A World Half Full is the other half of the more depressing Crapsack World (which was formerly known as World Half Empty). It is usually featured in a similar condition to the above, a place where the world is in an extremely broken state. In fact it is almost the same hellhole as it was when it was more depressing. However, it can be saved, sort of...
In this world, the Protagonist is only one man, he can't bring life instantly to an abandoned village, but he can find the materials needed to bring upon the seeds of growth that will bring life back to the once desolate town. However, such changes are not overnight miracles and in fact many of them will not be noticed in his or her lifetime. He is also quite tempted to exploit the wasteland and will have to resist such urges. More Anti Heroic characters may not even bother holding back.
Just as before, the forces of darkness run through relatively unmolested and it is ill advised for players to confront them head on. Most of the time, the player or protagonist will skirt around the major sources of power and just go for the source of ills itself and it will rarely result inthe total destruction of the enemy, especially if the problem is Inherent in the System and the Big Bad is, for all his current importance, ultimately replaceable.
However, victory is often a minor one as it is only a small portion of a constantly decaying world that has been fixed. While you may change life for the better for your people and solve today's ills, everyone else could potentially suffer whether or not you are deliberately or accidentally causing it through false progress or is still suffering as usual, unaffected by the hero's successes. Nevertheless, it's still better than waiting for the end to come, as any Knight in Sour Armor will tell you.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Fist of the North Star exemplifies this: just because the world is torn by nuclear fire dosen't mean it can't be rebuilt, and just because violence can be used to oppress the weak doesn't mean you can't use it to protect the weak and and make the world a better place either.
Ghost in the Shell is a world half full for most of the main characters. They frequently expose corruption and conspiracies, and stop terrorists from killing more innocents, but at the end of the day, their actions don't do anything to change the corrupt and uncaring system of Japanese society. Still, they feel pretty good about what little good they can do.
Gundam X was all about this, taking place After the End. We would expect a Mad Max or Hokuto No Ken world where the entire earth was an unsafe place where slavers took anyone they like, Raider left behind huge examples of their brutality and the government purging and reclaiming what is theirs. Instead humanity continue to move on. The world isn't some sort of badly irradiated earth despite its share of Colony Drop and humanity has begun its path towards civilization. Sure we got a few hiccups like the Frost Brothers and remnant of Earth and Space's army wanting to continue the war. But the setting notably light for a supposedly Crapsack World.
The world in Gundam 00 was even prior to CB's world intervention far from being crapsack.
Gundam Age starts off as this. In spite of the Earth Federation being rotten and incompetent in handling the problem of the Ax Crazy UE murdering colonies mercilessly, Flit Asuno and Grodek were dedicated in saving the humanity from the UE's vile clutches and promoting peace and harmony. That is, until the Diva's crew realize that the UE are human soldiers for Veigan and Grodek shows that his true goal was revenge against the man who killed his family, not to saving humanity. Worst of all, Flit Asuno refuses to accept that the Veigan soldiers are human and prefers to continue viewing himself as a savior... for the corrupt Earth Federation. And he's more than willing to take Veigan lives to become this. The war's only going to get worse from there...
Darker than Black is a Darker and Edgierdeconstruction of superhumans, whose protagonist is a mass-murdering assassin who's basically just working for The Syndicate for lack of other options. The world is full of superpowered sociopaths, and the governmental agencies and criminal groups that employ them are locked in a pretty much constant underground struggle to control both the Contractors and the Imported Alien Phlebotinum from the Gate. Nevertheless, over the course of the show it becomes clear that Contractors can have feelings and morals, and that it's possible for things to improve; several mini-arcs end relatively happily, and in the end Hei manages to Take a Third Option when forced to choose between allowing a genocide of all Contractors and wiping Japan off the map, and the end of the first season shows that the brokenMasquerade will help prevent rogue Contractors from running wild. Still a Bittersweet Ending, and things haven't improved too much by the second season, but there's hope.
