Wow, in the past 200 years, we've seen the eradication of smallpox, treatment for Tuberculosis, vaccines for pneumonia, all issues plaguing humanity for pretty much all of recorded history.

A rural farmer in Nigeria can access price data in real time using a cell phone, while democracy in India allows dozens of politicians from every state argue on live TV simultaneously to get their views heard.

What, pray tell, can you say that the world isn't a better place

It sounds like you saw real poverty and it woke you up to your immense wealth and comfortable existence, so kudos on that. You took the wrong leap though and decided that your life is the default state, when in fact it is in an incredible aberration of history. For millions of years every person was poor, then a few were rich, then more were rich, and now you're one of them.

You're advocating for ignoring research and data in favor of anecdotes. You're not even trying to argue in good faith.

In my experience, the people who are typically 'shocked' by this destitution are people who have lived extremely privileged lives, believe this is the default state of the world, and then see this destitution, and are so moved, that they dedicate their lives to eradicating it, while often misidentifying the cause.

Buddha is the archetypical version of this narrative, and it's no wonder -- as a rich prince, he had no idea what the world was really like.

In reality, most of the problems you see in rural areas all around the world are human-caused problems, typically where humans are interfering with individual freedom (civil and economic).

> It hits you that it's not just that part of rural Colombia that looks like that, rural everywhere does.

Except it doesn't. My parents live used to live in rural America and it was quite nice. My brother lives in the countryside and it's also quite nice. It's no less destitute than the area of Portland I live in. Have you ever been to a city? It's not like they're some model of refinement.