I feel like we are living in uniquely pessimistic times, at least when compared to the last ~70 years. The world order is being challenged, and not for the better. Massive geopolitcal problems are ahead with no good prospects - continuing Russian aggression in Europe, looming aggression in Taiwan, gloomy prospects over Iran nuclear situation. The US may well see a new civil war in the next few decades. Demographics, particularly in Europe, are not looking good. There are climate change risks to look forward to. Deglobalisation will lead to less global economic efficiency/prosperity. Tech advancement appears to have stagnated, and in any case the dream of technological innovation making tomorrow better has been replaced with the reality of tech making a lot of our lives worse, disconnecting people, pitting people against each other, hijacking our attention. Culturally, we seem to be getting worse at getting along with each other. Generally, we seem to have given up on making things better overall, and instead just focus on trying to prevent bad/worse outcomes. I can't remember when I last saw someone outline a positive vision of the world we are building with a rough idea of how to get there - mostly, anything referring to the future is some cyberpunk dystopia.Given all the above, what makes you optimistic about the future? Why do you believe that the world of tomorrow will be better than the world of today? What do you look forward to in the world of the future?
[+] [-] kradeelav|3 years ago|reply
- obviously we have new pitfalls our ancestors didn't ... but when was this not true for the human species? there's always been adjustment periods to new social changes and technology. The printing press created one heck of an information upheaval that changed power structures of institutions and nations, and yet it's considered a net good now.
- On a more individual scale, the human brain for some has a tendency to always need to worry or be anxious about Something. The ancients were simply anxious about other things. This has been a thought that's helped me from negativity getting in the way of the potential positives I could accomplish.
- "if it bleeds, it leads" is one of the truest quips about the news I've heard and seen. Simply logging off of news and focusing on local connections will do wonders for the mindset. What you see on TV does not equate to reality.
And lastly, some may feel this quote is overly twee, but the older I get the more it rings true:
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. '" - Mr. Rogers
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
2. Again, the internet has been around for some time, and it was arguably better 10-15 years ago. Old message boards and old YouTube are certainly better than modern Twitter, TikTok, instagram 'influencers'. Yes, there was plenty of rubbish on the internet back then too, but at least we knew it was rubbish - now it is mainstream culture.
3. Logging off the news will not switch off the big risk that will affect all of us, like the stuff I outlined in the original post. But yes, at least it will help with worrying about things outside your control. Still, that is kind of saying "yes, there are few reasons to be optimistic, the world is getting worse - find ways of dealing with it".
[+] [-] Kye|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamal-kumar|3 years ago|reply
I've been telling people this for like over a decade and they don't think I'm joking, there is a hint of seriousness to this though. I mean these are all things that killed a relatively lower amount of people, stuff we could bounce back from and adapt to basically - it wasn't like the prospect of any of the things you listed basically means all life on earth is completely screwed over for centuries and centuries until cockroaches become sentient or whatever.
[+] [-] dmitrybrant|3 years ago|reply
Will we go through local minima while on the path towards absolute upward progress? Of course we will. Right now we might be in a local minimum. Maybe we haven't reached the bottom of the current local minimum yet. Maybe we won't reach it during this generation. But we will get through it.
The other thing is that we simply can't predict societal progress simply by pointing to current trends and extrapolating to the next 5, 10, etc years. Think about the following:
70 years ago, there wasn't a single artificial satellite in the sky. 50 years ago, there wasn't a single personal computer in anyone's home. And 20 years ago, there wasn't a single smartphone in anyone's pocket. All of the above happened within a single human lifetime. I'm saying that it's taking shorter and shorter intervals of time for society to completely transform itself, and we simply can't know what the next transformation will be. For me, that's a prospect worthy of excitement instead of dread.
