I admire Steven Pinker’s views on the world. He is the ultimate realist and pragmatist at the same time. He endorses civilisation and progresses it. He argues that our pessimism about today’s world is profoundly wrong: 2017 was one of the best ever years. However he also says

“There’s a difference between progress and perfection. The fact that things are better now than they were in the past doesn’t mean they’re acceptable now”

In his podcast interview on his TED talk he says people are inclined to believe news of bad events but not so readily news about good events and general world progress because these events are slow and incremental. He says people think good news tellers “are trying to sell you something” while bad news tellers are welcomed as honest and helpful.

Listen to his brilliant TED presentation