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Tag Archives: optimism
A Prophetic Film from 1940
It’s title: To New Horizons. The logic is sunny and simple, but it has proven (thus far) to be pretty much dead on.
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Tagged futurism, happiness, hope, optimism, the future, the rational optimist
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My “Candide” Retort to Margaret MacMillan
It’s 2014. A hundred years ago, the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand initiated a series of calamitous events that brought on World War I. And the way WWI ended (with the Versailles Treaty) led to yet another series … Continue reading
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Tagged China, John Gray, nationalism, optimism, pessimism, philosophy, psychology, religion
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Robert Wright Claims History is Moving Toward More and More Non-Zero Sum Games
Every day, in a lot of ways, are we really getting better and better?
Increasing Knowledge Does Not Increase The Peace
That, at any rate, is John Gray’s thesis, and he has a new book out. In a recent interview at The Spectator, he had this to say: [K]nowledge can never eradicate the conflicts of the human world, or produce harmony where … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, books, God, John Gray, optimism, pessimism, philosophy
2 Comments
Thinking and Apocalypse: Heuristic (Shorthand) Thinking vs. Critical Thinking. Should We Be Optimistic About Our Future?
Given the paucity of sustained critical thinking in our culture, science writer K. C. Cole reflects on our prospects for collective survival in a recent (and I think important) review at the Los Angeles Review of Books: No one in … Continue reading
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Tagged apocalypse, atheism, critical thinking, Nietzsche, Oedipus, optimism, reason, science, the future
5 Comments
Gray on Pink(er): Because of Our Evolution, the Irrational We’ll Always Have With Us
John Gray thinks Steven Pinker’s thesis in his new book—in which Pinker argues that the world is progressing toward an ever less violent future—is deluded. In the Jacob-wrestle between Enlightenment rationality and our evolution-formed imperatives, Gray is betting that our … Continue reading
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Tagged critical thinking, evolution, John Gray, optimism, pessimism, progress, reason, steven pinker, the Enlightenment
5 Comments
2012 On the Brink: Our Networked Human Future
We live in interesting times: the end of the “dumb society.” A great short documentary on our collective (and hopeful) future:
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Tagged 2012, documentary, future, globalism, hope, life, networking, optimism, reason, technology, urbanism
1 Comment
A Bit of Happy News for the Weekend
Willem Buiter is Citgroup’s chief economist, and here’s CNBC today reporting his forecast for the global economy over the next 40 years: “We expect strong growth in the world economy until 2050, with average real GDP growth rates of 4.6 percent … Continue reading
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Tagged 2012, armageddon, economics, End Times, good news, happiness, life, optimism, pessimism, reason, the future, weekends
4 Comments
Cheer Up?
A bit of optimism for a Sunday:
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Tagged capitalism, depression, happiness, history, life, matt ridley, optimism
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Think Mind Wells, Not Oil Wells: Is Where You Live a Brain Drain or a Brain Collector?
If you want to be hopeful about the human future (including America’s), think about this: free minds and strong exchange economies are positively correlated. It’s not that there is a one-to-one relationship between them, but wherever you have free minds the odds are good, … Continue reading
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Tagged America, freedom, hope, mind wells, oil, oil wells, optimism, the brain, the economy, the mind
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My Predictions for the Human Future
My daughters are four and six, and barring a severe catastrophe (personal or civilizational), my guess is that they’ll have lifespans that might double that of the average person living today. By the time they hit about the age of 50 (around … Continue reading
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Tagged America, apocalypse, life, matt ridley, optimism, robert wright, the antichrist, The Book of Revelation, the environment, the future, the world
14 Comments
How do you spell relief? R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N?
According to ScienceDaily, researchers are finding strong links between anxiety and religious extremism in individuals: Across all studies, anxious conditions caused participants to become more eagerly engaged in their ideals and extreme in their religious convictions. In one study, mulling over a personal … Continue reading
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Tagged anxiety, cognitive dissonance, God, mental health, optimism, origin of religion, psychology, religion, social psychology, tea partiers
3 Comments
Cosmic Pessimism v. Cosmic Optimism
The universe appears to be lacking in purpose in some ways, but not in others. For example, the Holocaust and the panda’s “thumb” would seem to suggest that we live in a historically contingent universe indifferent and blind to both suffering and … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Christianity, optimism, pessimism, philosophy, psychology, religion
4 Comments
Mental Health Break (after Thinking about George Bush’s One Million Iraqi “Commas,” Here’s a Song for the “Period”)
At the end of the line, after perhaps a number of clauses, and commas marking their course, there should be a PERIOD, and there it is.
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Tagged End Times, eschatology, George Bush, optimism, periods, philosophy, poetry, psychology, punctuation, religion, sentences
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