6 ms·

Steven Pinker’s case for optimism

35 points by okket 8y ago

armitron 8y ago
Here is a good rebuttal by John Gray: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlightened-thinking-steven-pinker-s-embarrassing-new-book-feeble-sermon https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlight...
- watwut 8y ago
  Fun fact: liberals and left criticized his book heavily too (mostly they claimed he does not know much about enlightenment and your article seems to claim the same).
- quinthar 8y ago
  Hmm how is this a good rebuttal? I haven't read the book, but the original article is based primarily on clear assertions of fact and statistics. A "good rebuttal" world presumably show that those stats are wrong, or at best misleading. But John's rebuttal is just a bunch of ponderous, abstract philosophy, with the most compelling part (and it's not very compelling) being: "Much of its more than 500 pages consists of figures aiming to show the progress that has been made under the aegis of Enlightenment ideals. Of course, these figures settle nothing. [Uh, of course? Care to elaborate?] Like Pinker’s celebrated assertion that the world is becoming ever more peaceful – the statistical basis of which has been demolished by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [Oh snap! It was demolished by this dude I've never heard of, using reasoning that isn't provided? Dammnnnn, sick burn] everything depends on what is included in them and how they are interpreted. [Alright, I'm ready for you truth bomb] Are the millions incarcerated in the vast American prison system and the millions more who live under parole included in the calculus that says human freedom is increasing? [Um, are they not? Or are you asking me to do the homework to see if your point has merit?] If we are to congratulate ourselves on being less cruel to animals, how much weight should be given to the uncounted numbers that suffer in factory farming and hideous medical experiments – neither of which were practised on any comparable scale in the past? [Good question... that you decline to answer]" Basically: "X is misleading, because what about Y?" I don't know man, can you just tell me rather than leaving me guessing? It would be more compelling if he did his own homework rather than leaving his sucker punch as an exercise to the reader. I think the original article is far more compelling than this so called rebuttal.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    Yes, you concisely explain why that rebuttal was little more than "our side knows that can't be right".
  - severine 8y ago
    Background on Pinker/Taleb: https://www.quora.com/Is-Nassim-Talebs-criticism-of-Steven-Pinkers-work-fair https://www.quora.com/Is-Nassim-Talebs-criticism-of-Steven-P...
- randomsearch 8y ago
  Science is not an ideology.
  - geodel 8y ago
    It is mostly when scientific research is driven by what is ideologically correct to research in first place.
maym86 8y ago
To me argument always just seems like someone from a position of privlidge explaining why we shouldn't be too worried about all the people in shitty opressive circumstances. Great, things on average are getting better, but try telling that to the people in Flint drinking poisionous water or the children in cages etc. "Don't worry, things are getting better on average" Statisically he may be right for certain measurable factors but it seems a little naive or callous when he's clearly not directly effected by the worst issues in the world.
- watwut 8y ago
  Also, things are getting better because people actively try to make them better. It does not happen automatically via passive waiting for miracle.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Life gets simpler when you evaluate facts based of if they're true or not, rather than on how much you like the person delivering them.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  The relative social position of the person making the argument has no bearing on whether the argument is correct.
  - jopsen 8y ago
    Spot on! This is one of the problems we see on the left from time to time.. for example someone suggesting that men can't have an opinion on gender equality, or what not.. (note. the problems on the right in American politics does however seem objectively worse by a few orders of magnitude)
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - maym86 8y ago
      > men can't have an opinion on gender equality, or what not It's about getting the people with the right experience and weighting people's opinions based on experience. For a long time mens opinions have been overweighted in gender issues hence the push for rebalancing.
danielrm26 8y ago
Here's my rebuttal, comparing it to Andrew Yang's book: The War on Normal People https://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-problem-with-pinkers-positivity/ https://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-problem-with-pinkers-pos...
- quinthar 8y ago
  This is a much, much better rebuttal than the other one. Thanks!
- quinthar 8y ago
