Is the world getting better or worse? A look at the numbers | Steven Pinker

Summary

このスクリプトは、人々の進歩に対する感覚と、実際に人類の福祉が時間とともにどのように向上しているかを比較する分析を通じて、進歩の真実を探求しています。過去30年間のデータによると、アメリカでは殺人率や貧困率が下がり、世界的には争いや核兵器の数が減少していることが示されています。また、テロや飢餓、貧困、平和、知性、自由、安全、健康、裕福、幸福という人類の幸福を形成する要素が向上していると述べています。さらに、進歩は楽観主義や信仰の問題ではなく、人間の歴史における事実であり、人類が理性と科学を用いて問題を解決し、徐々に成功していく過程であると結論づけています。

Takeaways

• 📉 犯罪率和贫困率在过去30年中有所下降，与1980年代相比，现在的环境状况也有所改善。
• 🌍 从全球范围来看，与30年前相比，战争数量减少，独裁国家数量减少，极端贫困人口比例下降，核武器数量也有所减少。
• 🆘 尽管1988年西欧遭受的恐怖主义袭击更为严重，但随着时间的推移，恐怖主义造成的死亡人数有所下降。
• 📈 人类福祉的各个方面——生命、健康、繁荣、和平、自由、安全、知识、闲暇和幸福——都可以衡量，并且随着时间的推移都有所改善。
• 👶 儿童死亡率大幅下降，今天的儿童比以往任何时候都更有可能活到成年。
• 🌾 饥荒不再是全球性的威胁，极端贫困的人口比例显著减少。
• 🕊️ 和平已成为常态，大国之间不再发生战争，战争的发生率和致死率都大幅下降。
• 🗳️ 尽管民主在某些地区遭遇挫折，但全球范围内，生活在民主国家中的人口比例达到了历史最高。
• 📚 文盲率大幅下降，教育普及使得大多数年轻人都能读写。
• 🛠️ 技术进步使得人们工作的时间减少，家务劳动时间也大幅缩短。
• 😊 全球范围内的幸福水平在最近几十年中有所提升，表明人类生活的整体改善。

Q & A

2016年と2017年が「史上最悪の年」と言われた理由は何ですか？

2016年と2017年は、ニュースで殺人事件、格差、汚染、独裁政治、戦争、核兵器の拡散など、多くのネガティブな出来事が報じられたため、「史上最悪の年」と言われました。

フランクリン・ピアサー・アダムズは「過去の良い時代」について何を指摘しましたか？

フランクリン・ピアサー・アダムズは、「過去の良い時代」に対する懐かしさを、悪い記憶力が大きく責任を持つと指摘しました。つまり、過去を理想化して、現在の悲惨なニュースと比較することで、衰退を見ている錯覚に陥りやすいという意味です。

過去30年間に、アメリカの貧困率や犯罪率はどのように変化しましたか？

過去30年間で、アメリカの殺人率は8.5パーミルから5.3パーミルに、貧困率は12％から7％に低下しました。また、悬浮物質の排出量も3500万トンから2100万トン、二酸化硫黄の排出量も2000万トンから400万トンに減少しました。

世界全体を観察したときに、30年前に比べて、貧困や核兵器の数はどう変わりましたか？

30年前に比べて、世界の貧困人口の割合は37％から10％に、核兵器の数は6万トン以上から1万トン以下に減少しました。また、戦争の数は23個から12個、独裁政治の数は85個から60個に減少しました。

1988年と去年のテロリズムの犠牲者数を比較して、何がわかりますか？

1988年のテロリズムの犠牲者数は440人と、去年の238人と比べて、過去にはもっと悪い年があったことがわかります。これは、世界が常に悪化しているというわけではないことを示しています。

「進歩」という考え方に対して、なぜ一部の知的人間は否定的な態度を持つのですか？

「進歩」という考え方に対して否定的な態度を持つ知的人間は、進歩を盲目的な信仰や時代遅れの迷信、または進歩主義の俗っぽい楽観視と見なしているためです。彼らは、進歩を進歩の果実と混同せず、手術で麻酔薬を使うことと進歩の考え方の支持を同じくするのを好むとは思いません。

