TED
Was 2017 really the “worst year ever,” as some would have us believe? In his analysis of recent data on homicide, war, poverty, pollution and more, psychologist Steven Pinker finds that we’re doing better now in every one of them when compared with 30 years ago. But progress isn’t inevitable, and it doesn’t mean everything gets better for everyone all the time, Pinker says. Instead, progress is problem-solving, and we should look at things like climate change and nuclear war as problems to be solved, not apocalypses in waiting. “We will never have a perfect world, and it would be dangerous to seek one,” he says. “But there’s no limit to the betterments we can attain if we continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing.”
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Source
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/25/rough-sleeper-numbers-in-england-rise-for-seventh-year-running#img-1
for these people the death and enslavement of all life on earth is called progress and is a positive thing. "all things good are wild and free". we are staring into the abyss. and those lunatics try to teach us optimism. a lot of people are waking up and those criminals who care only for their own profession will be put to justice. all they have is their intellectual authority.
"In understanding humanities tribulations and woes, human nature is the problem. But human nature, channeled by enlightenment, norms, and institutions, is also the solution."
human nature is the problem. nature herself is the problem. these people are insane! no wonder with that mentality that we destroy mother earth.no wonder that we enslave and domesticate ourselves and regulate our human nature with psychiatric drugs,media, and education.
If you don't think the world is getting better why are u here watching this video? To spread your pessimistic values and negativity? Then complain the world is so terrible while you sit back and do nothing but it but complain. If the world is so bad do something about it, educate yourself try and fix it. its the only way we can all rally together and make something of the earth we live on. is so easy to accept that the world is bad but if we all stopped spreading that negativity and gloom and doom maybe we could accomplish something. my hope is in generation Z they are gonna save the world x
Its getting better all the time
Climate Change is the big change. The Summer of 2018 in Europe, the USA and Japan have never been seen before – even in 1988!
Since the 1980's, in the West, we have had 24 hour media. They have to fill up those hours, and they are only interested in negative stories.
The world certainly IS getting better, but only for wealthy men like Steven Pinker. For those of us who have real jobs, and have to actually go to work everyday, and live paycheck to paycheck, the world is in fact getting worse every day.
Why he hides another aspect? We are more free in material way but spiritualy not.Its not true that people are more free now,from 1850 to 1913 number of people sho had soul diseases increased for 3 times,today is probably 20.No one is happy because of that much freedom people left thinking amd wondering on nature.There is no benefits from science when people learn in schools somethingthat they forget after they finish it and work jobs in which mostly of learnt stuff will never use.Stupid optimistic,he is actually telling people live nicer life because they are pleasuring bad habits,he never spoke from spiritual aspect…what an idiot
thank you sir.
Why is he only taking about us and western Europe ?
1:48 Conveniently decides to leave CO2 out of the listing.
#super ★★★★★
Thank you for speaking my mind
The comments section is a perfect example of people always looking at the negative side of things. Yes the industrial revolution has had a disastrous effect on the environment and everything else that lives in it. But nearly all coming technology advances are taking the environment into account because people have become very conscience of it.
I would rather live a life 100 years a ago which was more natural than present. The only stat i will follow for a change is the crime and terrorism.
Human progress has been made by people who learned from the past. There is nothing wrong with confronting the dangers of the present. The increased pessimism is likely due to the increased levels of understanding the information age is bringing.
Although I believe Pinker makes a point here, I doubt our progress will be fast enough to stop or even break the global environmental crisis we are facing. If rates of homicides, wars, diseases etc are going down it does not mean that those quantities are decreasing, it just means that they are increasing more slowly than before. It's basic math. I feel we don't have much time left as a species to solve the biggest problem of all: how to survive at this rate in our limited-resource world.
Since I was a child, i bore the question within me, wether we are progressing internally as well?
And is it progress that we are lacking natural selection now ?
we do need genetic engineering and non violent and ethical population control.
