
My new favorite book of all time - yarapavan
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Enlightenment-Now
======
topleveldomain
" _War is illegal._ This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the
United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from
going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the
threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an
effective deterrent to wars between nations."

I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigger
deterrent of war - at least among the developed countries of the world: the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Once the world saw the atom bomb's
capability for destruction, the motivation to avoid war increased
significantly (to put it lightly).

Surely the Cold War would have been a real war if not for nukes, no? I don't
think the US and Russia were avoiding conflict because "the UN made it
illegal."

~~~
chinathrow
> "War is illegal. This idea seems obvious.

Yet that one rule is broken multiple times a year by multiple nations in
multiple regions on earth.

~~~
topleveldomain
The data shows a downward trend in interstate conflicts, colonial conflicts,
and per capita battle deaths since the 40's. Civil conflicts peaked in the
early 90's, but nukes aren't a factor in those.

Source:
[https://files.prio.org/publication_files/prio/Gates,%20Nyg%C...](https://files.prio.org/publication_files/prio/Gates,%20Nyg%C3%A5rd,%20Strand,%20Urdal%20-%20Trends%20in%20Armed%20Conflict,%20Conflict%20Trends%201-2016.pdf)

~~~
kiliantics
There is other research[0] (also recently posted to HN, though it got a lot
less traction than Gates and Pinker), that claims this trend may very likely
not be there. It's very hard to prove.

[0]
[http://www.mn.uio.no/math/english/research/projects/focustat...](http://www.mn.uio.no/math/english/research/projects/focustat/the-
focustat-blog%21/krigogfred.html)

------
ABCLAW
I've read a lot of the discussions regarding Pinker's work in both books (but
particularly his position in Better Angels), and I've always found his
position to be slightly disconcerting.

Pinker attempts to make a specific argument, that violence has decreased over
time.

Violence is not a first order phenomenon at a social scale - it's presence is
predicated upon the existence of other key criteria, largely the existence of
conflict within or between societies.

Better Angels indicates that violence has gone down, but does not sufficiently
set out the basis to indicate that conflict is being better managed over time.
If anything, it indicates that conflicts are being 'won' as the winners are
increasingly able to ignore the plight of the losers.

On the micro-scale, in law we've been faced with a tremendous crisis - that of
Access to Justice. In short, the courts are simply too expensive for normal
people to avail themselves of, outside specialty practices like family or
traffic issues. The result being that the majority of people do not actually
have the ability to enforce their legal rights. The response of most legal
institutions has been to decry the issue, then do nothing substantive to solve
it.

We can pretend things are getting better but absent thinking about what
'better' means maybe the lid on the boiling pot is just getting heavier faster
than the heat is being turned up.

~~~
resu_nimda
You acknowledged that he made a specific argument about violence, which is a
fairly straightforward and measurable metric. He didn’t claim that “conflict
is being better managed” or that “things are getting better,” which are
extremely subjective and hard to quantify.

Your point about the legal system, while valid, seems irrelevant to his
argument. And you didn’t provide any argument that the situation has gotten
worse than before. Was there a time when “normal people” had better access to
justice and ability to enforce their rights?

~~~
ABCLAW
1) The issue is that violence is a poor metric for progress. Pinker has made
it clear that the description of declining violence is done in order to
describe the improvement of the human plight, as most succinctly crystallized
in the title of his first work on the point, and the overarching research
thesis of his second. The structure of his first argument also points to this:
violence has decreased, and all of the reasons have to do with humanity
getting better, smarter and more empathetic. Here I suggest that in order to
make that claim, broadly, we need to understand what violence is, and why its
reduction may actually be a symptom of things getting worse for people. I am
not the only one to make this distinction. Many groups advocating for
historical 'have-nots' make the same counterpoint in reaction to Pinker's
work.

2) With regards to the legal system, the issue is tremendously worse than it
used to be. There was a time when "normal people" had better access to justice
- the fact that you even need to ask this question should cause readers to
pause and reflect upon what that means for the system.

The legal system, like measures of international violence, have social
purposes - this is where Pinker's arguments fall flat to me. Think of them as
pressure release valves. If the negative causal force (i.e. Conflict) causing
those systems to need to act aren't actually being reduced, yet the system is
systemically reacting less and less to the stimuli it is receiving, it is akin
to a server reporting that it is A+ Okay and only under 25% load, but ignoring
that it is discarding 99% of requests to it. No sane engineer would think
things are getting better if the report drops to 24%, given the full context.