人生の期待寿命が過去数百年間でどのように変わりましたか？

人生の期待寿命は、人類の歴史のほとんどにおいて約30歳でしたが、今日の世界全体では70歳以上であり、発展した地域では80歳以上となっています。また、250年前には世界で最も豊かな国で子供の3分の1が5歳を迎える前に死亡していたのに対し、今日では世界で最も貧しい国で6％未満の子供がその運命を免れています。

貧困や飢餓、平和、民主主義、犯罪率などの観点から、人間の福祉がどのように向上したのですか？

過去200年間で、90％の人々が極度の貧困状態にあった世界が、その割合を10％未満に減少しました。かつては貧困状態にある人々が多かったが、今日では10％未満です。また、かつては大国同士が常に戦争を繰り広げていたのに対し、今日では大国同士が戦争を起こすことはなく、平和が維持されています。犯罪率も法の支配によって低下し、人間の安全性は向上しました。

ニュースメディアが持続的に悲観的なトーンを維持する理由は何ですか？

ニュースメディアは、実際に起こった出来事について報道するため、起こっていない平和や安全な状態については報道しません。また、ニュースは私たちの悲観的な興味を利用して、悪いことが起こる可能性が高いと感じさせる傾向があります。ニュースは、問題解決や改善された状況について報道することが少ないため、人々の悲観的な観点が維持される傾向があります。

悲観主義がもたらすリスクは何ですか？

悲観主義は、無力感や絶望感を引き起こし、社会的な問題や危険に対する適切な認識を阻害する可能性があります。また、悲観主義は激しい改革主義に遷り、既存の制度や組織を破壊し、新たな秩序を求める動きを強めることになる可能性があります。

進歩はどのようにして生み出されるのですか？

進歩は、理性と科学を適用することで、人間の福祉を向上させるための人間の努力の結果です。進歩は必然的でもなく、問題解決を伴うプロセスです。問題は避けられないが、それらに対処する解決策を見つけることが進歩を意味します。

エンライトenmentの考え方と人間の本性はどのように関係していますか？

エンライトenmentの考え方は、人間の理性を通じて問題を解決し、人間の福祉を向上させる方法を提供します。人間の本性には短所と乖離があるとされていますが、エンライトenmentの基準と制度を通じて、人間の本性は問題解決に貢献することができます。

私たちが持続可能な進歩を実現するために必要なのは何か？

持続可能な進歩を実現するためには、知識を適用し、人間の繁栄を促進する努力を続けることが必要です。また、平和、繁栄、自由、幸福、知識、そして健康と安全の領域での改善に向けて、私たちは絶えず努力し、新しい問題に対処する必要があります。

Outlines

00:00

📉 過去30年間の世界の進歩

人々は日々、犯罪、貧困、汚染、独裁政治、戦争、核兵器の拡散などのニュースに怯える。2016年は「史上最悪の年」と呼ばれたが、2017年がその記録を塗り替え、過去の安全で清潔で平等な時代を懐かしむ声が広がる。しかし、21世紀の人間状況を理解する賢明な方法だろうか。過去を美しく思い出すことで、現在の悲惨なニュースと比べて衰退を見ているのではないか。アメリカの犯罪率や貧困率、大気汚染物質の排出量、世界的に見ても戦争や独裁政治、極度の貧困、核兵器の数を30年前と比較し、実際には改善していることが示されている。

05:02

🌟 進歩の真実

1988年よりもテロの犠牲者数が少なくなっていることから、世界は改善されていると言える。進歩という考えは知识分子に嫌われるが、進歩を信じることで盲目的な信仰や旧時代の迷信を信じることになってしまうという誤解がある。しかし、進歩は観測可能な仮説であり、人間の幸福を定義する要素が存在する。その要素が時間とともに改善されるのであれば、それが進歩である。特に、最も貴重な命の長さが過去数百年間に多大に延び、命の損失リスクが大幅に減少していることが挙げられる。

