The Optimist
List of The Optimist articles
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Ahmad Halabisaz/Getty Images A Friend in Need
Can disaster aid actually win hearts and minds?
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PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP/Getty Images Club for Growth
The past decade might have been grim for the economically stagnant West, but without a booming developing world it would have been much worse.
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Ker Robertson/Getty Images Don’t Worry About Being Happy
Hey, world leaders: Knowing how good your citizens feel about themselves won't help you run your country.
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SEYLLOU DIALLO/AFP/Getty Images Doctors Without Borders
Letting medical professionals and other skilled workers from the developing world emigrate is a good deal for everyone.
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Siegfried Modola/AFP/Getty Images Wanted: Smarter Patients
The key to improving medical care in the developing world isn't better doctors -- it's educating everyone else.
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Mario Tama/Getty Images Pennies from Heaven
Is God to blame for the global market meltdown?
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Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images The Myth of the Middle Class
The world's most pandered-to demographic is no more economically productive or civic-minded than anyone else.
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DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images Got Cheap Milk?
Why ditching your fancy, organic, locavore lifestyle is good for the world's poor.
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FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images Red Dawn
Why the United States should embrace, not fear, China's economic rise.
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Mario Tama/Getty Images Cloudy with a Chance of Insurgency
Does extreme weather cause war? Don't count on it.
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LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images Slim Pickings
Mexico is the most staggeringly unequal society on the planet -- but it doesn't have to stay that way.
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David McNew/Getty Images Three Cheers for Decline
Look on the bright side, America: Downgrading your global ambitions could make you a healthier and happier nation.
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Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images The Cultural Evolution
The baggage we carry from our ethnic and national backgrounds can keep people poor -- but it can also change, and faster than you'd think.
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LIU JIN/AFP/Getty Images Greening It Alone
The world is building a low-carbon global economy -- with or without the United States.
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TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images Famine Is a Crime
Civilization has defeated mass starvation. So why are so many Somalis dying of hunger?
