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It’s Friday. I’m gonna wager that you won’t agree with everything on this list of what’s “gotten better” in the past 20 years. So, go ahead, order a la carte: On today’s menu is a seasonal assortment of purportedly good things crowdsourced by University of Virginia postdoctoral fellow David Walsh, who’d asked casually on Twitter: “What has gotten materially better in America in, say, the last twenty years?”

Answers rang in. So many that Reason magazine editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown compiled top entries, from “HIV care” to “cannabis quality” to “home entertainment” to “information access.” Also in the winner’s circle: “bicycling infrastructure,” “digital reading experience,” “automobile efficiency and safety,” “acceptance of neurodiversity,” “restaurant food variety and quality [including vegetarian and vegan],” “cameras,” “digital video,” “smoking rates,” “getting dressed,” “hygiene products,” “being a nerd,” and, uh, an inappropriate one.

If you can access each.

As you were.

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No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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