  I think a big challenge (and perhaps the root problem) is weighing the relative importance of different relative changes. Car deaths are down 97%, but suicides are up 30%. On balance, are things getting better or worse? (I'd say that car deaths are by far more common so the reduction there is more significant, but suicides are probably more directly correlated to happiness that car accidents...) I'm more persuaded by the optimistic perspective, personally, but these are great contrasting pieces to highlight that it's not a slam dunk.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    The biggest reduction in car deaths per passenger mile occurred from 1915-1925, about a halving in a decade. Since then, from 1925 - 2015, the rate has consistently halved every 20 years.
- sien 8y ago
  Pinker's book is about the fate of world since 1800. Your response is about a few statistics in the US since 1990. They don't even extend to the rest of the developed world. Pinker doesn't say that everything is getting better all the time. There is still leaders like Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Maduro. He says, however, that in general things have become much better globally since 1800.
  - danielrm26 8y ago
    The point is that it doesn't matter because the pain people are experiencing right now far outweighs any of the positive we've gained over the past. We don't experience deltas to the past. We experience deltas from what we remember.
fapjacks 8y ago
Most of the whataboutism in response to this idea boils down to some form of "But but muh feelings" and I think really shows how little people know about both history and life outside the developed world. The other thing I find unusual is the number of people who think that optimists are saying "We have no problems whatsoever" -- and I can't for the life of me find where the article, other optimists, or myself have ever said such a thing. Weird.
- jopsen 8y ago
  I think optimism is not be best word. Optimism is to expect the more favorable outcome. Steven seems much more like a realist who with a basis in fact predicts that things will be okay, if we keep working on the problems..
- adventured 8y ago
  > The other thing I find unusual is the number of people who think that optimists are saying "We have no problems whatsoever" That happens in two instances. In the first case, few people are capable of properly using logic, reasoning through any sort of discussion. Richard Dawkins has some great talks on this subject (and he runs into it constantly on Twitter). And I'm not speaking of advanced logic use, rather, extremely simplistic logic use. They can't control their emotions properly and can't control for their own bias at all. It's merely my opinion, however I'd say it's a single digit minority that doesn't fall into this irrational/emotionalism camp in common discussion. You see it universally even among the supposed most intelligent forums online. It makes routine discussion and debate extremely obnoxious, as you have to constantly pre-emptively point out that just because you say X you're not also proclaiming or supporting Y (eg if I say I dislike Hillary, that doesn't mean I support Trump; it's impossible to get away from this basic logic failure). If you don't pre-empt in that manner, you'll spend vast amounts of your time trying to correct people who can't use logic properly. The second case, is where it's intentional. That's also very common. In this scenario the sole debasing option critics have left to attack something they don't like that is factually supported, is to ignore what was actually said. That requires inventing a means to bury the thing they don't like by trying to change what was said and redirect the conversation to a favorable position.
peter303 8y ago
We saw a Pinker-like optimism before- at the beginning of the 20th century. We had gone nearly a century since Waterloo without a major war. (Plenty of smaller conflicts however to create national republics out of monarchies or fragmented city states.) People said interlocking global trade made countries too dependent on each other to fight each other. Then what happened? The 75-year great 20th century war from 1914 to 1989. It had three or four phases: WWI, WWII, the cold war, the wars of southeast Asia. I would not get too confident again.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Then what happened? The 75-year great 20th century war from 1914 to 1989 The 20th century was the least violent century in human history on a per capita basis. We know this, in part, thanks to Pinker's research.
- jopsen 8y ago
  So... a baseless assumption that war is cyclic, despite this being disproven with data in Stevens previous works. The world 200 years ago and the world today is different.. politics are different and out global community is VERY different. In fact UN has been pointed to as one of the reasons why we have less war..
  - cm2187 8y ago
    I think nukes contributed a lot more than the UN. Western Europe would have been invaded by the Soviet Union twice otherwise.
    - a3n 8y ago
      The UN may have contributed in a non-obvious way, as a one-stop-shopping experience for spies. Not knowing your adversaries' capability and intentions can contribute to pre-emptive strikes and invasion. Knowing your adversaries' secrets can lead to "meh, they're not such a threat."
