For the past couple of weeks the financial world has been worrying about falling share prices, and interest rates, and sanctions, and things that go bump in the night.

At times like this it helps to take a step back and look at what has been going on in the real world, outside the share market echo chamber. When we take the blinkers off we find a world marching relentlessly upwards.

It is always fun to start with space. It’s hard to raise our gaze higher than humanity’s ambitions to launch ourselves out in to the universe.

SpaceX last month announced an upcoming Moon tourism mission. Over the past week the company launched another rocket in to space to escort an Argentinian satellite into orbit. Even more epic, the booster returned to the air base eight minutes later, and landed back on its launching pad, undamaged and ready to be reused.

That last astounding fact about the rocket-booster being re-usable barely made the news. What better testament to our progress is there than that? This was an incredible technological achievement that only became possible in February. Now, just eight months later, it is barely worth mentioning.

There were some spectacular scenes:

Closer to home, scientists have for the first time used gene-editing to prevent a lethal disease before birth. This technology is just in its very early stages but holds the promise of one day allowing diseases to be removed from children before they are even born. Meanwhile, scientists in China have used CRISPR technology to create mice which have two female parents. A potential win for same-sex parents. But more broadly, successfully editing genes at this level opens the door to major improvements in fighting thousands of diseases.

There was a major breakthrough in the battle with Alzheimer’s: “Scientists believe they have isolated and may even be able to alter the gene responsible for the devastating disease.” It is another example of how humanity may be just at the dawn of a new golden age in health and longevity.

Machines are pitching in to do their part too. A new algorithm can predict which patients are at risk of a heart attack, years before any attack occurs.

While in China, a newly developed AI system saved the lives of coma patients by predicting that they would wake from their coma, despite neurologists giving them a very low chance of ever waking up:

“After reviewing the varying conditions of seven patients in Beijing, the doctors rated the patients on a coma recovery scale. The patients were given very low scores, meaning that it was unlikely they would ever wake up and their families were legally allowed to take them off of life support.

The system which was developed over the course of five years by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and PLA General Hospital, disagreed with the scientists and gave the patients close to full scores with a prediction that they would wake up within 12 months of the scan.

As it turns out, the AI was right – all seven patients woke up from their vegetative states within the year.

The system, which reportedly has an 88% success rate of diagnosis, achieves its efficiency based on its ability to see “invisible” details in hundreds of human brain images. In contrast, the current method of assessing a patient’s chances of recovery are based on subjective reactionary tests and judging certain factors, such as age and the condition of the brain.”

Meanwhile in an impressive technological breakthrough, the world’s longest ever non-stop passenger flight landed safely in New York after 17 hours in the air. The huge 16,700km journey was possible thanks to lightweight composite materials and extremely fuel-efficient engines. Welcome news for those of us that have ever feared falling asleep at the airport during a long-haul stopover.

And finally in a piece of welcome geopolitical news, North and South Korea have finally begun clearing mines from the demilitarized zone.

Conclusion

Those are just a few of the headlines. There are literally millions more stories like them. Stories from people that found some way to make all our lives better. Beneath all the fear and noise there are billions of ordinary people all around the world that cooperate every day to bring forth a better tomorrow.

If you done any work over the past few weeks, paid or not, you too have contributed your part to the incredible international cooperation network that is the modern world. You created something valued by others, and by doing so, you added to humanity’s collective stock of wealth.

Our businesses do this on an even larger scale, by serving customers needs in return for cash. The best businesses then reinvest that capital to expand, developing new innovative products, and serving the needs of even more people, and thereby accelerating our collective upward spiral. When we invest our precious capital into these businesses we are aligning our portfolios with this unstoppable engine of human progress.

Whenever the news cycle gets too negative, take a moment to pause, and look around at the wondrous would we live in. The torch of human progress has never been extinguished. And if we keep our heads about us, it never will.

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