10:03

🌱 貧困と平和の進歩

飢餓や貧困、平和についても過去数百年間に著しい進歩が見られる。かつて90%が極度の貧困に生きていたが、現在は10%未満と減少している。かつては强国が常に戦争状態にあり、平和は戦争の合間にあるだけでした。しかし、現代の先进国は互いに戦争をしていない。また、民主主義は挫折を経験しているが、世界は過去10年間で最も民主的になった。犯罪率も法の支配が広がるにつれて低下し、人々の生活はより安全になった。

15:05

📚 知性と裕福の広がり

知性と裕福も広がっている。17世紀以前にはヨーロッパでは15%しか読書・書きができない状態でしたが、20世紀半ばにはヨーロッパとアメリカで普遍的な読み書き能力が身につけられ、世界中の若者にも読み書きが広まっている。また、労働時間も減少し、家事労働も大幅に減少。健康、富、安全、知性、余暇が向上し、世界的に幸せを感じる人々が増えている。しかし、ニュースメディアは進歩をあまり報道しない傾向にある。

🌈 進歩の背後にある力

進歩は理性と科学を適用することで人間福祉を向上させる18世紀の啓蒙思想の結果であり、必然的なものではない。問題解決が進歩であり、新たな問題が生じることも必然であり、それらを解決し続けることが肝心だ。気候変動や核戦争などの未解決の問題は巨大であるが、それらを解決すべき問題と見なすべきであり、解決策を積極的に探求する必要がある。啓蒙主義は人間の性質に反しているという問いにも触れ、人間の性質は問題をもたらすが、啓蒙主義の基準と制度を通じて解決策にもなる。

🎓 啓蒙主義の理想

啓蒙主義の理想は人類の進歩を促進する力であり、芸術的な才能と修辞力を持つ人々によってより良く語り継がれ、広まされるべきだと期待している。人類は厳しい宇宙に生まれ、生き残るために絶えず競争的な過程を経験し、時には幻想や自己中心性、驚くべき愚かさにかかっている。しかし、人間の性質には自己改善のための資源も与えられている。私たちは言語の本能を持っており、理性の法則、知的好奇心、公開的な議論、権威と教条への懐疑的な姿勢を通じて、繰り返し改善のスパイラルが勢いを増し、私たち自身の性質の暗い部分を含め、私たちを押し潰す力に勝つ。

Keywords

💡進歩

「進歩」とは、人類の生活水準や知識、技術の向上を意味します。ビデオでは、過去数十年間にわたって、人類は健康、豊かさ、知性、安全、そして幸福さが向上していると述べています。進歩は盲目的な楽観主義や信仰の問題ではなく、実際に測定・検証できる仮説であり、人類の歴史上最大の事実の一つとされています。

💡悲観主義

「悲観主義」は、世界が悪化しているという考え方です。ビデオでは、悲観主義が無差别に危険を認識し、問題を減少させる方法にも注目しなくなるリスクがあると指摘しています。また、悲観主義は、私たちの努力が無駄であると感じることを意味し、それによって人々が行動を起こさなくなる可能性があります。

💡理性

「理性」とは、理論的思考や論理的判断の能力を指します。ビデオでは、18世紀の啓蒙思想と結びつけ、人類が理性と科学を適用することで徐々に成功を収めることができると述べています。理性は、人類の進歩を促す力であり、問題解決に必要な基本的な原則を提供します。

💡人類の性質

「人類の性質」とは、人類が持っている基本的な特性や傾向を指します。ビデオでは、人類の性質は悲劇的であり、完璧さは期待できないと述べていますが、人類の性質を啓蒙の基準と制度を通じて誘導することで、問題解決に貢献できると主張しています。

💡新闻报道

「新闻报道」とは、出来事や状況を報道することです。ビデオでは、ニュースは起こったことについて報道するため、良いことが起こっていないことは報道されない傾向があると指摘しています。また、ニュースは私たちの悲観的傾向を利用して、観客が一日中心配すべき問題を決定する傾向があると述べています。