    - jopsen 8y ago
ouid 8y ago
This is stupid. You can always find riskier investments with bigger payoffs, and there is nothing to suggest that that is not what is happening. No one is arguing that we aren't all better off. We're arguing that we're all better off at the expense of the very real possibility that we will all be much worse off in the future.
- ohthehugemanate 8y ago
  your point is orthogonal to Pinkers. Though from TFA I can understand where you're coming from. I think you would be very interested to read the book, given the understanding you've demonstrated here.
- qubax 8y ago
  And even if we are better off compared to the past, it doesn't mean we are in a better situation today given the increasing wealth inequality. Pinker is selectively emphasizing the socio-economic comparisons with the past and ignoring current socio-economic comparisons between population groups. If the gap between rich and the rest is wider today than it was 50 years ago, are we really better off? Lets say you have a boxing match and your opponent's boxing gloves are slightly better than yours. The next boxing match, your opponent gives you his boxing gloves and he uses brass knuckles. You're currently better off compared to your previous self since you have better boxing gloves. But the distance between your current self and your opponent ( brass knuckles ) has increased significantly. So are you really better off? It's like two groups going to battle. In the first battle, group A fights with wiffle bats and group B fights with baseball bats. For the next battle, group A wises up and brings baseball bats. But group B brings machine guns. Technically, in battle 2, group A is better off with baseball bats rather than wiffle bats. But the "distance" between them and their opponent has increased significantly so you'd be hard pressed to say they are better off in battle 2. This is the same trick economists use. Just because things improve in absolute terms over time doesn't mean that things are better off comparatively within societies.
  - DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
    I'm not sure why you chose to you battles for your examples, they are zero-sum. With regards to progress only being relative, I think most people who get amazing medical treatments, will disagree with you.
jopsen 8y ago
I've read most of the audio book by now.. and along with Pinkers previous book ok violence I can honestly say my mind have been changed. I was never a pessimist. But it have changed the narrative I often take in a discussion on a subject.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
  I've listen to a couple of talks, and am about 1/3 way through the book. It's certainly changed my perspective. I found the descriptions of true poverty, quite impactful.
a3n 8y ago
> Progress has often been stunningly rapid. The vast majority of poor Americans enjoy luxuries unavailable to the Vanderbilts and Astors of 150 years ago, such as electricity, air-conditioning and colour televisions. Yes, things are better, but only when they're not terrible. I think the Vanderbilts and Astors, and their current cousins, inbred and not, still have a profound advantage over the rest of us, poor or not, in that they enjoy existential security within the current frame of reference, and can reasonably live their lives with that assumption. In other words, the rich experience little to no risk in losing what security they have, or falling below the security level of the poor, while constant security risk could be the practical definition of being poor. So what if you have a phone, if that and all else can disappear in the wink of a bureaucratic or natural systems eye.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > the rich experience little to no risk in losing what security they have The richest men a little over a century ago could have fallen to smallpox, influenza, cholera and a number of other today-curable diseases.
- grappler 8y ago
  Can you quantify the quality-of-life boost you get by being at the top of the heap? If you're the head of state, or the head of a successful company, or the venture capitalist, or simply heir to a fortune, you know you're on top. You wake up every day knowing your time belongs to you. You walk into a room and people smile at you, suck up to you, want to be your friend. You might even make frequent decisions about which other people in your world move upward or downward. This seems like it would be a significant dimension for anyone wanting to measure quality of life. And for this reason, I bet a lot of people wouldn't mind terribly if they had to give up their electricity, air conditioning, color television, and the rest of their modern conveniences if it meant they could swap lives with the Vanderbilits and Astors of old.
  - a3n 8y ago
    I can't quantify it. But I'm not talking about being top of the heap, and your resulting relationship with others. I'm talking about the security of your food, shelter and health care, that sort of thing. If you're poor, those things can disappear quickly.

