When one analyzes current political discourse, there are phrases like liquid modernity (as if everyone had read Zygmunt Bauman’s book), artificial intelligence or fake news. We are used to hear that because of X (insert here technology, immigrants, the loss of traditional values, etc) the government will fall (or is) in the hands of a fascist gang, that the system will collapse, that a robot is going to come and it’s going to steal your job, that we can’t be trust in anything or anyone … It seems that everything is wrong. Certainly, our time has its challenges like all ages. However, what about the other side?

Despite the bad omens, I want to think that we live in a time when many prejudices are crumbling and people dare to be freer. It’s an era, in which despite the fanaticisms (which are strong and dangerous), communities and ethnic groups approach and mix more and more. There is a lot of inequality, but proportionally (in the world) the number of people living in extreme poverty is the lowest in history. Finally, it seems to me that today, the most important thing is that the sum of human knowledge can fit in the palm of a hand.

One of the most outstanding milestones of these times is the access to quality specialized education at a relatively low cost. Not many years ago, in many countries the only way to access a specialized course of university quality was paying very expensive fees. Now the same institutions offer many of their courses online for free or at a very low cost. For example, last week I felt that I needed a review and a more global vision, so I took a javascript frameworks course. After finishing the course, I thought I needed to revise the ES6 standard so I took a course of that. In the past, that would have taken months of self-taught research and experimentation. In addition, the development of technology is not the only area benefited by this wave of openness in education: there are courses in art, history, languages, economics, entrepreneurship … the list goes on and on.

I know that many times I’m pessimistic when I see what the media call “the news”. However, I believe that we are fortunate to live in a time with freedom, and with so many valuable opportunities. At least, I am glad to live in this age.