💡死亡率

「死亡率」とは、特定の原因で死亡する確率を表す指標です。ビデオでは、過去数十年間、交通事故や自然現象、暴力などによって死亡する確率が大幅に減少したと述べています。これは、人類が進歩を遂げ、安全を高めたことを示す重要な証拠です。

💡貧困

「貧困」とは、経済的資源が不足し、最低生活水準を維持することが困難な状態を指します。ビデオでは、過去数十年間に、極度の貧困状態から脱却した人々が億単位で増加し、これは人類の進歩の具体例です。

💡平和

「平和」とは、暴力的または武装的な紛争がない状態を指します。ビデオでは、過去数十年間、平和が広がり、貧困や暴力が減少したと述べています。また、平和は人類の進歩を促進する重要な要素であり、安全と幸福を高めることに貢献しています。

💡教育

「教育」とは、知識や技能を学ぶプロセスを指します。ビデオでは、世界全体で読み書きができる人々が90％以上に達し、これは人類の知性と文化の進歩を示す重要な指標です。教育は、個人の人生を豊かにし、社会全体の発展に貢献します。

💡自由

「自由」とは、自己決定や自己実現の権利を意味します。ビデオでは、世界で民主主義が広がり、人々がより自由な選択をすることができるようになったと述べています。自由は、人類がより良い社会を築くために必要な基本的な価値観であり、進歩を促進する力です。

💡幸福

「幸福」とは、満足感や幸福を感じる状態を指します。ビデオでは、世界中の86％の国で、最近の数十年間に幸福が増加したと述べています。幸福は、人類の生活の質を測定する指標であり、進歩の証左として重要な役割を果たします。

Highlights

2016 was called the 'Worst Year Ever' until 2017 claimed that record.

Comparing current issues with an idealized past can lead to a distorted view of progress.

Over the past 30 years, homicide and poverty rates have decreased, and pollution emissions have been reduced.

Globally, there are fewer wars, autocracies, and people in extreme poverty compared to 30 years ago.

Terrorism in Western Europe was worse in 1988 with 440 deaths compared to 238 in the previous year.

The concept of progress is often met with skepticism, especially among intellectuals.

Progress is a testable hypothesis based on measurable improvements in human well-being.

Life expectancy has more than doubled from 30 to over 70 in the past 250 years.

Famine has been largely eradicated, and extreme poverty has seen a significant decline.

Wars have become less frequent and less deadly, with a substantial drop in the annual rate of war.

Despite recent setbacks, the world has never been more democratic than in the past decade.

Homicide rates have plummeted with the establishment of the rule of law.

Safety has improved in nearly every aspect of life, including transportation and the workplace.

Literacy rates have risen globally, with over 90% of the world's population under 25 being literate.

The average work week has decreased significantly, and household chores take less time due to technology.

Happiness has increased in 86% of the world's countries in recent decades.

The news often focuses on negative events, which can skew perceptions of progress.

Progress is not inevitable and requires human effort, guided by reason and science.

Enlightenment ideals and institutions have played a crucial role in human progress.

The story of human progress is a true narrative that belongs to all of humanity.

Transcripts

Many people face the news each morning

with trepidation and dread.

Every day, we read of shootings,

inequality, pollution, dictatorship,

war and the spread of nuclear weapons.

These are some of the reasons

that 2016 was called the "Worst. Year. Ever."

Until 2017 claimed that record --

(Laughter)

and left many people longing for earlier decades,

when the world seemed safer, cleaner and more equal.

But is this a sensible way to understand the human condition

in the 21st century?

As Franklin Pierce Adams pointed out,

"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days

than a bad memory."

(Laughter)

You can always fool yourself into seeing a decline

if you compare bleeding headlines of the present

with rose-tinted images of the past.

What does the trajectory of the world look like

when we measure well-being over time using a constant yardstick?

Let's compare the most recent data on the present

with the same measures 30 years ago.

Last year, Americans killed each other at a rate of 5.3 per hundred thousand,

had seven percent of their citizens in poverty

and emitted 21 million tons of particulate matter

and four million tons of sulfur dioxide.

