The new focus on what is mistakenly called optimism comes from the fact that for the first time there's been attention to data on whether there has been progress in the past. There's no reason to think that things will automatically get better any more than they'll automatically get worse. And we just know from opinion surveys that people have systematically incorrect assumptions about recent change. The kind of argument I have made is not one of prognostication into the future. But it's just pointing out facts that people don't know, which is often mistaken for optimism.
For this edition, Intelligence Squared revisits a compelling discussion from 2019 with one of the world's foremost cognitive psychologists, Steven Pinker, whose work often focuses on language, the mind, and human nature. He was joined in conversation by David Runciman, the academic and podcaster who teaches politics and history at Cambridge University, to discuss the themes of Pinker’s book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. This is the first half of a two-part conversation. Join us for part two in the following episode.
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