Monster is a bleak world where lots of violence and death happens. The villain, Johan, is a heavy contender for the most evil bastard ever written into existence (hell he's the trope image). But its shown that he and his supporters are the exception. Most of the people in the series are decent to really good people who just want to help others succeed or atone for past misdeeds. And those who go through horrific trauma can put the pieces back together and enjoy life. It's never to late to start anew. Accentuated by Nina who after the terrible things she goes through and coming so close to suicide goes on to living a normal and happy life afterwards.
In Bleach, Soul Society is becoming this, thanks to Ichigo. In chapter 461, we've learned that the influence of Ichigo Kurosaki has changed General Yamamoto so thoroughly that the previously Lawful Neutral commander of the Gotei 13 gave a direct order to all Gotei Captains to restore Ichigo's powers. Captain Hitsugaya comments that before Ichigo came along, the General never would have given any such order.
Superman:You came after all. What changed your mind?
Doctor Fate:It was because you went back. You reminded me that it's not just the forces of evil that never give up.
Both universes (especially the DC universe) are subversions though: the people are totally happy and just as well-off (if not even more so, considering their excellent role models/guardians and superior technology and possibilities) as people are in Real Life, because they've been dealing with that sort of thing on an everyday basis for decades, and don't consider the danger and destruction to be anything out of the ordinary, nor does this Seen It All mentality make them cynical or depressed.
The titular hero of Moonshadow sees his mother die violently, is committed to a madhouse, fights a war and ends up in a concentration camp (among other things) in a world full of meaningless deaths, tragic ironies and no clear answers. Or to quote the title of a work of philosophy everyone in this world has read, We Are All Ants In A Meaningless Cosmos. Regardless, Moonshadow adopts a more hopeful philosophy, though, as exemplified by the other work of philosophy everyone has read, and finds peace anyway. It Makes Sense in Context.
The titular character's job is to clean up the Earth so people can live there again. It gets delayed a bit.
The Humans aboard the Axiom are a better example, even if it's done for comedy. Wall-E is just following his Directive, The Captain making the decision to return to Earth is this trope.
The Postman: The world as we know it was destroyed in an apocalypse. The United States no longer exists. Yet Kevin Costner, in an accidental act of heroism, reignites the U.S. Postal Service, bringing hope to the hopeless and hap to the hapless.
Some of the background material to Avatar implies that the horrific environmental destruction inflicted on Earth might just be capable of repair by imported Pandoran lifeforms, and by learning environmental respect from the Na'vi.
Importing lifeforms from a planet where everything is trying to kill you, doesn't sound like a good way to make earth a better place...
Clearly you've never been to Australia; Sure most of the flora and fauna can and does try to kill you but it's not a bad place to live at all.
Of course the tubes used to make the avatars were suppost to be design to help endanger animals get back their numbers.
Life is Beautiful. A cheerful and whimsical film set in the backdrop of the Holocaust.
Slumdog Millionaire: Sometimes, in spite of all the impossible obstacles, you get a Happily Ever After.
Literature
Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife: There are life-sucking demons that surface with some frequency and can only be killed with human sacrifice; the Lakewalkers, who fight the demons, don't respect the farmers and the farmers don't trust the Lakewalkers. The heroes of the story don't believe they can eliminate the demons or even make the fight against them substantially easier, but they work to foster greater understanding between the farmer and Lakewalker populations so their society isn't undone by avoidable ignorance and mistrust.
Nancy Farmer's House of the Scorpion: The United States and Mexico are both Crapsack World societies, but Matt, now in charge of the nation of Opium, may be able to right many of the problems that have befallen them.
Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Over the course of the series, the entire supporting cast dies meaningless deaths, scheming bureaucrats sacrifice lives like pawns in chess while incompetent commanders vie to out do one another in how many casualties they can rack up, and the only person who has the balls to do anything about it is a self-confessed madman. But at the end, the protagonist has the following revelation: his superiors are literally too incompetent to stop him from deserting, meaning that he could have left anytime he wanted to; the only thing stopping him was his own inaction. He does so, an the story is given at least some semblance of a Happy Ending.