But 30 years ago, the homicide rate was 8.5 per hundred thousand,

poverty rate was 12 percent

and we emitted 35 million tons of particulate matter

and 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide.

What about the world as a whole?

Last year, the world had 12 ongoing wars,

60 autocracies,

10 percent of the world population in extreme poverty

and more than 10,000 nuclear weapons.

But 30 years ago, there were 23 wars,

85 autocracies,

37 percent of the world population in extreme poverty

and more than 60,000 nuclear weapons.

True, last year was a terrible year for terrorism in Western Europe,

with 238 deaths,

but 1988 was worse with 440 deaths.

What's going on?

Was 1988 a particularly bad year?

Or are these improvements a sign that the world, for all its struggles,

gets better over time?

Might we even invoke the admittedly old-fashioned notion of progress?

To do so is to court a certain amount of derision,

because I have found that intellectuals hate progress.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

And intellectuals who call themselves progressive really hate progress.

(Laughter)

Now, it's not that they hate the fruits of progress, mind you.

Most academics and pundits

would rather have their surgery with anesthesia than without it.

It's the idea of progress that rankles the chattering class.

If you believe that humans can improve their lot, I have been told,

that means that you have a blind faith

and a quasi-religious belief in the outmoded superstition

and the false promise of the myth of the onward march

of inexorable progress.

You are a cheerleader for vulgar American can-doism,

with the rah-rah spirit of boardroom ideology,

Silicon Valley and the Chamber of Commerce.

You are a practitioner of Whig history,

a naive optimist, a Pollyanna and, of course, a Pangloss,

alluding to the Voltaire character who declared,

"All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds."

Well, Professor Pangloss, as it happens, was a pessimist.

A true optimist believes there can be much better worlds

than the one we have today.

But all of this is irrelevant,

because the question of whether progress has taken place

is not a matter of faith

or having an optimistic temperament or seeing the glass as half full.

It's a testable hypothesis.

For all their differences,

people largely agree on what goes into human well-being:

life, health, sustenance, prosperity, peace, freedom, safety, knowledge,

leisure, happiness.

All of these things can be measured.

If they have improved over time, that, I submit, is progress.

Let's go to the data,

beginning with the most precious thing of all, life.

For most of human history, life expectancy at birth was around 30.

Today, worldwide, it is more than 70,

and in the developed parts of the world,

more than 80.

250 years ago, in the richest countries of the world,

a third of the children did not live to see their fifth birthday,

before the risk was brought down a hundredfold.

Today, that fate befalls less than six percent of children

in the poorest countries of the world.

Famine is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

It could bring devastation to any part of the world.

Today, famine has been banished

to the most remote and war-ravaged regions.

200 years ago, 90 percent of the world's population

subsisted in extreme poverty.

Today, fewer than 10 percent of people do.

For most of human history,

the powerful states and empires

were pretty much always at war with each other,

and peace was a mere interlude between wars.

Today, they are never at war with each other.

The last great power war

pitted the United States against China 65 years ago.

More recently, wars of all kinds have become fewer and less deadly.

The annual rate of war has fallen from about 22 per hundred thousand per year

in the early '50s to 1.2 today.

Democracy has suffered obvious setbacks

in Venezuela, in Russia, in Turkey

and is threatened by the rise of authoritarian populism

in Eastern Europe and the United States.

Yet the world has never been more democratic

than it has been in the past decade,

with two-thirds of the world's people living in democracies.

Homicide rates plunge whenever anarchy and the code of vendetta

are replaced by the rule of law.

It happened when feudal Europe was brought under the control of centralized kingdoms,

so that today a Western European

has 1/35th the chance of being murdered

compared to his medieval ancestors.

It happened again in colonial New England,

in the American Wild West when the sheriffs moved to town,

and in Mexico.

Indeed, we've become safer in just about every way.

Over the last century, we've become 96 percent less likely

to be killed in a car crash,

88 percent less likely to be mowed down on the sidewalk,

99 percent less likely to die in a plane crash,

95 percent less likely to be killed on the job,

89 percent less likely to be killed by an act of God,

such as a drought, flood, wildfire, storm, volcano,

landslide, earthquake or meteor strike,

presumably not because God has become less angry with us

but because of improvements in the resilience of our infrastructure.

