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Steven Pinker on Why the Future Looks Better Than You Think
Extreme poverty, violence, and life expectancy are all improving, according to the data. So why does the news so often give us the impression that civilization is in decline?
In this episode, we speak with Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at Harvard and bestselling author of Enlightenment Now, for a data-driven check-in on the state of progress.
We discuss:
How the big-picture trends in longevity, pollution, literacy rates, and more show that the world is getting better.
How the structure of news consistently creates pessimism about human progress.
What has genuinely gotten worse in…
The skinny
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