[+] [-] randcraw|3 years ago|reply
I think that's what most of us forget: the world has VASTLY improved in the past 50 years for the average person on the planet. The life prospects of the poorest half of the world's people are a lot rosier now than in the past, what, thousand years? Advances in telecommunication and public health and global transportation of essential goods has advanced most of the least advantaged parts of the world to life-altering levels. Child mortality, pestilence, starvation, all are significantly diminished. I think that's what Pinker posits, and it's hard to dispute his numbers or conclusions in terms of how the prospects for billions of people have improved a great deal.
But to the American lower and middle class, who enjoyed the post-WWII economic boom, the future seems less gleeful. But the decline they now bemoan didn't happen overnight. Diminishing opportunity among unskilled workers in the US began in the 1970s, and anyone paying attention back then saw that it was time to change career plans and get away from unskilled work, especially in those parts of the country where employers were already migrating away. More of that decline was sure to come, and sure enough, it did.
I feel for them, but that ship has been sinking for decades. The time to head for a lifeboat was 1990, not 2022.
[+] [-] bambax|3 years ago|reply
Maybe. But if that's the case, we're talking about humans only, which account for only a small part of the biosphere. Most other species are suffering more and more.
And even if we're only considering humans, we are materially better off, because we have access to more "things". But are we happier? It doesn't look like it.
> it's taking shorter and shorter intervals of time for society to completely transform itself
Yes, that's true. The problem is that we have a hard time keeping up with change. Social media for instance is a huge transformation of society, and it happened too fast for us to adjust and regulate it.
> For me, that's a prospect worthy of excitement instead of dread.
I don't share that thought, but I envy you.
[+] [-] david38|3 years ago|reply
If you look at the other 99.99999% of species, the world is exceptionally bleak.
Mass death everywhere, total ecosystem collapse, etc.
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
But what to be optimistic about now? Do you really have a positive, optimistic vision of US 2050 or Europe 2050? What is it? What kind of a world are we actually building and going towards?
[+] [-] unity1001|3 years ago|reply
On top of that, user-generated content has become the king. Its not 6-figure columnists working for corporate outlets who are setting the trend on the net like early 2000s anymore. We, the people, who were once in small forums on the fringes of the internet, have become the motor of the internet.
Crowdfunding, citizen-initiatives etc have grown. Independent content creators, software developers, even journalists are funding their activities by the support of their audience, using crowdfunding or membership tools. Democratization of these sectors bear great changes.
All of these combine into a world in which a lot of things are being democratized, and given into the hands of the people. Reducing the power of the corporations.
This was unimaginable in 1990s. We would sit pretty, shut up, watch and listen to what we were told and consume. All that we could do would be to send back some feedback to our corporate overlords about some product if they ever stooped so low as to ask our opinion.
Compared to those times, things are MUCH better now. Which is the reason for the discomfort in a lot of the old establishment and the noise they make about various things. From attacking net neutrality to wanting 'content to be auto moderated'.
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
On user-generated content, I also think things have been getting a lot worse since the 2000s. What you refer to as the small forums on the fringes of the internet used to be its motor. Now you have big corporate platforms, that act more like a hive-mind, with no real online communities and no individual voices heard. There has been more centralisation, not democratization in this regard. Add to that the commercialization of it all - now you never know if something you read is an astroturfing campaign, a sponsored 'influencer', someone out to build a following and make money, or true authentic hobbyist content. Back then it was almost all the latter.
Back in the 90s we were not glued to smartphones with personalized ads and influencers selling us crap. Yes, we had ads on TV, but that is not nearly as bad, and there is only so much of TV you can watch. There was more connection and more humanity, and 'corporations' had far, far less power than today.
In any case - you're just describing what has happened. What is the vision or the bright future that we go to from here?
[+] [-] uberman|3 years ago|reply
From my perspective lots of stuff looks grim and increasingly people seem just resigned to it.
Microtransactions required to activate heated seats in your car. The threat that companies will sell your period tracking information. Health providers "sharing" data with Google. Amazon products mapping and doing image recognition on the items in your home or providing video police without a warrant...