35 points by okket 8y ago

Here is a good rebuttal by John Gray: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlightened-thinking-steven-pinker-s-embarrassing-new-book-feeble-sermon https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlight...

watwut 8y ago
Fun fact: liberals and left criticized his book heavily too (mostly they claimed he does not know much about enlightenment and your article seems to claim the same).
quinthar 8y ago
Hmm how is this a good rebuttal? I haven't read the book, but the original article is based primarily on clear assertions of fact and statistics. A "good rebuttal" world presumably show that those stats are wrong, or at best misleading. But John's rebuttal is just a bunch of ponderous, abstract philosophy, with the most compelling part (and it's not very compelling) being: "Much of its more than 500 pages consists of figures aiming to show the progress that has been made under the aegis of Enlightenment ideals. Of course, these figures settle nothing. [Uh, of course? Care to elaborate?] Like Pinker’s celebrated assertion that the world is becoming ever more peaceful – the statistical basis of which has been demolished by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [Oh snap! It was demolished by this dude I've never heard of, using reasoning that isn't provided? Dammnnnn, sick burn] everything depends on what is included in them and how they are interpreted. [Alright, I'm ready for you truth bomb] Are the millions incarcerated in the vast American prison system and the millions more who live under parole included in the calculus that says human freedom is increasing? [Um, are they not? Or are you asking me to do the homework to see if your point has merit?] If we are to congratulate ourselves on being less cruel to animals, how much weight should be given to the uncounted numbers that suffer in factory farming and hideous medical experiments – neither of which were practised on any comparable scale in the past? [Good question... that you decline to answer]" Basically: "X is misleading, because what about Y?" I don't know man, can you just tell me rather than leaving me guessing? It would be more compelling if he did his own homework rather than leaving his sucker punch as an exercise to the reader. I think the original article is far more compelling than this so called rebuttal.
- Latteland 8y ago
  Yes, you concisely explain why that rebuttal was little more than "our side knows that can't be right".
- severine 8y ago
  Background on Pinker/Taleb: https://www.quora.com/Is-Nassim-Talebs-criticism-of-Steven-Pinkers-work-fair https://www.quora.com/Is-Nassim-Talebs-criticism-of-Steven-P...
randomsearch 8y ago
Science is not an ideology.
- geodel 8y ago
  It is mostly when scientific research is driven by what is ideologically correct to research in first place.

maym86 8y ago

To me argument always just seems like someone from a position of privlidge explaining why we shouldn't be too worried about all the people in shitty opressive circumstances. Great, things on average are getting better, but try telling that to the people in Flint drinking poisionous water or the children in cages etc. "Don't worry, things are getting better on average" Statisically he may be right for certain measurable factors but it seems a little naive or callous when he's clearly not directly effected by the worst issues in the world.

watwut 8y ago
Also, things are getting better because people actively try to make them better. It does not happen automatically via passive waiting for miracle.
BurningFrog 8y ago
Life gets simpler when you evaluate facts based of if they're true or not, rather than on how much you like the person delivering them.
toasterlovin 8y ago
The relative social position of the person making the argument has no bearing on whether the argument is correct.
- jopsen 8y ago
  Spot on! This is one of the problems we see on the left from time to time.. for example someone suggesting that men can't have an opinion on gender equality, or what not.. (note. the problems on the right in American politics does however seem objectively worse by a few orders of magnitude)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - maym86 8y ago
    > men can't have an opinion on gender equality, or what not It's about getting the people with the right experience and weighting people's opinions based on experience. For a long time mens opinions have been overweighted in gender issues hence the push for rebalancing.

danielrm26 8y ago

Here's my rebuttal, comparing it to Andrew Yang's book: The War on Normal People https://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-problem-with-pinkers-positivity/ https://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-problem-with-pinkers-pos...

