Livestream: Why won’t people appreciate progress?

In this TedTalk, he draws the viewer to a comparison of 2017 with this year. So, was it really the “worst year ever?” is a question he poses and immediately goes on to provide recent data on homicide, war, poverty, pollution and much more. Pinker says last year, the world had 12 ongoing wars, 60 autocracies, 10 per cent 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.

Though he acknowledges that last year was a terrible year for terrorism in Western Europe, with 238 deaths, the year 1988 was worse with 440 deaths. It is this ability of giving relevant information that transposes one into the past – three decades ago and thereafter using data of the current times to establish the progress that humans have made.

Pre-17th century, no more than 15 per cent of Europeans could read or write. Europe and the US achieved universal literacy by the middle of the 20th century, even as the rest of the world was catching up. By stating that over 90 per cent of the world’s population under the age of 25 can read and write now, Pinker’s ability to articulate the leap of progress that the world has made but chooses to ignore, comes to the fore. “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,” are expressions, aimed at making people realise that problems such as climate change or nuke wars can be resolved and need not be perceived as apocalypses.