Yet we don't really seem to care at all. All the while, this data is repackaged and sold to advertisers who use it to amplify fringe messages designed to foster outrage, fear, and hate at each other rather than at them.
When I was younger, people used to fear that your phone was listening to you or that your tv might allow someone to watch you in your home... now, those things are product features.
Really only my kids give me any hope for the future.
[+] [-] burntoutfire|3 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, but the fact that this is the first thing you list under "grim" is just comical to me. This isn't even a 1st world problem, this is a 0.1-world problem.
[+] [-] ozim|3 years ago|reply
You have some secret documents on R&D labs that you can say tech advancement stagnated?
You probably don't understand how big world really is, you probably don't understand how many different companies are there working on making stuff more efficient. All mobile phones looking the same for last 5 years is not "tech advancement stagnated".
There is also no single "world vision" and these "massive" geopolitical problems might be less of a problem then what media is presenting.
Deglobalisation and "less economic efficiency" seems like a good idea for me, first world people buying less crap built by exploited workforce from third world countries seems like a plus.
All that talk about "disconnecting" people for me is nonsense - people are connected more then ever I keep friends that I rarely see nowadays - but we are still good friends. Randos on the internet shouting at each other or teenagers playing MMOs instead of running in the woods is not convincing argument for me.
When I ride train - yes I read internet on my phone - yes I would never talk to strangers and never was even when I did not have internet on my phone, I would use Walkman to listen to tapes back when I was younger.
Problem with Walkman 20-25 years ago was that batteries were crap, headphones or earphones were crap and had cables that would break after month or two of using, nowadays I can listen music from my phone whole day and use earphones without any cables.
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
So that's what I'm asking - what is there to be optimistic about? Say, in the 1950s you could be optimistic about all the home automation tech coming out, like dishwashers, washing machines, cars etc. getting better and more affordable. I find it hard to get excited about a future of startups where for a small subscription fee they send you some rubbish every month to exploit your dopamine reaction to novelty and surprise. A lot of 'innovation' seems to actually make our lives worse lately, and it seems like a trend that will continue.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] arroz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|3 years ago|reply
We've just had a stark lesson on how important the price of energy is to our economy. In the future, the opposite is going to happen. The price of solar power has been dropping about 80% per decade for the last 50 years or so, and it looks like that is going to continue for the rest of this decade at least. It hasn't had a significant impact yet because solar has been more expensive than alternatives, but we've reached the crossing point, and solar power is now cheaper.
Energy is a major direct and indirect input into the price of pretty much everything.
Some people are going to figure out some good ways of turning cheap intermittent power into dollars, and those people are going to make a ton of money, dragging the rest of the economy with it.
(Unless of course that mechanism is completely useless, like crypto).
[+] [-] dane-pgp|3 years ago|reply
The other major factor, of course, being land.
While I don't expect many major economies to implement a Land Value Tax in the near term, to balance out these costs more fairly among citizens and corporations, it's worth noting that we are about to see peak population being reached in China [2025] and the EU [2026], which may have interesting macro-economic effects.
[2025] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/china-s-p...
[2026] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
[+] [-] p1mrx|3 years ago|reply
We should focus more on how to avoid long-tail blackouts than how to profit from periods of abundance, particularly as electricity becomes critical for transportation and heating, which have traditionally relied on fuels that are easy to store.
[+] [-] schroeding|3 years ago|reply
- Cheap sustainable-ish abundant electricity for all humans, maybe from fusion (not so optimistic on that one), maybe from massive solar arrays, maybe from wind farms in the oceans, maybe from nuclear fission, if we find enough fuel. I don't care where it comes from, we just need massive amounts of it to replace other energy sources.
- Quantum annealers solving the traveling salesman problem and other optimization problems even for super complex problems, allowing us to get optimized solutions which use fewer ressources for equal effect.
- Machine learning allowing us to solve most problems of our time that are solvable by pattern recognition and optimization without causing the collaps of society due to sharply rising unemployment numbers.