A Scanner Darkly. The hero's brain is fried from Substance D but that allows him to infiltrate the drug manifacturing facility the rehab clinic he was taken to and gather the evidence needed to destroy the syndicate making the drug.
Andrew Vachss's Burke books. Beneath the veneer of civility citizens see is a veritable cesspit of crime, the system is at best apathetic and at worst actively malicious and Burke can't stamp out all crime or save everyone - in fact, each book's villain invariably has quite a few notches on his belt by the time Burke gets to him - but every scumbag he manages to put down means a few more innocents who won't have to be victims.
Terry Brooks' The Word And The Void. The war between The Word and The Void will never end, the feeders and the demons will always be trying to corrupt people, and there's no real way for the Knights of the Word to do anything more than stave of Armageddon. Yet in the end, they can save a few people, and that's what really matters.
Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds. Things are actually worse at the end of the book than at the beginning, but the characters now know not only how to fix things, but also how to make the whole world better than before. It's a very long road, but they've taken the first steps.
The Harry Potter universe. While Harry might have been the one destined to defeat Voldemort, it's pointed out time and time again that he couldn't have done it without friends. And even if they've defeated the Big Bad, the world will need lots of support to reduce the power of pure-bloods, limit Wizards-First prejudice, reform the extremely screwed-up Ministry of Magic, and make a more peaceful place altogether.
For those who place the ultra-dark, ultra-depressing The Road on the idealistic end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, the characters of the novel move the world to this category. The victories they win are small and moral in nature, and tend to be along the lines of "not eating people." But the strength of spirit in the two protagonists is enough to keep a spark of genuine humanity alive.
Live Action TV
Firefly/Serenity: The series starts with the protagonist powerless to prevent the destruction of his home world by a Lawful Stupid interplanetary bureaucracy and the final defeat of the Independents at Serenity Valley. His faith in humanity and God shattered, he abandons his cause and flees to the edge of colonized space, where begins life anew as an outlaw space pirate/mercenary. Over the course of the series, The heroes face many hardships, and even their few victories cost them dearly, but ultimately, they are able to find it in themselves to carry on. And when the dust clears, they're still flying. They may not be able to save the galaxy, but they can at least save themselves. And that's a start. By the end of the movie, they've actually unveiled and broken a government human-experiment conspiracy, unlocked River Tam's hidden Badass, inadvertently brought about the decimation of the Reavers, and given the tyrannical government two black eyes and a bloody nose. Dozens of their friends and two of their crew have died, and they're now on the run for their lives from the government's vengeance, but that wasn't much different from what they had before so it's all good. It is indicated that any government vengence may very well be passive at worst. From the Alliance point of view, the crew of Serenity has done all the damage they possibly could. Indeed, their (implied) victory over the Reavers' fleet could even let them spin this into a huge victory and come out in an even better position than before. It looks like they even helped repair Mal's ship, though that might have just been the Operative using his unquestionable authority to pull strings. That's not to say they probably aren't still wanted criminals, with a number of enemies even amongst the outlaws, but they're still flying. Which is enough.
While Joss Whedon likes to use True Art Is Angsty, one can say one can view the world as either half empty or half full in his works. For example, Titan A.E., Earth is gone and we have only begun to rebuild our lives after spending so many years in an inhospitable system mocked and slowly dwindling. Earth was eventually recreated and a new life begins. It will be a while before humanity becomes a superpower, but it is a start.
The Buffyverse, especially Angel, tend to bounce back and forth on whether they live in a half full or half empty world. Angel himself expresses an existential take on the whole matter; striving for a living in-the-moment application of Good Feels Good despite the bleakness of the big picture.
Garo: Horrors will still arise and plague humanity on a weekly basis, but at least the heroes managed to defeat one major menace.
The Whoniverse, composed of the series Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures could probably be best described as this. On one hand you have the Torchwood crew, who at best are able to fight aliens and threats, but find themselves weak when having to fight injustices committed by their own governments. On the other hand, you've got characters like the Doctor who swoop in and save the day- but can't (or don't) remain to help deal with the fall-out. In the end, the show is about people, as a whole, deciding to do what's right- whether that's fighting for Ood rights, overcoming corrupt governments, making peace between two races, or something else entirely. While the Doctor can save the day, it's up to the 'normal' people to keep it safe.