~~~
torstenvl
_There was a time when "normal people" had better access to justice - the fact
that you even need to ask this question should cause..._

...you to realize that your propositions are not accepted uncritically and you
should support them with evidence.

~~~
Nomentatus
Costs, start there. In Rome, you'd have a better chance to seek justice if
poor (if a citizen, and most people weren't.) But you'd have been better off
decades ago as what counts as "small claims" has been totally trashed by
inflation.

~~~
torstenvl
The most readily available state historical summary of small claims limits I
could find is from CT, where the 1981 limit was $1,000 (approx. $2,623 in 2017
dollars) and is now $5,000.

[https://www.cga.ct.gov/2017/rpt/pdf/2017-R-0166.pdf](https://www.cga.ct.gov/2017/rpt/pdf/2017-R-0166.pdf)

In California, the small claims limit was set at $7,500 in 2005 (approx.
$9,695 in 2017 dollars) and is now $10,000.

[http://www.personalinjury-attorney.com/california-small-
clai...](http://www.personalinjury-attorney.com/california-small-claims-court-
limits-rise-to-10000/)

Is there a jurisdiction you have in mind where the small claims limits
increases have been outstripped by inflation?

~~~
Nomentatus
You're right, I don't live there.

------
chippy
The British philosopher John Gray is a good counterpart to Pinker's idea of
progress. He focuses on the myths of progress, civilisation and freedom.

This is his response to Pinker:
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-
stev...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-steven-
pinker-wrong-violence-war-declining) "A new orthodoxy, led by Pinker, holds
that war and violence in the developed world are declining. The stats are
misleading, argues Gray – and the idea of moral progress is wishful thinking
and plain wrong"

One example: Torture was recently brought back in the leading liberal
democracy of the world. Something that was once thought to have been made
illegal everywhere was made legal (waterboarding) but not in a backward
dictatorship, but in the vanguard of progress and liberty - the USA. Now,
Obama made it illegal again (mostly), so that shows that you have to fight to
keep your progressions. Progress does not occur automatically, and once
achieved, it doesn't stay, Gray argues. I think Gray also argues that wars are
mostly many and small proxy wars that occur all the time instead of larger
grander affairs.

I think his current ideas on Freedom area also similar. We assume that western
democracies are the best ever and getting more freer, but there are examples
of a decline in freedoms, in a decline in enlightenment values etc. In a
previous book, Gray even highlights that the Enlightenment itself was flawed
(with leading figures being overtly racist to say the least) and that we
shouldn't put a halo around it by default - rather that there is nuance, and
that it's a fragile thing. He also points that whilst the Enlightenment and
Freedom is an old idea, ISIS and Islamic terrorism is actually a modern thing.
Modern != Progress.

He encourages us to assume that progress is fragile, is not automatically
improving and that we need to be active in defending our freedoms, our
progress and the things we take for granted.

~~~
bryanlarsen
"He encourages us to assume that progress is fragile, is not automatically
improving and that we need to be active in defending our freedoms, our
progress and the things we take for granted."

But would Pinker or Bill Gates disagree with that statement? I don't think so.
Bill Gates is devoting his fortune to doing so, and is doing so very
effectively.

And even if Pinker is wrong, I believe his message is much more likely to get
people to defend freedoms and advance progress than Gray's would be: it's much
easier to act if you believe that your actions will be effective.

~~~
chippy
Yes, I don't think that view was expressed in Gray's article about Pinker. But
I imagine that there could be an implication that "if the data shows the world
is improving, it always will do, progress happens one way and is always going
up" which Gray takes issue to. Why act if everything is getting better anyhow?

~~~
rpedela
Why act like the world isn't getting better if it actually is?

~~~
sooheon
It is getting better for some people by some measures, and worse for others by
other measures. What Pinker and Gates are attempting to impose is a tyranny of
faux rationality--"an 800 pg book with sources up the wazoo say that the world
is getting better, all these whiny poor folk must just be delusional".