- Humanoid androids and massive automation replacing manual labor without causing the collaps of society due to sharply rising unemployment numbers.
- Geoengineering to reverse climate change, praying that we use the right strategy that doesn't suprise us with some unforseen consequences years down the road.
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randcraw|3 years ago|reply
The past decade is not so different from 1973 to 1983, which sucked. US inflation ran high (12% in 1974, 13% in 1979), unemployment high (11% in 1982), we had two rounds of gasoline embargoes and rationing, US dominance in heavy industry was fading fast (steel, oil, coal, lumber, etc), Americans had been kidnapped and held for 444 days and our vaunted military bungled their rescue (1979), and until then, being under-educated in the lower middle class had never been a barrier to a decent career and lifestyle -- then it was. Those were big letdowns from the preceding post-WWII two generation-long boom. Unsurprisingly, America's can-do attitude hit the skids.
But we got over it. The economy rebounded in the 1980s and then exploded in the 1990s, and has remained dynamic ever since. Startups redefined business as we knew it. Computing and networking revolutionized access to products and media. Some forty years later, we can make international calls instantly, for as long as we want, essentially FOR FREE. We're in touch with distant friends and relatives as much as we want, any time we want, and can share almost any experience with them through photo, audio, or video. We carry an unlimited amount of music and other media with us wherever we go. That's just amazing, and deep down, we know there will be more where that came from. Further surprises await.
As far as our dwelling on the negative, people are herd animals. It's easier to react to the mood of others than think independently for ourselves. It takes time but eventually we remember this, and that dwelling on failure is a stupid waste of time and it just makes you unhappy.
What generally happens is that somebody or something (like the moon landing in 1969, or the arrival of the PC in 1975, or the internet/web in 1990/1995) comes along and gives us a rejuvenating shot in the arm, reminding us that life inevitably changes from what we know (and love), and yes, there's nothing we can do to stop it. But there are also some pretty great opportunities out there, if we're willing to stop looking backward and get on with reinventing ourselves.
[+] [-] marginalia_nu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tremon|3 years ago|reply
Except that we didn't work to maintain what we had. Education systems were gutted, public infrastructure was sold off to the highest bidder (Bayh-Dole act, every privatization of government services that followed), maintenance was deferrred (many roads and bridges are deteriorating in both Europe and the USA, 80% of nuclear plants in operation today will reach EOL in roughly ten years without replacement).
Yes, periods of prolonged prosperity aren't unique, and they always end in one of two ways: destruction or decadence. Take your pick.
for almost a hundred years we've seen each generation get wealthier
This isn't true. The last generation to be wealthier than their parents were the baby boomers: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charting-the-growing-genera... . The average wealth per person has been decimated since then: Generation X is only half as wealthy as baby boomers, while the average millennial is ten times less wealthy than a boomer. And this isn't just because of their current age:
> In 1989, Baby Boomers and Generation X under 40 accounted for 13% of household wealth, compared to just 5.9% for Millennials and Generation Z under 40 in 2020.
So in 30 years time, the younger generation lost over half its wealth to the older generation.
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|3 years ago|reply
That said, in the early 1900s we had a similar thing going on and Roosevelt convinced the wealthy to share a little bit of their wealth with the common people, and that sort of worked out. I think it likely that the modern day oligarchs will make similar decisions.
This is likely to take the form of universal basic income, a 'smart' digital currency that can be turned off for people who don't do what they are supposed to, and it is likely that common people owning any meaningful amount of property will probably go away also.
So, where is the optimism? I believe that advances in science, massive automation, increasingly fun technology like VR and AR, more time for family and friends, will still provide a decent life for most people on the planet.
