Talks at Google
If you think the world is coming to an end, think again. People are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, Steven Pinker believes the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: in seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker will demonstrate that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force, it is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.
But now, more than ever, Enlightenment principles require vigorous defense.
With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.
Find your copy of Steven’s book: https://goo.gle/2RPrfxZ
Source
the world is a grand place for the pinker and epsteins of the world
I read EN and agreed w/its celebration of Enlightenment reason. I dont recall if Pinker said that it was one of only two basically rational cultures. However, Pinker evaded or ignored the profoundly important fact that the Enlightenment is the only basically individualist culture in history. Thus the creation of America after 400 years of radical cultural change from Christian supernaturalism to the individual things, inc/men, of the concrete, material universe. Thus our founding politics of individual rights. And the hatred or evasion of the Enlightenment by mainstream intellectuals.
“Nation Of The Enlightenment”, in _Ominous Parallels_, by Leonard Peikoff
comments brought me here
If this man understands enlightenment? The Earth would have stopped revolving! Can he tell us what is the state of enlightenment instead of saying so much rubbish! What a laugh!
I'm surprised none of the google employees started screaming and throwing things at him.
Thanks Steven. I really needed to hear this. Really great.
Nice style as well!
only an idiot would use the phrase "free press" No such exists. Chomsky is a bit more honest with his idea of "manufactured consent" Free press ? LOL. (I dig the jew-fro though…)
You all getting some Star Trek vibes from this guy's presentation?
Where my Marxist buddies at?
I want to see this bitch eat, drink water and have shelter for 1.90 dollars a day in the US.
The reason you like apples is non negotiable, as with the reason i like oranges. Intellect on the other hand is not concerned about reasoning although it can use logic to create sense, but intellect without the basis of emotion, which is on plane with reason, has no foundation. The world has gonne insane, mixing up the different spheres of intellect available and have all been reduced to a childs level, where reason becomes all. Everything has a cuase to create an effect, reasoning with the effect, does not solve the issue of what causes it, and only a leap in intellilect does the matter soon become known. As a psychologist, you are doing nothing but brainwashing people into accepting their dumbed down mentality as their gift from the universal law, it is fallacy, as every thing we know comes from the consciousness that created it, and that includes the universe. Belief has its root in belie, this gives clear indication of misrepresenting the source itself.
Reason alone can lead you to ALOT of different paths…Humanism is 95% Christianity without God. For example, If Humanism was developed in China it would support totalitarian dictatorships. Because atheism DOES support dictatorships.
I find it charming and comforting that a person capable of such brilliance makes PowerPoint look just as shitty as everyone else.
The literacy figure for the USA must be greatly exaggerated ….
He was on the Lolita Express with Epstein.
I've had a bad feeling about him since the 1st moment I've seen him.
https://www.thenation.com/article/waiting-for-steven-pinkers-enlightenment/
Mr. Pinker’s statistics for progress are based on economics and an artificial human construct of currency, ignoring energy. He’s under the misconception that a jewel is more important then a joule! Mr. Pinker’s statistics are often based on percentage of the population, when the population 150 years ago was less than 1 billion and now it’s 7.7 billion. Comparing the poor 250 years ago to today, there is progress but what if you compare the elite 250 years ago to today.If not a Field Guide to Lies, it’s a field guide to misconception. Mr. Pinker also leaves out statistics about the increase in cultivated land and decrease natural biomes. Talking to a google audience, who contributed more to google success, Adam Smith, or James Clark Maxwell?
I suggest reading Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (2018)
How do you define human flourishing without reference to God? It’s completely subjective.
Steven Pinker in this latest book embraces a silly fairytale version of history and evades the actual Darwinian principles of nature, as well as recognizing that humans are social and tribal animals.
Praise the awkward room moment when Pinker mentioned to a monolith which loathes free speech how it's important to progress.
All I have to say about this is people should watch Dr Edward Dutton's video on Pinker and his Enlightenment Now. Dutton talks a lot of sense as ever. But if you wish to stay ignorant then go ahead and go along with the Pinker narrative.
Absolute garbage. Snobbery and delusion of the most disingenuous and subversive kind.
Hey – it pays well though.
Enlightenment Now is crap. It's half-baked pseudo-science.
Borrow it if you must, but don't buy it.
It's worth watching this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyZ_KMs79HU
this doesn't come across as wise comes across as regressive moral system not only that their is tone inconsistencies in the book just another religion.
This guy selectively ignores data in order to paint this rosy image of the world. He also ignores scientific fact when it suits him. He has a view of the Enlightenment thinkers that was a revolt against Religion, despite the fact that they all believed in god and viewed science and reason as a way of explaining the world that god had created. This guy is a Farce.
Johnny Gentile was a patriot and philosopher.
Pinker is a hack
Mr. Pinker interestingly mentions Pakistan and Afghanistan as most backward in Women education (as it is their own will), conveniently forgetting all the destruction caused by the US in the area and causing so much misery to them. Also as if women education is better in Africa, India or other comparable places. Interestingly some how uneducated Pakistan had a female Prime Minister (Benazir Bhutto) but enlightened US never had one – how come?
Professor is a typical Western Intellectual (read Hypocrate) with a "constructed narrative", but with already Asia rising – this "bigotted" narrative will be busted not in near time to come!!!
Sitting on a high horse of academia inside the most elite and rich circles of knowledge, this oration sounds mostly hoodwink. An Imperial scientist trying to convince us "The world is Getting Better. All we have do is believe" Duh ! Refugees, War, Climate Crisis, Ice Melting, Forced-Migration, violence against women and minorities aside, we are to believe this elite bullshit ! Ball Talks By Google and White Chauvinism.