Australia, since idiots vote in the Liberal National Party Government, the massive debt has tripled, a million people had their jobs taken off them, critical support programs were removed so that support is almost non-existent. The government has also put in place brutal policies which nasty people happily implement through federal government funded organisation called 'employment providers'. These 'employment providers' have never given a job to anyone but suck funding for making people's lives miserable with requirements which are now impossible to meet before you can even receive any kind of welfare. Centrelink, the so called government welfare providing organisation, told me the other day, that I have to have at least 15 hours of paid employment before I can get a health care card or even apply for any kind of welfare. There is no employment, there are no jobs. The government has lied about everything since they got into office, the country is in economic free fall. Murders and rapes are now commonplace and are random terrorist acts. Car driving into groups of pedestrians just to kill them. Being 'positive' is all very well when all is going well for you but to tell people who are suffering that it's their negative thinking that has brought them to this state, is a further vicious attack and nothing else.
The items presented are not false, but the whole is somewhat biased. This is not to say the basic message is false, but it ignores area where there is lack of progress/stagnation, regression. There are just FAR to many examples of mentalities/groups that NOT aligned with reason. He described the downsides of attention to bad areas, but he did not adequately emphasize the danger of complacency. At least he said progress is not inevitable. Norms and institutions are not always progressive, they are the vessels of the cultural quality, not the determinants of it. He sometimes seems to argue with humor, which is not an argument, and didn't seem to contribute. We have the capacity for meta-cognition, but we don't see commonly see the pursuit of that. He makes some good references to intellectual tools, but at the same times he seems to present he is somehow at odds with intellectuals. But 'intellectuals' is not really a relevant term….'competent intellectualism' is what matters. One is either doing that or not with any given concept. There is only being at odds with that, or not. So for him to refer to being at odds with intellectuals is, well, not a sensical or relevant statement. He is, in fact, not really at odds with (competent) intellectuals. So it is a mysterious quirk why he chose to make that statement. Still, overall, the presentation has some value.
And as he said, it does depend on where you are. He even mentioned US, but just glossed over it. The last 4 decades here have been of cultural/political/economic decline of the health of the nation as a whole. It's still good to put things mostly the way he did, but only to give us some relief and perspective. But still, it is of course true that humanity is and has always been massively beneath it's potential, massive counter-productive and destructive, and unhealthy. This is not to say progress has not been made. It is to draw attention to the fact that we've made some progress despite the great many of us that do not forward that or do the opposite. Still the attention should be on the lacking, and he seems to miss that some. No, we don't need just attention to the sensational, that is true. We need more attention to the lack of accountability to reason.
No real substance.
Appeals more to emotions .
Could be compressed in under five minutes.
Did not feel speaker was enjoying his work.
Felt more like "Mr Data " of "Star Trek – The Next Generation " delivering a lecture.
0:30 lmao
Hoppe totally destroyed this clown's interpretation of history.
He is right, if you slice the cake in just such a way and omit an astounding number of facts to the contrary,yes you can make the cake look pretty, but there are far more ways to cut the cake that include more relevant facts that don’t look so good. Eg. number of nuclear weapons goes down several fold, bomb yield goes up several fold (overall yield of entire arsenal remains constant) which is irrelevant altogether anyway because we won’t survive long enough to launch 10’000. Also what is a terrorist?
In the modern world where: Stress, Anxiety, Fear, & Sadness consumes our lives…In a world where dust and ashes fill the air and soil…in a world where a river of blood flows through the streets (refers to Hurricane’s and Gun Violence)……2018………In the most darkest, most pitch black, era in my black soaked heart ?……. I see a beautiful universe…. and brilliant people rising from this abyss…..I see the lives for which I laid down my life peaceful, useful, prosperous, and joyful. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants our generations . It is a far far better thing that I do than I have ever done….It is a far far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known….This is for all you people out their either struggled and heartbroken out their…stay strong…Don't kill yourself's….it will get better….Peace ✌️
Pangloss a pessimist? I don t think so Mr. Pinker. Voltaire moqued Leibniz with this character, and this philosopher upheld the idea that all bad in this world only existed for a better good, albeit unseeable for us, … mortal humans. So all the bad, all we suffer in our lives has a good purpose, therefore we live in "le meilleur des mondes possibles". Voltaire totally hated this notion and was simply of the opinion that bad is bad and good is good. God, as the "grand horloger" would only have put everything in motion without having any contol over what would have to come… Bad or good. Therefore Pangloss and Leibniz are sick überoptimists.
