Although the trends can be hard to perceive, we are making incredible progress on global poverty, health, longevity and climate change
Don’t fret the future.
A lot of people do, and for powerful reasons – we are facing enormous challenges unprecedented in human history, from climate change and nuclear war to engineered pandemics and malicious artificial intelligence. A 2017 survey showed that nearly four in 10 Americans think that climate change alone has a good chance of triggering humanity’s extinction. But we seem largely blind to the many profound reasons for hope – and it’s not entirely our fault.
Humans are wired with a “negativity bias” that triggers a stronger emotional response to bad news than good news – evident in the journalism maxim “if it bleeds, it leads”. This loss-aversion behavior served a purpose in our evolutionary past, when information and resources were scarce, but in the age of endless information access, it can lead to pessimism, anxiety and a distorted vision of what humanity is capable of.
In reality, we are making incredible progress in global poverty, health, longevity, climate change and much more, but these trends are harder to perceive because they accumulate gradually and quietly. As the Wired magazine founder Kevin Kelly points out, progress is often about what doesn’t happen – the children who won’t die of smallpox, or the farmers whose crops won’t get raided.