quinthar 8y ago
This is a much, much better rebuttal than the other one. Thanks!
quinthar 8y ago
I think a big challenge (and perhaps the root problem) is weighing the relative importance of different relative changes. Car deaths are down 97%, but suicides are up 30%. On balance, are things getting better or worse? (I'd say that car deaths are by far more common so the reduction there is more significant, but suicides are probably more directly correlated to happiness that car accidents...) I'm more persuaded by the optimistic perspective, personally, but these are great contrasting pieces to highlight that it's not a slam dunk.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  The biggest reduction in car deaths per passenger mile occurred from 1915-1925, about a halving in a decade. Since then, from 1925 - 2015, the rate has consistently halved every 20 years.
sien 8y ago
Pinker's book is about the fate of world since 1800. Your response is about a few statistics in the US since 1990. They don't even extend to the rest of the developed world. Pinker doesn't say that everything is getting better all the time. There is still leaders like Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Maduro. He says, however, that in general things have become much better globally since 1800.
- danielrm26 8y ago
  The point is that it doesn't matter because the pain people are experiencing right now far outweighs any of the positive we've gained over the past. We don't experience deltas to the past. We experience deltas from what we remember.

fapjacks 8y ago

Most of the whataboutism in response to this idea boils down to some form of "But but muh feelings" and I think really shows how little people know about both history and life outside the developed world. The other thing I find unusual is the number of people who think that optimists are saying "We have no problems whatsoever" -- and I can't for the life of me find where the article, other optimists, or myself have ever said such a thing. Weird.

jopsen 8y ago
I think optimism is not be best word. Optimism is to expect the more favorable outcome. Steven seems much more like a realist who with a basis in fact predicts that things will be okay, if we keep working on the problems..
adventured 8y ago
> The other thing I find unusual is the number of people who think that optimists are saying "We have no problems whatsoever" That happens in two instances. In the first case, few people are capable of properly using logic, reasoning through any sort of discussion. Richard Dawkins has some great talks on this subject (and he runs into it constantly on Twitter). And I'm not speaking of advanced logic use, rather, extremely simplistic logic use. They can't control their emotions properly and can't control for their own bias at all. It's merely my opinion, however I'd say it's a single digit minority that doesn't fall into this irrational/emotionalism camp in common discussion. You see it universally even among the supposed most intelligent forums online. It makes routine discussion and debate extremely obnoxious, as you have to constantly pre-emptively point out that just because you say X you're not also proclaiming or supporting Y (eg if I say I dislike Hillary, that doesn't mean I support Trump; it's impossible to get away from this basic logic failure). If you don't pre-empt in that manner, you'll spend vast amounts of your time trying to correct people who can't use logic properly. The second case, is where it's intentional. That's also very common. In this scenario the sole debasing option critics have left to attack something they don't like that is factually supported, is to ignore what was actually said. That requires inventing a means to bury the thing they don't like by trying to change what was said and redirect the conversation to a favorable position.

peter303 8y ago

We saw a Pinker-like optimism before- at the beginning of the 20th century. We had gone nearly a century since Waterloo without a major war. (Plenty of smaller conflicts however to create national republics out of monarchies or fragmented city states.) People said interlocking global trade made countries too dependent on each other to fight each other. Then what happened? The 75-year great 20th century war from 1914 to 1989. It had three or four phases: WWI, WWII, the cold war, the wars of southeast Asia. I would not get too confident again.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Then what happened? The 75-year great 20th century war from 1914 to 1989 The 20th century was the least violent century in human history on a per capita basis. We know this, in part, thanks to Pinker's research.
jopsen 8y ago
So... a baseless assumption that war is cyclic, despite this being disproven with data in Stevens previous works. The world 200 years ago and the world today is different.. politics are different and out global community is VERY different. In fact UN has been pointed to as one of the reasons why we have less war..
- cm2187 8y ago
  I think nukes contributed a lot more than the UN. Western Europe would have been invaded by the Soviet Union twice otherwise.
  - a3n 8y ago
    The UN may have contributed in a non-obvious way, as a one-stop-shopping experience for spies. Not knowing your adversaries' capability and intentions can contribute to pre-emptive strikes and invasion. Knowing your adversaries' secrets can lead to "meh, they're not such a threat."
  - jopsen 8y ago

ouid 8y ago

This is stupid. You can always find riskier investments with bigger payoffs, and there is nothing to suggest that that is not what is happening. No one is arguing that we aren't all better off. We're arguing that we're all better off at the expense of the very real possibility that we will all be much worse off in the future.

