💡 Kevin Kelly: The Case for Optimism

The technologies of AI, advances in the scientific method, and rampant use of prosumer media like today’s YouTube, accelerate the speed and spread of knowledge. YouTube and Youku (in China) in particular are underappreciated learning accelerants. It’s not just make-up tutorials and workshop maker videos. Brain surgeons upload their latest technique... See more

We should be optimistic not because our problems are smaller than we thought, but because our capacity to solve them is larger than we thought.

Progress is mostly about what does not happen. Progress means a 92-year-old who did not die today, a boy who was not robbed on his way to school, a 12-year girl who is not married to a 30-year old man, etc. What did not happen does not make the news. The best parts of civilization don’t get headlined.

This asymmetry in knowledge is reason to be optimistic, because it means there are no limits to our improvement. We can always imagine a better way -- and we are also always improving what/who the “we” is. Optimism recognizes that our potential for improvement is infinite in all directions.

All the evidence so far indicates that there are no limits for knowledge or improvement.

On the surface, an optimistic belief might seem no more valid than the stance of pessimism. But the deep history of new ideas makes it very clear that the optimistic stance of believing something is possible is a requirement to make anything new real, and is thus more powerful than pessimism. In the long run, optimists shape the future.