Optimism grounded in data, science and reason. Not hoping things get better, but knowing how far we have come, and building what comes next.
The last thing we need is blind, lazy, uninformed optimism. Intelligent Optimism is about being thrilled, excited and optimistic about the future in an informed and rational way, based on statistics, data, evidence, facts and science.
There are remarkable people out there achieving remarkable things. Intelligent Optimism asks us to pay more attention to the well-deserved good news, and to understand that through science, technology, reason and rationality we can make extraordinary things happen.
Start with evidence, not headlines. The long-run numbers on health, wealth, peace and knowledge tell a story of extraordinary progress.
Genetics, AI, robotics, clean energy, space. We live at the most exciting moment in human history, and it is only speeding up.
Progress is not automatic. It is made by people solving problems. Intelligent optimists don't wait for the future, they help create it.
The world still has hard problems. But measured over decades and centuries, almost every trend that matters is moving in the right direction.
drop in infant mortality in the last 100 years, while the average human lifespan has doubled.
Two centuries ago 85% of people lived in extreme poverty. Today it is around 10%.
Murder rates in many countries have fallen a hundredfold from past centuries.
of the world's people now live in open societies, the highest share ever.
“Think of an exciting, ecstatic, desirable future, and pull the present forward to meet it.”The Imaginary Foundation
Start or join an Intelligent Optimism group in your city. Meet-ups, think tanks and talks, from Boston and London to Dubai, Delhi and San Francisco.
Start a group →Why optimism, done properly, is the most rational stance on the future. Plus Steven Pinker on moral progress, and the books that shaped the movement.
Explore the ideas →The good news you won't see in the headlines: breakthroughs, data and stories of people building a better world.
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