I wouldn't think a person as distinguished as Steven Pinker would need to rely on using his laptop for ques. Good Ted nonetheless.
I'm at 2:33 right now asking myself when he starts to mention that the definition of most of the things he showed here changed over the last 30 years and thus, by changing the definition, the numbers became smaller…
every time I go online I see people complain about how awful the world is bc of an incident. it's okay to address the issue but these incidents are nothing new and that doesn't mean it's the end of the world. these people are the ones who live in a good place, who have shelter, food, education or work. these people never experienced what it's like to deal with such catastrophes in first person. all they see it what is on the news and online and they claim their belief on that headline. I never experienced such catastrophes in first person but I feel a lot and putting myself in their shoes helps me to understand how awful it is when homes get bombed, people getting shot for nothing, and not feeling accepted, etc. I rarely put my opinion out there, but I'm not afraid to learn and study these incidents. the thing about negative thinking and social media is how much hate their is. everyone is attacking each other bc of certain beliefs and some of those people, upload 'motivational' post for love and equal rights. I do sound a bit hypocritical, but im putting my judgement from what I see. people today forget about the good things and they don't know that if you constantly think bad and spread negativity everyday, then it will be that way. it will be bad until you think and spread positivity. things won't change if you stay on the same path your whole life.
He’s the prototype of a populist:
ignorant,
blind and deaf
but a big mouth.
The truth almost certainly lies somewhere in between those dichotomous portraits in pursuit of anthropogeny.
“Worries ? you don’t know enough to worry.”
–T. McKenna
We'll the the trend is getting much dangerous though better is arguable. Technology is the key, were just getting better at destroying things. And burning resources. There is a higher probability of human destruction of global life. With 3% energy growth the Earth will be redhot in 200 years. Unless people are willing to stop having babies for a few decades it didn't look good
How about the current state of our environment?
This is a great talk ! However I don't believe that all this progress has led to happiness . Just because housework has declined from 60 hours a week to just 15 hours , that is 45 hours a week that we have to look for happiness !
World is in progress but in US life span is decreasing 3 years in raw pls. stay optimistic GMO and new drugs will find a solution.
Everything was better before
Because i wasn't alive
I love this guy! His vocabulary is amazing.
Worse. The number of people increasing and causing more pressure on the environment, resource availability and food availability.
This guy just explained why the first 3/4 of any game of Civ is more fun than the last 1/4.
Daddy
Good! Now we can see we are right about wanting Europe to shut the door to the Middle-east and Africa. It's not so bad as the leftist are claiming. Only a tiny part of immigrants are refugees. The overwhelming majority of the immigrant flood just want to be able to buy a better mobile.
Pinker has gone senile !
You are speaking in a ac theatre and people dressed fine are laughing n njoying seems world is still a good place
Our society and biosphere are literally collapsing due to our monetary system, cancerous "growth", fictional debt, austerity, systemic poverty, anxiety and radicalization, an anti-economy, 4 billion #bullshitjobs … and instead of advocating long overdue alternative monetary systems and cooperative socioeconomic frameworks Pinker is telling this nonsensical story of how everything is getting better. This is just most absurd and so dangerous …
… we are literally seeing how 1930 is repeating itself on global scale … where systemic poverty, fear and radicalization leads to the rise of hundreds of criminals and mass murderers as alleged "leaders" … we are literally seeing how our anti-economy and 4 billion #bullshitjobs are destroying our very own biosphere …
We got a peek in poverty (if you ignore the white-washing "more than 2$ per day" bullshit), homelessness, refugees, mass shootings, mental health issues, nationalism, racism, terrorism, etc., etc., etc., …
Pinker is insane … our monetary system is causing our reality to fall apart and he promotes "more of the same" …
Go communicate alternatives before it's too late …
http://sacred-economics.com/read-online/