~~~
rpedela
> What Pinker and Gates are attempting to impose is a tyranny of faux
> rationality--"an 800 pg book with sources up the wazoo say that the world is
> getting better, all these whiny poor folk must just be delusional".

That is a pretty extreme reading of what Pinker and Gates are saying. I don't
think they are saying that at all.

~~~
mar77i
I still fail to see the problem at hand?

Would faux rationality that the world is getting better constantly not keep us
in silent optimism, as opposed to - urm - violently keep fighting for it being
made much worse?

What cruel bastard would even do such a thing, anyway?

------
JorgeGT
> _Time spent doing laundry fell from 11.5 hours a week in 1920 to an hour and
> a half in 2014. This might sound trivial in the grand scheme of progress.
> But the rise of the washing machine has improved quality of life by freeing
> up time for people—mostly women—to enjoy other pursuits._

This. I remember following Reddit AMAs of two centenarian women, women who
remembered SS troops arriving at their village, who watched live as men landed
on the Moon, and witnessed the spread of electric light, cars, planes, radio,
TV, phones, mobile phones, internet, etc. and other technologies that in the
1900s were only in the realm of fiction.

And yet, when some redditors asked them which, among all these technological
marvels developed in their time they had loved the most, _both_ answered that
the washing machine, because suddenly they had much more time to devote to
other, more interesting things.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
It’s worth noting that the act of sorting, inserting, removing, and putting
away clothing is not very labor intensive.

Having to manually wash each article of clothing takes actual effort, which
can be quite tiring. It’s not easy to engage in other pursuits when one is
tired out from physical labor. One could argue that the savings in exertion
even outweigh the savings in time.

~~~
Tepix
Still, a robot that would remove the remaining hassle of dealing with clothing
would be fantastic!

~~~
GeorgeTirebiter
I think societies should embraced Naturism. It solves so many problems,
certainly this one.

------
btilly
On this topic, I highly recommend watching 200 countries, 200 years, 4
minutes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo)

You see how wealth and health have changed over time. In particular you see
that there is NO country today which is as badly off as EVERY country was 200
years ago. When you digest the truth of that, and look at it in terms of
family stories, impact on society and so on, my impression is that we are like
a world recovering from an insane collective trauma that most people have
amnesia about. And the more you pay attention, the more ways in which this is
obvious.

This is not to say that there isn't plenty of trauma today. As the saying
goes, "The future is here. It just isn't evenly distributed." But for all the
problems we have reason to worry about, there has never been a time when there
was a better case for optimism for our future.

~~~
marchenko
_In particular you see that there is NO country today which is as badly off as
EVERY country was 200 years ago._

I tend to believe that this argument is generally true, but some researchers
have argued that it is very sensitive to the specific endpoints chosen. In his
preface to _A Farewell to Arms_ , economist Greg Clark argues (about the world
circa 2007):

> "Prosperity, however, has not come to all societies. Material consumption in
> some countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, is now well below the
> preindustrial norm. Countries such as Malawi or Tanzania would be better off
> in material terms had they never had contact with the industrialized world
> and instead continued in their preindustrial state. Modern medicine,
> airplanes, gasoline, computers—the whole technological cornucopia of the
> past two hundred years—have succeeded there in producing among the lowest
> material living standards ever experienced. These African societies have
> remained trapped in the Malthusian era, where technological advances merely
> produce more people and living standards are driven down to subsistence. But
> modern medicine has reduced the material minimum required for subsistence to
> a level far below that of the Stone Age."

Clark also argues that:

>"Indeed in 1800 the bulk of the world’s population was poorer than their
remote ancestors. The lucky denizens of wealthy societies such as eighteenth-
century England or the Netherlands managed a material lifestyle equivalent to
that of the Stone Age. But the vast swath of humanity in East and South Asia,
particularly in China and Japan, eked out a living under conditions probably
significantly poorer than those of cavemen. The quality of life also failed to
improve on any other observable dimension. Life expectancy was no higher in
1800 than for hunter-gatherers: thirty to thirty-five years. Stature, a
measure both of the quality of diet and of children’s exposure to disease, was
higher in the Stone Age than in 1800. And while foragers satisfy their
material wants with small amounts of work, the modest comforts of the English
in 1800 were purchased only through a life of unrelenting drudgery. Nor did
the variety of material consumption improve. The average forager had a diet,
and a work life, much more varied than the typical English worker of 1800,
even though the English table by then included such exotics as tea, pepper,
and sugar"

