Short lines from scientists, writers and builders who see a better future, and the evidence that it is already arriving.
The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time.
Max Roser, Our World in DataTwelve lines to carry with you.
Problems are inevitable. Problems are soluble.
Given a billion years of progress at the current exponential rate, who knows what our species will be capable of. We are now standing at the beginning of infinity.
I am not an optimist. I am a very serious possibilist.
A Masai warrior on a cellphone in the middle of Kenya has better mobile communication than President Reagan did 25 years ago.
If we saw a time lapse of human progress over the last 100 years, you would see images of human imagination spill out into the world. The Hubble telescope was an idea in someone's mind and it spilled over into reality.
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.
Gazing at the Hubble Deep Field image is like mainlining the whole of time through the optic nerve, like counting by fingertip the tree rings of the universe.
The physical topography of our planet is no longer shaped only by geology; it has been trumped by the power of mind.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
We now have the ability to completely read out the script of a cancer cell and understand what's driving it to misbehave.
Intelligent Optimism isn't about looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses. No one is saying the world is perfect. But things are getting better.
From the old Intelligent Optimism cards, checked and brought up to date.
About 38% of humanity lived in extreme poverty in 1990. Today it is under 10%.
World literacy is higher than it has ever been. Two centuries ago it was about 12%.
In medieval Europe up to 100 in every 100,000 people were murdered each year. In Western Europe today it is about 1.
Sequencing HIV took about 15 years. The virus behind COVID-19 was sequenced and shared with the world within days.
We have vaccines for measles, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and more. COVID-19 vaccines went from code to clinic in under a year.
Slavery, torture and human sacrifice as state-approved practices have almost disappeared from the world.
Things are not perfect. But they are getting better.Send it to us and we may add it here.
Figures: World Bank (poverty); UNESCO and Our World in Data (literacy); Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (homicide); Diamandis & Kotler, Abundance.