And what about the quintessential act of God,

the projectile hurled by Zeus himself?

Yes, we are 97 percent less likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning.

Before the 17th century,

no more than 15 percent of Europeans could read or write.

Europe and the United States achieved universal literacy

by the middle of the 20th century,

and the rest of the world is catching up.

Today, more than 90 percent of the world's population

under the age of 25 can read and write.

In the 19th century, Westerners worked more than 60 hours per week.

Today, they work fewer than 40.

Thanks to the universal penetration of running water and electricity

in the developed world

and the widespread adoption of washing machines, vacuum cleaners,

refrigerators, dishwashers, stoves and microwaves,

the amount of our lives that we forfeit to housework

has fallen from 60 hours a week

to fewer than 15 hours a week.

Do all of these gains in health, wealth, safety, knowledge and leisure

make us any happier?

The answer is yes.

In 86 percent of the world's countries,

happiness has increased in recent decades.

Well, I hope to have convinced you

that progress is not a matter of faith or optimism,

but is a fact of human history,

indeed the greatest fact in human history.

And how has this fact been covered in the news?

(Laughter)

A tabulation of positive and negative emotion words in news stories

has shown that during the decades in which humanity has gotten healthier,

wealthier, wiser, safer and happier,

the "New York Times" has become increasingly morose

and the world's broadcasts too have gotten steadily glummer.

Why don't people appreciate progress?

Part of the answer comes from our cognitive psychology.

We estimate risk using a mental shortcut called the "availability heuristic."

The easier it is to recall something from memory,

the more probable we judge it to be.

The other part of the answer comes from the nature of journalism,

captured in this satirical headline from "The Onion,"

"CNN Holds Morning Meeting to Decide

What Viewers Should Panic About For Rest of Day."

(Laughter)

(Applause)

News is about stuff that happens, not stuff that doesn't happen.

You never see a journalist who says,

"I'm reporting live from a country that has been at peace for 40 years,"

or a city that has not been attacked by terrorists.

Also, bad things can happen quickly,

but good things aren't built in a day.

The papers could have run the headline,

"137,000 people escaped from extreme poverty yesterday"

every day for the last 25 years.

That's one and a quarter billion people leaving poverty behind,

but you never read about it.

Also, the news capitalizes on our morbid interest

in what can go wrong,

captured in the programming policy, "If it bleeds, it leads."

Well, if you combine our cognitive biases with the nature of news,

you can see why the world has been coming to an end

for a very long time indeed.

Let me address some questions about progress

that no doubt have occurred to many of you.

First, isn't it good to be pessimistic

to safeguard against complacency,

to rake the muck, to speak truth to power?

Well, not exactly.

It's good to be accurate.

Of course we should be aware of suffering and danger

wherever they occur,

but we should also be aware of how they can be reduced,

because there are dangers to indiscriminate pessimism.

One of them is fatalism.

If all our efforts at improving the world

have been in vain,

why throw good money after bad?

The poor will always be with you.

And since the world will end soon --

if climate change doesn't kill us all,

then runaway artificial intelligence will --

a natural response is to enjoy life while we can,

eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

The other danger of thoughtless pessimism is radicalism.

If our institutions are all failing and beyond hope for reform,

a natural response is to seek to smash the machine,

drain the swamp,

burn the empire to the ground,

on the hope that whatever rises out of the ashes

is bound to be better than what we have now.

Well, if there is such a thing as progress,

what causes it?

Progress is not some mystical force or dialectic lifting us ever higher.

It's not a mysterious arc of history bending toward justice.

It's the result of human efforts governed by an idea,

an idea that we associate with the 18th century Enlightenment,

namely that if we apply reason and science

that enhance human well-being,

we can gradually succeed.

Is progress inevitable? Of course not.

Progress does not mean that everything becomes better

for everyone everywhere all the time.

That would be a miracle, and progress is not a miracle

but problem-solving.