A lot of present arguments seem to center on the shape and AUC of the progress
curve, and whether that has any implications for predictions based on
historical data.

~~~
btilly
This is also true.

With relatively fixed technology, the human population tends to expand to the
carrying capacity of the land.

Agriculture did not make life better. What it did is make that carrying
capacity a LOT higher. At the cost of great increases in how much work was
needed, risk of plague, and so on. This topic is covered in some detail in
Jared Diamond's _Guns, Germs and Steel_.

When, as in the 1200s, the climate moved to increase that carrying capacity,
life improved. When, as in the 1300s, climate made life harder, we had mass
famine after mass famine (and by coincidence, also the Black Death).

Technology has increased the carrying capacity many-fold. And also changed the
incentives for large families. We can look back and laugh about how wrong
Malthus was, and say that it is clear in hindsight that the English should
have ignored his analysis and intervened in the Irish Potato Famine back in
the 1800s. But his theories were grounded in the universal truth of what life
had been like in agricultural societies for thousands of years.

I wish all of this was more widely understood.

------
cs702
I read Pinker's previous book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature," and found it
eye-opening; it changed the way I perceived the world. Highly recommended.
(Here's a review: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-
an...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-angels-of-
our-nature-by-steven-pinker-book-review.html) )

This book, his latest one, is now an automatic buy for me.

~~~
jnordwick
So torn. I'm generally a Pinker fan, but almost detest Peter Singer's thought
to the core. Singer recommending that book makes me really second guess the
recommendation. But I respect Bill Gates immensely too.

Maybe the idea that Pinker could write a book so loved by both Gates and
Singer is a testament to how good it is?

~~~
gowld
Or perhaps you have an unjustified ill-informed hatred of Singer, not shared
by Gates or Pinker.

------
Fricken
Pew research did a survey where it asked 42,000 people in 38 different nations
how their day was. Respondents could answer 'particularly good', 'typical', or
'particulary bad'. Nigerians are having the best time, with 73% of respondents
saying they were having a particularly good day. In Japan on 11% were having a
particularly good day. The outcomes of this pew study correlate inversely with
studies that objectively measure quality of life.

[http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2018/01/02/particularly...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2018/01/02/particularly-good-days-are-common-in-africa-latin-america-and-
the-u-s/)

A ship is safe in harbour, but that's not what ships are for.

~~~
bildung
Interesting! Amartya Sen's _theory of justice_ had a similar passage about
quality of live of Indian women: Originally they self-assessed as healthy and
without problems (while objectively being in very poor condition and having
very low life expectancy), then, years later, as both education (esp. health-
related) and access to healthcare improved, self-assessed as unhealthier than
before! Turns out they didn't know/ couldn't imagine their health problems as
something optimizable. Life just was how it was, alternatives not imaginable.

~~~
msaharia
I think you mean Idea of Justice. Theory of Justice is by John Rawls.

~~~
bildung
You're right! I read the German version and translated back from memory.

------
rjkennedy98
This article/video explains why so many people have completely lost faith in
our technocratic elite.

The idea that "You’re 37 times less likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning
than you were at the turn of the century" makes a large difference in the
happiness of people is ridiculous.

Why are people pessimistic about the future?

Maybe its because the rates of addiction (including to smart phones and other
screens), of psychiatric disease, and of suicide are all on the rise.

Maybe its because rates of marriage and church attendance are on the decline.

Maybe its because of the debasement of our culture and education.

Technological progress is not the same as progress of the human condition. Our
technocratic leaders would like to believe it is, but it is not.

~~~
Letmesleep69
> The idea that "You’re 37 times less likely to be killed by a bolt of
> lightning than you were at the turn of the century" makes a large difference
> in the happiness of people is ridiculous.

I believe he put that in as an interesting, somewhat unexpected benefit of
modern life. His next few arguments are what really backs up his points.

> Maybe its because rates of marriage and church attendance are on the
> decline.

As someone from a country where the church held far too much sway and still
tries to hold back the rights of gay people and forbid abortions I take a lot
of hope from the fact that people are attending church less.

> Maybe its because of the debasement of our culture and education.

I don't think western culture or education has been debased at all. Can you
elaborate?