A lot of Leonard Cohen, especially "Anthem." "Democracy" and "Dance Me to the End of Love" are also up there.
Tabletop Games
Deadlands. The setting is an alternate history wild west. After the Europeans settled the whole country, a large number of native americans decided to get revenge, by releasing some Sealed Evil in a Can. Needless to say, the evil is rather indiscriminate. Horrifying monsters lurk in the shadows spreading fear, and a new source of energy, Ghost Rock, has literally fueled a new technological dawn. Of course, it also has the side effect of driving those that work with it absolutely insane as demons haunt their mind. Still, the heroes can, if they so choose (Specifically, if they are heroes, and not merely protagonists), fight back, and make the world just a little bit of a better place, and less welcome for the antagonists.
Bothversions of the World of Darkness tend to be just a Crapsack World. Hunter The Vigil, however, casts a ray of light, by allowing players to play perfectly normal humans fighting back against the monsters of the night. Likewise, any game where the DM allows the heroes to make positive changes to the world also qualifies.
Promethean: The Created: You are a monster. Your existence is pain. And if you're playing the game as it's meant to be played, you will grow past all of that, past the slings and arrows of misfortune, To Become Human and know the fruits of the soul.
Promethean took after Wraith The Oblivion: as a wraith, you're faced with enemies within and without, the perpetual danger - and temptation - of falling to the dark side, or simply ceasing to exist altogether... but there is a way out. If you can hold on, if you can resolve everything anchoring you to the world, if you can come to terms with your inner darkness, then maybe you can Transcend.
Ravenloft, often thought of as theCrapsack World of the game line, turned out to be a World Half Full. Yes, it's a hellish place, but because it's explicitly stated to be Gothic Horror, it is never "Evil triumphs." The game line ever since its 2nd Edition forms explicitly states evil is being punished and justice may be delayed, but it is not denied. Player characters are often the Spanner in the Works which can bring about that justice and make some small part of the world better. The 3rd Edition White Wolf version even digressed for a few pages about how in early Gothic Horror literature, evil may seem overwhelming, but there was always God or some cosmic force which saw it foiled and punished. Innocents would suffer, but the guilty were damned and would know it.
Dark Sun is a Death World where the halflings will eat you, magic drains the world of its life, and having enough water to drink is a sign of power. Neutral characters are kind of the norm, but good characters frequently have the chance to affect some small change for the better. Players familiar with the Fallout series would understand.
Forgotten Realms in its earliest incarnations fit this trope. The world had been ruled and toyed with by one species of Eldritch Abomination after another, and there were whole empires of twisted races as well as cruel empires. However, there were places like Cormyr and the Dales which were the proverbial candles in the dark, the good gods schemed as hard as the evil ones, and most adventures featured chances to save something of value. 4th Edition made it a lot darker, possibly pushing it straight into Crapsack World.
Dragonlance has whole races and orders of evil knights. The Big Good has to die to stop the Big Bad and the gods remove their support from mortals for a while. It's still a High Fantasy world where some hero has always stepped up in the Darkest Hour. Latter adaptations written by other writers tended to miss this element.
Planescape has seven independent hells, each infinite, and seven heavens all of which are rather terrifying in their own way. Good is downright terrifying when it isn't pants-on-head stupid. The central City of Adventure is a dystopian blend of Charles Dickens and Dungeon Punk. Completely incompatible ideological groups have taken over vast aspects of public life and so are always a hair's breadth from civil war. Most of the planes are Death Worlds whose (mortal) inhabitants have come up with ways to survive the various demons and Eldritch Abominations. Yet in just the published adventures, players can cripple the demons and devils forever, prevent the return of a massive Big Bad (the trope-naming Orcus), and help free Sigil from its unending strife all before 12th level.
