Facebook And The New Lottery Of Life
THE WASHINGTON POST
In the lottery of life, the chances of a child being born into relative prosperity are only about one in ten. His or her chances of being born into abject poverty are roughly three in ten, according to a 1999 study by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
That was when there were only 6 billion people. Now, we are past 7 billion.
This perspective should be kept top of mind for those who are in a position to shape economic and social policy agendas. Intellectual capital, after all, shapes the world around us, and is not a unique quality possessed by the privileged.
Untapped intellect is squandered when a child born to an impoverished family doesn’t celebrate her fifth birthday because she died from a preventable disease. It is inhibited when, assuming a child survives, she doesn’t receive an education. And it is invalidated when gender tips the scale in favor of her male counterpart.
Let it be noted that this fact is not lost on the world’s youth.