Progress cover art

Progress

Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future

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Progress

By: Johan Norberg
Narrated by: Derek Perkins
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About this listen

From an examination of official data from such institutions as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Johan Norberg paints a portrait of a better future ahead.

It's on the television, in the papers, and in our minds. Every day we're bludgeoned by news of how bad everything is - financial collapse, unemployment, growing poverty, environmental disasters, disease, hunger, war. But the rarely acknowledged reality is that our progress over the past few decades has been unprecedented. By almost any index you care to identify, things are markedly better now than they have ever been for almost everyone alive.

Examining official data from the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization, political commentator Johan Norberg traces just how far we have come in tackling the issues that define our species. While it's true that not every problem has been solved, we do now have a good idea of the solutions, and we know what it will take to see this progress continue. Dramatic, uplifting, and counterintuitive, Progress is a call for optimism in our pessimistic, doom-laden world.

©2016 Johan Norberg (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Anthropology Future Studies Politics & Government Social Sciences United States World Socialism Capitalism Africa War Imperialism Latin American Social justice Health Middle East

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All stars
Most relevant  
Some deep thinking and thorough research, from the author Steven Pinker is nicely summarised here ;-)

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

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A breath of fresh air and a reminder that there is good in the world. A good read for anyone tired of the constant worst case scenario reported in the media. The golden age is now and we are lucky to be living in my opinion, the best time for humanity.

Fresh air

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I recommend this book as is very informative. Quiet a bit of it I already knew from reading the authors that are quoted in the books, however the way the information is presented here is concise and easy to digest.
Two negative things they were a few moments were it perpetrated the unfounded myths of the Spanish Black legend which no less pernicious than the anticolonial revisionism that we are usually exposed to (such myths as Spanish inquisition and Spanish conquest of America). This was frustrating and disappointing but sadly not surprising.
The other point was that I felt it was a bit too soft when it came to talk about China's current regime, ignoring very relevant topics (to his point) such us the ongoing uyghur genocide, the barbaric COVID measures or the social credit system.

Informative (for the most part) and positive

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Quite similar to much of Homo Deus, puts the current and future climate into perspective

enlightening, genuine progress,

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This book wonderfully lays out how humanity has continued to progress and things are getting better. Not as a way of justifying the status quo but to say that we need not be despondent to the problems we have but that if we keep going we can continue to make progress in all areas of life. If this doesn't make you more optimistic about tackling the issues ahead then I don't know what will

A case for optimism

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In the same spirit as Sapiens Johan Norberg describes the past history of mankind. Here in a lot more colorful way about the prospects of the human future

Living conditions in the world improves rapidly

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Most of us are not swayed by rationalised argument or fact but we are much more influenced by our personal narratives and how we emotionally or intuitively respond to the information we receive through our senses. And most of us seem to feel that we have never lived in such trouble times and that we've never had it so bad. And this has resulted in us making decisions such as leaving Europe or voting for a president in America who seems closer to narcissistic madness because "things are bad, real bad" - but that's just my story and how I might be feeling, after all bad news is all around us and on a never ending stream of news bites. However, what this book does is present a wide range of factual arguments that draw on history and numbers/ data (and other wonderful works that include Angus Deaton and Steven Pinker) that actually show that we are living in a much better times and that we can only truly realise through perspective and seeing how fortunate we are than those in the past. Violence is a lot less of problem then it is ever been in the past. In 1900 the majority of people lived the same life span of the chimpanzee (of about 40 years) and now we average a life span almost twice as long. We no longer die by the thousands and millions of diseases such as cholera, smallpox, measles and the plague. Sanitation and medication save many more lives along with the ability to grow foods that we now no longer live in worry of starvation and famine and are now more risk of death and amputation through obesity. Did you know that there has never been a famine in any democratic nation, I never knew. Though slavery is prevailing we actually have many more people living under liberty and freedom than serfdom and enslavement. And governments of the world are there are at least trying to stop slavery and see it is been long. In my lifetime I've seen progress in gay rights equality, racial equality, gender equality and disability equality. The book covers a number of themes including poverty, sanitation, education, life expectancy, violence, equality, literacy, The environment and the future. I'm still going to worry about climate change though. A few facts from the beginning of the book include these: We’ve made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000 • 285,000 more people have gained access to safe water every day for the last 25 years • In the last 50 years world poverty has fallen more than it did in the preceding 500. Well worth a read if you think we're living in terrible times that have never been worse. And perspective is a wonderful thing. The problem is that people are more interested in bad news and stories (something that helps explain why people watch "Eastenders") than ideas that might reflect we're living in good times.

Things aren't necessary getting worse

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Yes, there is human progress to be celebrated, but history is also replete with catastrophies as well, so cherry picking facts and telling people to feel optimistic, isn't helpful or realistic given the threats we face, as the author wants to achieve. Particularly not when for the first time in history the man made threats we face are now existential: Nuclear annihilation, climate breakdown and AI, to quote Yuval Noah Harari, a historian. Now we have global confrontations and famines looming as well. History is about progress but dark collapses in-between, the difference is that now we don't know if we can survive the next dip and even that Israeli historian says we are now on the edge of the abyss.

Reading this book simply shows that human ingenuity may solve the problems we face and that does give cause for hope but whether human nature will do this is completely unknown, that's why optimism feels more faith than fact.

Hope for the future feels better, but I would advice looking ahead with a more balanced understanding of the past than this book offers.

Don't look up

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