Problems are inevitable

and solutions create new problems which have to be solved in their turn.

The unsolved problems facing the world today are gargantuan,

including the risks of climate change

and nuclear war,

but we must see them as problems to be solved,

not apocalypses in waiting,

and aggressively pursue solutions

like Deep Decarbonization for climate change

and Global Zero for nuclear war.

Finally, does the Enlightenment go against human nature?

This is an acute question for me,

because I'm a prominent advocate of the existence of human nature,

with all its shortcomings and perversities.

In my book "The Blank Slate,"

I argued that the human prospect is more tragic than utopian

and that we are not stardust, we are not golden

and there's no way we are getting back to the garden.

(Laughter)

But my worldview has lightened up

in the 15 years since "The Blank Slate" was published.

My acquaintance with the statistics of human progress,

starting with violence

but now encompassing every other aspect of our well-being,

has fortified my belief

that in understanding our tribulations and woes,

human nature is the problem,

but human nature, channeled by Enlightenment norms and institutions,

is also the solution.

Admittedly, it's not easy to replicate my own data-driven epiphany

with humanity at large.

Some intellectuals have responded

with fury to my book "Enlightenment Now,"

saying first how dare he claim that intellectuals hate progress,

and second, how dare he claim that there has been progress.

(Laughter)

With others, the idea of progress just leaves them cold.

Saving the lives of billions,

eradicating disease, feeding the hungry,

teaching kids to read?

Boring.

At the same time, the most common response I have received from readers is gratitude,

gratitude for changing their view of the world

from a numb and helpless fatalism

to something more constructive,

even heroic.

I believe that the ideals of the Enlightenment

can be cast a stirring narrative,

and I hope that people with greater artistic flare

and rhetorical power than I

can tell it better and spread it further.

It goes something like this.

We are born into a pitiless universe,

facing steep odds against life-enabling order

and in constant jeopardy of falling apart.

We were shaped by a process that is ruthlessly competitive.

We are made from crooked timber,

vulnerable to illusions, self-centeredness

and at times astounding stupidity.

Yet human nature has also been blessed with resources

that open a space for a kind of redemption.

We are endowed with the power to combine ideas recursively,

to have thoughts about our thoughts.

We have an instinct for language,

allowing us to share the fruits of our ingenuity and experience.

We are deepened with the capacity for sympathy,

for pity, imagination, compassion, commiseration.

These endowments have found ways to magnify their own power.

The scope of language has been augmented

by the written, printed and electronic word.

Our circle of sympathy has been expanded

by history, journalism and the narrative arts.

And our puny rational faculties have been multiplied

by the norms and institutions of reason,

intellectual curiosity, open debate,

skepticism of authority and dogma

and the burden of proof to verify ideas

by confronting them against reality.

As the spiral of recursive improvement

gathers momentum,

we eke out victories against the forces that grind us down,

not least the darker parts of our own nature.

We penetrate the mysteries of the cosmos, including life and mind.

We live longer, suffer less, learn more,

get smarter and enjoy more small pleasures

and rich experiences.

Fewer of us are killed, assaulted, enslaved, exploited

or oppressed by the others.

From a few oases, the territories with peace and prosperity are growing

and could someday encompass the globe.

Much suffering remains

and tremendous peril,

but ideas on how to reduce them have been voiced,

and an infinite number of others are yet to be conceived.

We will never have a perfect world,

and it would be dangerous to seek one.

But there's no limit to the betterments we can attain

if we continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing.

This heroic story is not just another myth.

Myths are fictions, but this one is true,

true to the best of our knowledge, which is the only truth we can have.

As we learn more,

we can show which parts of the story continue to be true and which ones false,

as any of them might be and any could become.

And this story belongs not to any tribe

but to all of humanity,

to any sentient creature with the power of reason

and the urge to persist in its being,

for it requires only the convictions

that life is better than death,

health is better than sickness,

abundance is better than want,

freedom is better than coercion,

happiness is better than suffering

and knowledge is better than ignorance and superstition.

Thank you.

(Applause)