Fallout 2: Each town has their own ending upon the hero defeating the Enclave. The best route of options to save this wasteland will involve Modoc being able to feed the people surrounding them with the Slags, The Den becoming an tough but honest bar, turning New Reno to a center of education, Redding becoming a mining town with its own say in their affairs and NCR and Vault 15 beginning their path to rebuild civilization. This is of course the most morally correct answer, and naturally screwing up is always possible in Fallout no matter what situation you are in.
Fallout 3 however is a pure Crapsack World. You are raised in a vault that has a dictator like authority over its people, a hotel tower which houses a snooty man who views the survivors of the wasteland as entertainment. Ghouls who will use you left and right for their own aims, towns that condone slavery and our favorite untrusted government remnant comes back to purge the wasteland. Yet in spite of that, you have a father that has an ambitious dream to bring water to the wasteland ( it's a pity he gets killed for his dream), a radio station that preaches the hopes of the good fight and the freedom fighters who risk their safety to allow an outsider to free slaves and for the first time in 200 years, a piece of sanctuary that won't get purged by the Enclave and hopefully not by you(The Oasis, compare that to Vault 13 in Fallout 2 where the last of the intelligent deathclaws were killed off along with others).
Fallout: New Vegas depicts a world in the midwest which is steadily recovering and may not be that bad to live in. You'll find working electricity and plumbing, food and fresh water that won't give you a dose of rads with every bite, and even green trees and plants appear.
Besides which, it turns out the War might have been actually beneficial to that Earth. Before, it was overpopulated, companies controlled nations, and pollution and war were at an all time high, even as natural resources were reaching their end. After the bombs fall, there are now hundreds of peaceful communities, humanity has never been more technologically advanced, hundreds of new species have evolved, and life is generally more exciting. Probably shorter,but definitely more exciting.
Instead of a world overpopulated by humans, we have a world overpopulated by giant insects and genetically engineered horrors like the Deathclaws, a single one of which could easily wipe out a small town. The only part of humanity that is more technologically advanced than before the war is the evil government that wants to kill everyone. There could be argued to be *zero* peaceful settlements, because every town needs at several armed guards to protect it from giant ants and jet-addicted psychopaths. Compared to the DC Wasteland, though, life in the Mojave is pretty good.
Said evil Goverment was wiped out, and Deathclaws are too territorial to attack human towns.
The Lonesome Road DLC has this at its end. Ulysses wants to rain destruction on everything because he thinks the Bear is diseased, the Bull will feed on itself, and Vegas has too many ghosts of the past to ever let go. You can however convince him that the world can be saved and civilisation built anew - after all, you did it before.
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict goes this way with the After the End setting. The world is obliterated, and many of the survivors are still fighting each other- but characters like Captain O'Brian/Brenner, and soon the protagonist Ed/Will hold strong faith in human goodness, and are fighting tooth and nail to save humanity. The 'S' rank victory animation has a touch of this theme, with white doves flying over the devastated battlefield. Interesting note
In Japan, doves mean death, as they're the messenger of Hachiman, God of War.
In Epic Mickey, after Mickey Mouse accidentally creates him, the Phantom Blot turns the Cartoon Wasteland into a twisted, Disney Theme Park themed Crapsack World. Part of the game's main plot is that Mickey must stop the Blot and restore the world to its former self.
In the Wild Arms series a common theme is how the environment will only last a couple more years, so obviously the main characters save it. Of course, if the manual is correct, and all the games take place on the same planet, there's an invasion/war/disaster scheduled for a century or two after they do save it, and it's going to set everything back to ruined square one... but a new bunch of heroes always end up fixing things a couple thousand years later. It isn't very fun for the people in the intervening years, but things do get fixed eventually each time.
In World of Warcraft, the world is a broken mess. Demons and undead are rampant and even the local wildlife requires trained warriors and magicians to kill. Irradiated monsters, oozes, corrupt nobles, more demons, rampant racism, magical addiction, eldritch abominations... But. You can make the world better. The monsters are generally killed off and the really nasty characters are decreasing more rapidly than they appear. Things get worse at the beginning of a new expansion, but generally end up slightly better than they were before whatever catastrophe started the expansion in the first place.