~~~
rjkennedy98
Dickens was the most popular entertainer of his time. Shakespeare was widely
popular as well. Both are considered too difficult for most audiences now
days. Can you imagine a writer like Dickens being the most popular in
contemporary America or in the UK? Our most popular figure is Kim Kardashian.

And my point about the Church was not to say that religion is all good, but to
point to the fact that people are disconnected from communities. UK just hired
a Minister of Loneliness. Its a serious issue.

~~~
morsch
When Oliver Twist was published (1838), a third of the British population
_couldn 't read_[1].

[1]
[https://www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy...](https://www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy.pdf)

~~~
rjkennedy98
14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a “below basic” literacy level in
2003, and 29 percent exhibited a “basic” reading level.

That is with public education.

------
_greim_
"Better Angels"—and presumably this book—cuts against the grain of popular
discourse, since claiming the world is in decline and a state of moral
depredation has always been an effective way to agitate for change. Which is
understandable on one level, because so much in the world is still obviously
suboptimal. The reaction tends to be: "How can you claim the world is getting
better when [insert bad current event stuff here]?!?"

The problem is that so much of this _lessening of horribleness_ came about via
imperfect systems. We become focused in our opposition to the system's flaws,
and (in some circles) that opposition morphs into opposition to the system as
a whole, which is a dangerous kind of thinking if it becomes mainstream.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Not sure I agree. It seems to me that "claiming the world is in decline and a
state of moral depredation" has always been primarily a cheap way of bringing
attention to _yourself_ , your cause, and gaining popular support. Which is
why, for example, journalists _love_ writing doom&gloom articles.

Also, if anything, everyone preaching doomsday makes people depressed,
disinterested and detached. If the world is falling apart, what could possibly
an individual do? IMO we need the exact opposite now - an optimistic tone that
tells people that while there are problems, things are looking up, we're
winning, and yes, you can help too.

------
110011
I haven't read the book but I wonder.. as a billionaire he clearly stands to
gain a lot from spreading a message of optimism and collective progress over
the last century presumably to maintain status quo when an equally factual but
completely opposite perspective on the world (unprecedented levels of
inequality, our global lack of response to climate change, etc.) is also there
for us to see.

I find it very hard to believe that his motives are so pure.

~~~
TeMPOraL
A lot depends on your viewpoint. What you call "unprecedented levels of
inequality" is, at the same time, unprecedented rise in quality of life for
_pretty much everyone_ \- yes, for some people the improvement was greater
than for others, but it's still a big improvement for everyone.

(I don't want to dismiss this issue, but reading about it, sometimes it sounds
to me like a case of pretty much the most pathetic human behaviour - getting
$10 for free and, instead of being grateful, getting angry that someone else
got $1000.)

Hell, WRT climate change, we _need_ some optimism, and we need to devote less
time to usual social bickering, and more time to fixing what's important.

> _I find it very hard to believe that his motives are so pure._

Everything he's doing nowadays fits perfectly the theory that his motives are
pure, and about the well-being of humanity. Is there anything in particular
you're aware of that is evidence to the contrary?

~~~
dragonwriter
> A lot depends on your viewpoint. What you call "unprecedented levels of
> inequality" is, at the same time, unprecedented rise in quality of life for
> pretty much everyone

That kind of assumes “quality of life” is a simple function of absolute
material wealth and not strongly influenced by relative position. While
certainly many people have moral beliefs that that _should_ be the case, there
is plenty of reason in all of human history to believe that it is not _in
fact_ the case.

------
gourou
"Sapiens" is another great recommendation by him

[https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-
of-...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-of-Humankind)

~~~
julian55
Yes, that's a great book. I'm now reading "Homo Deus" by the same author which
follows up on some of the ideas in "Sapiens".

~~~
X6S1x6Okd1st
How do you feel like Homo Deus compares to Sapiens w.r.t. being hand wavy and
having a solid grasp on what the potential futures are that we are facing?

~~~
prepend
Not OP, but as a reader of both Sapiens and Homo Deus, I feel like the latter
is a bit of fluff already covered by the end of Sapiens.

Not a bad book, but more baseless theorizing while Sapiens was a really rich
examination of history where he author definitely applied a lifetime of study
and research.