ohthehugemanate 8y ago
your point is orthogonal to Pinkers. Though from TFA I can understand where you're coming from. I think you would be very interested to read the book, given the understanding you've demonstrated here.
qubax 8y ago
And even if we are better off compared to the past, it doesn't mean we are in a better situation today given the increasing wealth inequality. Pinker is selectively emphasizing the socio-economic comparisons with the past and ignoring current socio-economic comparisons between population groups. If the gap between rich and the rest is wider today than it was 50 years ago, are we really better off? Lets say you have a boxing match and your opponent's boxing gloves are slightly better than yours. The next boxing match, your opponent gives you his boxing gloves and he uses brass knuckles. You're currently better off compared to your previous self since you have better boxing gloves. But the distance between your current self and your opponent ( brass knuckles ) has increased significantly. So are you really better off? It's like two groups going to battle. In the first battle, group A fights with wiffle bats and group B fights with baseball bats. For the next battle, group A wises up and brings baseball bats. But group B brings machine guns. Technically, in battle 2, group A is better off with baseball bats rather than wiffle bats. But the "distance" between them and their opponent has increased significantly so you'd be hard pressed to say they are better off in battle 2. This is the same trick economists use. Just because things improve in absolute terms over time doesn't mean that things are better off comparatively within societies.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
  I'm not sure why you chose to you battles for your examples, they are zero-sum. With regards to progress only being relative, I think most people who get amazing medical treatments, will disagree with you.

jopsen 8y ago

I've read most of the audio book by now.. and along with Pinkers previous book ok violence I can honestly say my mind have been changed. I was never a pessimist. But it have changed the narrative I often take in a discussion on a subject.

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
I've listen to a couple of talks, and am about 1/3 way through the book. It's certainly changed my perspective. I found the descriptions of true poverty, quite impactful.

a3n 8y ago

> Progress has often been stunningly rapid. The vast majority of poor Americans enjoy luxuries unavailable to the Vanderbilts and Astors of 150 years ago, such as electricity, air-conditioning and colour televisions. Yes, things are better, but only when they're not terrible. I think the Vanderbilts and Astors, and their current cousins, inbred and not, still have a profound advantage over the rest of us, poor or not, in that they enjoy existential security within the current frame of reference, and can reasonably live their lives with that assumption. In other words, the rich experience little to no risk in losing what security they have, or falling below the security level of the poor, while constant security risk could be the practical definition of being poor. So what if you have a phone, if that and all else can disappear in the wink of a bureaucratic or natural systems eye.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> the rich experience little to no risk in losing what security they have The richest men a little over a century ago could have fallen to smallpox, influenza, cholera and a number of other today-curable diseases.
grappler 8y ago
Can you quantify the quality-of-life boost you get by being at the top of the heap? If you're the head of state, or the head of a successful company, or the venture capitalist, or simply heir to a fortune, you know you're on top. You wake up every day knowing your time belongs to you. You walk into a room and people smile at you, suck up to you, want to be your friend. You might even make frequent decisions about which other people in your world move upward or downward. This seems like it would be a significant dimension for anyone wanting to measure quality of life. And for this reason, I bet a lot of people wouldn't mind terribly if they had to give up their electricity, air conditioning, color television, and the rest of their modern conveniences if it meant they could swap lives with the Vanderbilits and Astors of old.
- a3n 8y ago
  I can't quantify it. But I'm not talking about being top of the heap, and your resulting relationship with others. I'm talking about the security of your food, shelter and health care, that sort of thing. If you're poor, those things can disappear quickly.