Saved by Keely Adler
Why Pessimism Sounds Smart
Why are these kinds of stories so hard to sustain, so often subsumed by negative and dystopian visions when the fact is, nobody can predict the future. Assuming dystopias has an element of self-fulfilling prophecy, but it’s also unlikely things will unfold exactly as anyone predicts.
Rob Hopkins • From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want
The steadily accumulating mass of our understanding and the ability to control a growing number of variables that affect our lives (ranging from food production that is sufficient to feed the world’s entire population to highly effective inoculation that prevents previously dangerous infectious diseases) has lowered the overall risk of living, but
... See moreVaclav Smil • How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview. As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic. It is having a clear and reasonable idea about how things are. It is having a worldview that is constructive and useful.
Anna Rosling Rönnlund • Factfulness
Progress is good. As Steven Pinker has argued, most things are getting better over time. We are richer, healthier, safer, and better-educated than our ancestors. Although redistribution and social changes can make things better or worse around the edges, most of our current fortunate position comes from simple economic growth.