Why do progressives hate progress? | Steven Pinker

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[scarcesense]

I've always liked Daniel Patrick Moynihan's observation: “The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.”

Basically, the more matters improve the more intolerable failings seem in comparison.

[mikegb]

9:34 "Problems are inevitable. Problems are solvable. Solutions create new problems which can be solved in their turn."

[chellepatino]

Basically when you don't live with thankfulness you miss it and therefore are never appreciating your current life. It's crazy

[AbCDef-zsuj]

Like Louis CK says: "Everything is amazing and nobody is happy"

[nickshelbourne]

Pretty funny that he triggers both left and right

[MihzvolWuriar]

This guy is good, even though I disagree with him in many issues, he is one of those people that you must follow, so that you don't get lazy in your thinking, as he will always challenge it, and challenging thinking makes for a better understanding of the world and it's problems, and in turn, makes them easier to fix...

[bradsillasen]

One reason people focus on problems is that they demand something be done about them. A lack of problems is relatively feeble in demand for attention as nothing need be done but to enjoy.

[RadCirskis]

One example of "progress" from New Zealand. In the middle of 10s, the New Zealand govt adjusted the way they estimated unemployment. Now, say, if you spent an hour a week doing some charity work, you wouldn't be counted as unemployed and that's how we have such awesome employment figures while also so many people on the dole. I wonder if all those stats Pinker quotes, were produced similar way.

[EricELT]

A vigorous, systematic plea for recognizing the empirical facts that we've made significant progress!

[georgechristiansen]

Constant steady improvement seems a letdown when you believe in Utopias.

[noquarteratall]

When I was young I was incredibly ignorant about politics mainly because I didn't care enough to even inform myself adequately much less going and voting. You should be careful what you wish for.

[MelissaR]

He didn't mention suicides or drug overdoses or homelessness. Suicides started raising in 2008 and every year has climed. Except in 2017-19, when it dropped. 2020 started climbing again.

[ceroaleph]

Yes, we can. We can fight against the stupidity in both sides: left and right.

[pointtgW]

Great post! :) I just ordered a personalized bumper sticker that says "(1) Problems are inevitable (2) Problems are solvable (3) Solutions create new problems that can be solved in their turn."

[yaiirable]

Annoying clickbait title. He didn't really say anything about this in the video.

Copying my elaboration from below for clarity:
His arguments seem to be:
1. The world is objectively making progress
2. The media / psychological biases etc make us hold a more pessimistic view

My problem is that he and the title seems to suggest that 'progressives' hold this view more often than people outside of that group. Also I find the phrasing 'progressives hate progress' strange, unfounded and divisive.

[neilreynolds]

It depends what you mean by progress, doesn't it? I've been trying to find airline tickets. Back before progress, I went to the ticket counter and bought a ticket and got on the plane and it was cheap. Now I have to spend all day trying to find something affordable online and hope the airline is still in business when I get there and hope that the door doesn't fall off in the air and the pilot wasn't a DEI hire. That kind of progress we didn't need but it's mostly what we got.

[kalebdaark]

OK, I find myself somewhat puzzled by this vid. I wasn't aware that progressives did hate progress. I was under the impression that progressives just wanted progress to continue and not regress. Indeed from this vid Mr Pinker makes no case for progressives hating progress, as I would expect. He does make a very good case for news media wanting to sell more news media, but that's a very different thing.

[Ana_crusis]

at 3:02 does he really expect us to go along with one chart? A chart he admits was tampered with? He pulls out one dodgy chart from somewhere and we have to accept the statement by pinker that the chart *directly negates* the idea that " _you can have economic growth or you can have environmental improvement but you can't have both_ " Is he a simpleton???

[robertaylor]

5 minutes into the video and I'm still waiting for him to demonstrate the implied premise: that progressives hate progress. I haven't seen an example so far. Did I miss something?

Okay, I finished the video, the title and premise were clickbait; he doesn't demonstrate the premise. He makes an entirely separate set of points, most of which I agree.

[pshehan]

There is an irony here in that this video has been given a misleading title to attract clicks.