Google itself is a vicious profit maximising corporation working with various regimes to spy on civilians everyday.
Great technician, poor philosopher! Leaving in a small bubble. Irrelevant.
Steven Pinker is functionally illiterate. Don't take what this psued has to say about reason seriously, he's dead wrong. Try logicians instead, like Peirce, reason is weak. Don't take what this phoney says about science or progress seriously either.
el mundo esta mejor hoy que nunca? hijoderemilputas! calentamiento global, sobrepoblación, multinacionales con mas poder que los estados nacion a las que nadie vota! de que estas hablando?????
"Forget 'Father Knows Best,' now is the era families spend time with each other." No, according to your graph, women are spending time doing the childcare work; men's leisure time never decreased. That's not "families spending time together," that's mom alone doing the childcare. There's a big difference. If dad's leisure time dipped equal to mom's, that would be "family" time. It's not: it's mom's childcare second shift burden time while dad has more and more leisure time.
I want to change my habits and be like mr. Pinker. Speak my mind and focus on the work I have to do to get my degree. Pray, sleep, eat, work and be good.
6 Donkeys
1. Richard Dawkins
2. Steven Pinker
3. Sam Harris
4. Ken Ham
5. Eric Dubay
6. Mark Sargent
Steven Pinker is an censorious ignorant pseudoscientist whose popularity stems from his conniving willingness to tell people optimistic religious platitudes in a way that makes it seem brave when in fact his conclusions are flaccid, contradictory, Fat Free Diet Truths™
Of course there has been significant human progress over the past centuries and decades. After 200 years of industrial revolution, humanity is currently at its peak, but that doesn't mean that our species is going to continue to flourish. Gradually progress will be harder to gain, growth will decline, and the ecological damage that we are doing to the planet will eventually catch up with us. I wish someone would have ask Pinker: what's the probability that we are currently at our peak?
Thumb up just for the tie
Pinkerton is correct that the number of years between birth and death has increased – BUT – we are not living longer, we are dying longer.
Brilliant, Mr. Pinker
Google? You are lame rofl
I heavily disagree with the argument, that the world is getting better and better.
I don't know, if you have read Pinker, but he collected a number of graphs that show, that in the last 100 years, literacy went up, child mortality down etc.
And all of that is true. But frankly, many of these statistics just don't matter that much for human wellbeing. In our civilization for example, we spend MUCH more time working, then hunter gatherers did. Over 8 hours usually, compared with modern hunter & gatherers 3. And despite our wealth, we are spending much less time with loved ones, we are eating much worse food. Not because we do not have enough money, but because we have so much.
Humans are biological machines build for a certain environment, and currently we are living like a penguin in the desert. Yes, human beings are flexible, and yes, we are much richer now, but giving the penguin a fancy scarf and a lamborghini (in exchange for massive stress and a 1/3 of his life) won't make him much happier, will it?
Many of the problems we face, like the high amounts of stress the average person faces, come from this fact.
In the wild, you see a tiger, you release cortisol, you run, cortisol decreases again. But work stress is different. You are under it constantly. And your body expects you to run and run. But you never do. Your body can't distinguish between work from tigers after all.
Yes, individuals might rise above this suffering, by working much less, spending time in nature (or what's left of it), spending time with their families, eating healthy, and moving.
But the average person is lazy, as evidenced by modern society. We know all these things, but hardly do them. We always go the easiest way. And so nothing is going to change…
Another thing, people like Pinker keep forgetting, is that we are not allone on this planet.
A child, a dog, and an old man might lead very different lifes. But in suffering they are the same.
Our modern wealth, and easy access to food is build on the destruction of countless eco systems. We let millions of cows and pigs suffer in completely immoral ways, so life is easier for us.
Look at pictures of massive farms today, where pigs stand in their own shit, barely able to move, or where chickens start mutilating each other, because they are so stressed, because they are crammed into such small spaces. They are being born into disguisting conditions, just to suffer and eventually be slaughtered.
Imagine yourself in the position of a baby cow for example. Being taken away from your mother immediately after birth, because you were only born for your mothers milk. Imagine how horrified you would be if we did that to say dogs, or humans.
We like to think of cows and pigs as there stupid things, that don't deserve better. But pigs are amongst the smartest animals on this planet. Much smarter then most dogs… Imagine, again, how you would think about our current treatments of pigs and cows, if say the chinese did the same thing with dogs.
For hindus cows are holy, and we still eat them, so why wouldn't they. Imagine, what you would think, about puppies taken away from their mothers, about dogs and cats standing in their own excrements etc.
So is the world really getting better? For whom?
I know the past was pretty shitty. I think, human wellbeing follows a sort of U curve. It was high in hunter gatherer times, fell with the advent of agriculture, which could sustain many more people, but with a lower quality of life, and now is rising again. Perhaps we are actually the happiest we have ever been, I don't know. Although, after having watched videos of modern hunter & gatherers, they seem like increadibly happy people, despite, or maybe because of their hard lifes.
I also know, that we can not go back to hunting and gathering, and can't go back from factory farming either, if we want to hold our current population number. Perhaps future inventions like cheap artificial meat will release farm animals from their suffering (at the cost of their extinction…)
Sidenote:
I am neither vegetarian nor vegan. But after thinking about it, and writing this, I am strongly considering becoming one (vegetarian).
This post was also about factory farming, not hunting/ the concept of eating meat in general. I have no problem with that.
Also, there are likely hundreds of grammatical and spelling mistakes. Please excuse them. I am still learing english 🙂
Another reason why these progresses are not mainstream celebrated and reported is because there are a lot of people in the western world for which these statistics are undermining their agenda.