[+] [-] akuro|3 years ago|reply
People are well aware of the glamorous fields of physics: cosmology and particle physics. These are the disciplines that concern the frontiers of the very large and the very small respectively. I don't care so much about those. The frontier that I'm most interested in is the most abstract one: complexity. Physics has traditionally tackled problems that were either simple or could be made simple. Progress was made after the 1980s with the rise of solid state physics and associated attitudes towards emergence, but now? With the advent of statistical learning, advances in nonlinear dynamics and so on? Physicists are starting to tackle some insanely complex systems. Not to mention of course that computers are getting more powerful with time as per Moore's law, so simulations are really coming into their own as useful scientific approaches. Imagine the computational physicist of the 2050s, imagine the tools that she might have at hand to solve problems like the physics of life, or perhaps the phase diagrams of extremely heterogenous materials, or so on...
I can't help but be extremely excited! Here's to hoping that humanity makes it that far. :)
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|3 years ago|reply
I think there are a lot of good things happening. There's finally progress on climate repair (tiny, but nonzero) which means we may have more time to fix things.
The last 40 years of entrenched bullshit is finally tottering due to its geriatric constituency, so I think there's a good chance for positive change on the horizon. And even the re-emergence of some of the worst people (let's just aggregate them into "the racist shitheads") I see as a positive sign: they were always around, but in the background. Now they have emerged because it's clear they are on the wrong side of history and they know that if they do nothing they will be greatly diminished.
There's no gleaming path to the future like you used to see in glossy utopian pictures in the 1970s. It will be bumpy. But overall I think the derivative is positive.
I'm not sure the USA will get its shit together, but it's only about 4% of the world's population.
[+] [-] jamal-kumar|3 years ago|reply
If they want to get with the program they'll have to do something about a giant portion of the population being horrible people. I don't know what to say about solutions regarding that but then again I go as far as pretending not to speak English when I encounter people from there while abroad so I don't have to have any bullshit. If I can sus them out as being alright (No utterance of bigotry as I hear them talk in English is a big one, basic international etiquette like not interrupting people on an automatic basis over everyone else in the room is too), I might be OK with them but otherwise it's just way, way more trouble than it's worth to bother too hard on that when there's a giant world of people who don't act like that.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peUYpHbuu5w
[+] [-] Balgair|3 years ago|reply
A quick test to see how up to date you are on some important trends in the world. I was surprisingly out of date with how well things have become.
[+] [-] akhmatova|3 years ago|reply
However to the extent that any of us might, just might, be able to help steer this civilization out of the death spiral it seems currently locked into -- such a correction will, almost by definition, require a very strong degree of (the right kind of) optimism. If we just say "F it", and give into pessimism -- we won't have any chance at all.
Therefore, from rationalist first principles -- we might as well go with optimism. In fact if the current situation we're in can be thought of as an evolutionary test -- then it is one that is selecting for 3 traits: (1) intelligence, (2) ability to cooperate, and (3) optimism (again, of a certain "right kind" that I don't have time to go into at present).
I realize this argument sounds a bit pat (like Anselm's argument for the existence of God), but I do think there's a lot more substance to it.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] silicon2401|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logicalmonster|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ransom1538|3 years ago|reply
"Culturally, we seem to be getting worse at getting along with each other." Are you insane? Just 75 years ago Germany was putting people into ovens. Toughen up.
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
But sure, it could be far worse.
[+] [-] jlengrand|3 years ago|reply
Turning off the news helps a lot as well imho. Our species isn't built to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, and it deeply impact our mental health.
If I look locally, I find a lot of reasons to be optimistic
[+] [-] bluGill|3 years ago|reply
In the end life isn't perfect, but it generally has gotten better
[+] [-] moonchrome|3 years ago|reply
I agree with your point, but people take this as a given (that because things are better now they will keep improving). It can get worse, and it doesn't need to bounce back in the long run.
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amilios|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agent008t|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ALittleLight|3 years ago|reply
I have no idea how realistic it is but if fusion power becomes a reality in the next few decades I think that would have huge positive impacts. I expect energy to become insanely cheap and terraforming the Earth to realistic. I'm imaging carbon capture, water desalination, maybe indoor farms providing cheap local food worldwide.