The Burning Crusade introduces outland which is a mess physically. It's the remains of a planet torn apart and the remaining pieces just stuck together at random. Things get better through player actions, though they can't fix the planet. Cataclysm will start with Azeroth undergoing the cataclysm in the title, thus getting worse before things get better.
Its already happening, to a degree. Yes, much of Azeroth was absolutely devastated in The Shattering. However, Desolace is now once again full of plant life, the Plaguelands are slowly recovering from plague toxins due to the Cenarion Circle, Earthen Ring and Argent Crusade, and Duskwood is finally on the road to recovery due to the death of Morbent Fel and the Gilneans bringing the madness cure to the Nightbane worgen, among other recovery efforts
Deus Ex, depending on your personal beliefs, any of the endings can fall under this.
The Milky Way in Mass Effect is a dangerous and brutal place to live. Filled with monstrous aliens, pirate fleets, amoral mercenaries and cruel slavers, with the largest civilized government hamstrung by red tape and millennia of tradition and unwillingness to budge, an entire species has been driven from their homeworld and is locked in a 300 year long Hopeless War with their mechanical creations, and every 50,000-odd years, all technologically advanced sapient life is purged and consumed by Eldritch Abominations. Yet in spite of this, one person can make an incredible difference, galactic peace can be attained, pirates can be brought to justice, slaves can be freed, the forementioned Hopeless War between the exiled species and their creations can be negotiated to a possible reconciliation, and you canpunch out Cthulhu.
Arguably, the Light Side path of Knights of the Old Republic 2 is this. Either that, or the Exile is merely an Unwitting Pawn. It can be both for a Light Side Exile. Despite how, in the main plot, Kreia is pretty much manipulating everyone all the time, the Exile's actions throughout the Galaxy can drastically improve life for both invididuals and for entire planets (though, this being an Obsidian Game, a lot of the 'good' decisions can end up having sizable downsides as well).
God of War III is this at the end. The world has gone straight to hell due to Kratos killing damn-near every Olympian there is. However, Kratos, in one of his rare acts of selflessness, decides in the end to restore Hope back to the world by sacrificing himself rather than simply handing the power back to Athena. It's still more like "A World Millionth Full", though, when you consider just how many people and creatures he killed For the Evulz.
Baroque is set in an After the End world where humanity has been reduced to a handful of mutated freaks whose forms are based on their own individual psychoses. At the end, you don't fix the world. But you do make it so that the world has a chance.
In a franchise where God is almost alwaysevil or out of the picture, and the heroes never save the day without a huge sacrifice on their part, Persona 4 stands out by having this type of message at the end. It basically boils down to "Humans can act like assholes, but we can change for the better if we have the courage to accept that fact first."
Devil Survivor also qualifies. God is actually good and will accept whatever future you build, even if you mess up big time! That's right. God basically trusts you to govern the entire planet, in spite of all the horrible things human beings are capable of.
The world of the Ace Attorney series, though the world's crappiness is much less severe (and therefore much less readily apparent) than many other examples of this trope. Crime is apparently so common that the justice system's been perverted into a series of all-but-kangaroo courts, the vast majority of prosecutors will do anything to get their conviction, and nobody seems to give a good damn about due process or suspect's rights anymore— nobody, that is, except for the main character and his few but loyal allies, who will willingly walk through fire for the innocent, for justice, and for each other.
Sera in Gears of War becomes this after Adam Fenix's Heroic Sacrifice. The Locust and Lambent are wiped out and the Imulsion is destroyed, but Humanity finally has its future.
