x27;ll tell you, theyre the same as the ones in the rest of the world: few and far between, virtually unheard of.<p>Similarly, low child mortality just currently means the commodification of children and childhood.<p>I&#x27;d also say literacy could have resulted in more healthy attitudes and less regurgitation of what doesn&#x27;t work, but few read for the sake of reading, and what they do read is trivial crap designed to keep them down.<p>Your reply is exactly another example of what I&#x27;m talking about where all the improvements in technology and education yield only people who think everything is great and there cannot possibly be any systemic problems with the way we live, after all these numbers say everything is fine and if it cannot be quantified or if the numbers arent big enough, it is not worth pursuing or it doesnt exist!