The Incendiary Hypothesis of Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress

Journalism reports everything that goes wrong, it doesn't report things that go right. There's just no way of learning about it, and so there's just sheer disbelief. Some intellectual factions are committed to the idea that the world has never been worse than it is now. Data on human progress undermines some of their foundational beliefs. People think of it as a defense of neoliberal capitalism or a defense of secular humanism.