Web Original
The Pokegirls setting. Mankind as a whole is still recovering from an apocalyptic war 300 years after the last shots were fired, and the majority of Earth is too dangerous to reclaim from the hoards of superpowered Feral pokegirls that now occupy it. Female humans are an endangered species, the titular pokegirls are slaves to mankind and dependent on sex to keep from going Feral, and the aforementioned female humans have a good chance of becoming sex-dependent slaves before they finish puberty. Criminal groups run rampant, SEELE manipulates events from behind the scenes, and the Legendary pokegirls tower over the rest of the setting like a Sword of Damocles ready to fall. At the same time, however, tamers have begun to learn to treat their girls with love and respect, pokegirl rights movements are picking up momentum, anti-Feral medication has begun circulation for some breeds, and said medication prevents Threshold transformations in that pokegirl's offspring as a side effect. It's a dark setting, yes, but it's getting better. Unfortunately, the bulk of the series is prequels taking place before it gets better.
Die Anstalt is crapsacky with the poor stuffed animals driven insane by their owners' abuse, but it takes on more optimistic view if you can cure them. Also, while the Humans Are Bastards, it's not because of malicious intent, but because they're products of a consumerist culture.
Real Life, for all the problems it still has, seems to be shaping up to be this. Wars are getting less frequent and less severe. The War On Terror- as costly as it is- is nowhere near the scale or death toll of the Vietnam War, World War 2, the Napoleonic Wars, etc. The Internet has allowed the public to more easily see when businesses or politicians behave unethically, discouraging such behavior. Crime and drug addiction are falling, standard of living is improving, people are living longer, and the mentally ill are treated far, far better than they used to be. Civil liberties slowly improved in developed nations until 2001, though they've taken a beating since. And of course there's Earn Your Happy Ending...........
.......However, true to this trope, at the same time, while certain people benefit, other people around the world are suffering, corruption and strife have only taken new forms. While there are less wars per se, there are a tremendous numbers of low intensity conflicts around the world. Wars are waged by proxy - by sending in private military contractors, mercenaries or militias. Terrorism is today global, and crime rates have soared. Almost 2% of all Americans are imprisoned. Germs have become resistant to antibiotics. Divorce, abortion and illegitimacy are far more frequent than ever. Internet has provided many new interesting venues for crime. Slavery is still commonplace, and there are today more slaves than in the beginning of American Civil War. Unemployment and poverty are rampant. War on Drugs has been lost spectacularly, and the world economy is on the verge of collapse. A World Half Full indeed
Let's give public health a special mention. The First World and much of the Developing World has undergone one of the greatest triumphs of human ingenuity. We die old, fat, and rich, rather than young, hungry, and wounded. We have pandemics of obesity, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes because we have enough food, good sanitation, good treatments, and extensive safety measures. They save the majority of us from infectious diseases, injury, and hunger. Just in the disease category, consider the following killers: bubonic plague, anthrax, gonorrheal meningitis and blindness, syphilis, polio, typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, measles, rubella, smallpox, influenza, diphtheria, mumps, Hepatitis B and liver cancer (Taiwan 1984), shingles, rabies, hookworms, and Ascaroides. In industrialized and industrializing nations, these sicknesses are mostly gone.
Even the HIV pandemic is a good example of how much we've progressed. In about three decades, the first world has determined the etiological agent of the disease, discovered its structure, broken down its genome, figured out a very complete picture of what it does to our cells, completely mapped its genes, discovered how it spreads and how it could be prevented from doing so, found ways to hold it in check and keep patients from succumbing, and implemented public health programs which have brought the pandemic to heel in the first world. Compared to how any other time period in history would have fared, it's nothing short of miraculous. By contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa is being devastated in a manner which is simply heart-wrenching to watch as well as a chilling reminder of what other great pandemics did before we learned how to fight back.
There are about 1,000 cases of polio yearly in the world. At its peak in the US, there were over 55,000 per year. The disease was scheduled for complete eradication (like smallpox), but unfortunately fanatical groups in a few remote areas in Nigeria have preached the vaccine is a "Western mind control drug." India has some severely crowded, hard-to-treat populations heavily affected by polio. A few cases from these regions enter the neighboring African and Middle Eastern nations. All of Europe, north and east Asia, the Americas, and Australia are completely clear. That's almost 5,000 American kids dead per year in the 50's to zero today.
