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Again, why are you basing your understanding of the world on the ideas of enlightenment hacks like Pinker, who can't get past 18th century understanding? It mus

• hntrader 6y ago
  Whenever I read Pinker critiques (and I've read a few) they're always dripping with dishonest reasoning that leaves me even more confident in his position. Take Jason Hickel's critique, where he lies about the poverty rate increasing (when in fact it's decreasing according to his own data) and then hand waves away all the other metrics that Pinker discusses in a single paragraph. Take Nassim Taleb's (who I usually respect) critique, where he comes off as a raving lunatic, accusing Pinker of inadequately addressing tail risks when the objective of his work is mostly descriptive and not pertaining to possible existential risks. I recommend you read Pinker's hilarious dismantling of that rambling nonsense. Or the debate between Pinker and Gladwell where Gladwell totally ignores all the actual metrics that Pinker discusses and instead waxes poetic in narrative form, discussing single anecdotes. Now I'm half way through this Guardian piece and I already had to stop. Just because some Enlightenment thinkers had truly backwards ideas - and I'm sure that Pinker would agree that they're extremely backwards - says zero about Pinker's thesis. It's a borderline straw man to think that that's relevant to his thesis. If the latter part of the article has a better argument, let me know.