14 min listen
The case for global optimism with Steven Pinker
The case for global optimism with Steven Pinker
ratings:
Length:
32 minutes
Released:
Sep 23, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
War in Ukraine. Global poverty on the rise. Hunger, too. Not to mention a persistent pandemic. It doesn't feel like a particularly good time to be alive. And yet, Harvard psychologist Stephen Pinker argues that things are getting better today than ever across the world, based on the metrics that matter. Like laundry. In 1920, the average American spent 11.5 hours a week doing laundry (and that average American was almost always a woman, dudes just wore dirty clothes). By 2014, the number had dropped to 1.5 hours a week, thanks to what renowned public health scholar Hans Rosling called "greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution”: the washing machine. By freeing people of washing laundry by hand, this new technology allowed parents to devote more time to educating their children, and it allowed women to cultivate a life beyond the washboard. The automation of laundry is just one of many metrics that Pinker, uses to measure human progress. But how does his optimistic view of the state of the world stack up against the brutality of the modern world? Ian Bremmers asks this "relentlessly optimistic macro thinker" to share his view of the world on the GZERO World podcast.
Released:
Sep 23, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
In Syria it’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ (For Assad): Following an overnight round of US-backed airstrikes in Syria earlier this month, President Trump famously declared via tweet fiat, “Mission Accomplished!” Lara Setrakian, who founded the independent news site Syria Deeply, could not agree... by GZERO World with Ian Bremmer