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

TED Talks Daily

TED

Creativity, Ted Podcast, Ted Talks Daily, Business, Design, Inspiration, Society & Culture, Science, Technology, Education, Tech Demo, Ted Talks, Ted, Entertainment, Tedtalks

4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2018

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Was 2017 really the "worst year ever," as some would have us believe? In his analysis of recent data on homicide, war, poverty, pollution and more, psychologist Steven Pinker finds that we're doing better now in every one of them when compared with 30 years ago. But progress isn't inevitable, and it doesn't mean everything gets better for everyone all the time, Pinker says. Instead, progress is problem-solving, and we should look at things like climate change and nuclear war as problems to be solved, not apocalypses in waiting. "We will never have a perfect world, and it would be dangerous to seek one," he says. "But there's no limit to the betterments we can attain if we continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing."

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Chris Anderson, head of TED.
0:03.0	And this is a special archive presentation of TED Talks Daily.
0:06.0	This talk features author Stephen Pinker at TED-2018.
0:11.0	After you've listened, if you decide you'd like to dive a little deeper into his ideas,
0:17.0	we'd love you to subscribe to our new podcast, The TED Interview. We've posted an interview where
0:23.3	Steve and I further discuss the important and surprisingly controversial question of,
0:29.0	is the world getting better? Please join me for the TED interview, wherever you listen.
0:35.0	Many people face the news each morning with trepidation and dread every day we read of shootings
0:42.7	inequality pollution dictatorship war and the spread of nuclear weapons these are some of the
0:51.7	reasons that 2016 was called the worst year ever.
0:57.3	Until 2017 claimed that record,
1:00.5	I left many people longing for earlier decades
1:03.7	when the world seemed safer, cleaner, and more equal.
1:08.2	But is this a sensible way to understand the human condition in the 21st century?
1:13.6	As Franklin Pierce Adams pointed out, nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad
1:19.9	memory. You can always fool yourself into seeing a decline if you compare leading headlines of the present
1:29.1	with rose-tinted images of the past.
1:32.3	What does the trajectory of the world look like
1:34.6	when we measure well-being over time
1:36.9	using a constant yardstick?
1:39.3	Let's compare the most recent data on the present
1:41.7	with the same measures 30 years ago.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.