~~~
koverda
I'm surprised that you would describe it as baseless, because the theories he
presents are built upon the lifetime of study & research of the examination of
human history and motivations.

~~~
prepend
Good point. I don’t mean baseless as worthless, just that it was largely out
of the author’s wheelhouse and was more of his projection of ideas without
much in the way of evidence. This differed from Sapiens as it was really rich
in historical and anthropological sources.

It’s not bad, just not very valuable as an entire book to read. It’s mostly
already covered in the final segment of Sapiens.

Homo Deus is certainly based on the author’s general wisdom and draws upon his
study of history. It’s always hard to vet “futurists” to see who is
worthwhile.

------
dalbasal
I guess I can only give my opinion from my own limited world, but I feel to an
extent that "reason, science, and humanism" are at need of advocacy today,
more than usual. This book might be well timed.

------
cletus
I (like other commenters) am cautious to attribute the lack of Post-WW2 global
war to the UN. The development of nuclear weapons seems a far more likely
culprit since we now live in the age of MAD (mutually assured destruction).

So I can of course get behind the idea that War is Bad [tm]. The problem is
that in evolutionary and social terms it served a purpose. And that purpose
was (and is) the ultimate resolution to resource allocation problems.

If you think about how wealth is being concentrated into the hands of very,
very few, you can attribute at least some of this to globalisation. Look at
historical figures [1] and you see that in inflation-adjusted terms some would
be far more wealthy than the wealthiest people of today. What about the likes
of Julius or Augustus Caesar? 2000 years of compound interest!

Now it's true that wealth doesn't tend to survive many generations but there
are exceptions.

Then look at conflicts like the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution or
any number of European conflicts. War really seems like it served the purpose
of being the ultimate means of wealth redistribution.

Of course it's ghastly but my question is this: in a stable world without
conflict, how is it that the wealthy don't end up owning everything?

And with an ever-rising population bordering on arguably more than the planet
can support with ever-dwindling resources, how does this not end with
catastrophic conflict since we've virtually eliminated every form of
population pressure?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures)

~~~
stormking
Before the UN, two countries could go to war and nobody else would care. "If
they want to go to each other's throats, let them." War was seen as a
legitimate extension of politics, not as an absolute last resort only valid
for self-defense.

This could probably still be true at least for non-nuclear powers. Instead, we
at least try to intervene and stop the fighting. So this argument is not so
much about the UN as an institution but about this paradigm shift to see war
as something bad that must be stopped ASAP, even if your own country is not
involved or in any danger of getting involved.

Or short: War is illegal.

------
misiti3780
Last year Bill Gates recommended The Vital Question (found this on HN):

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OD8Z4JW/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OD8Z4JW/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

One of the best books I have ever read.

------
k2xl
One nitpick on a bullet point:

"The global average IQ score is rising by about 3 IQ points every decade.
Kids’ brains are developing more fully thanks to improved nutrition and a
cleaner environment. Pinker also credits more analytical thinking in and out
of the classroom. Think about how many symbols you interpret every time you
check your phone’s home screen or look at a subway map. Our world today
encourages abstract thought from a young age, and it’s making us smarter."

This is called the Flynn effect:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)

However, it's important to note that there is no consensus on why this effect
is being observed. There are multiple theories and us having to interpret
symbols on smartphones is just one of the proposed ones.

------
thisisit
Strange. Ublock is blocking the whole blog content.

TL;dr - Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now

~~~
cseelus
Wondered about that too.

What also seems a little strange is that his blog has a members only section
with special "deals" like book excerpts for which you need to sign up.

Never saw that on a personal blog, I might be mistaken, but on first glance it
seems like its more of a business than just a personal blog.

------
sisu
"The global average IQ score is rising by about 3 IQ points every decade."

Is this statement correct? I was under impression that while the per-country
averages are mostly rising, the global average is going down.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-S...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-
STUPID-Britons-people-IQ-decline.html)
[http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/IQ/1950-2050/](http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/IQ/1950-2050/)

~~~
lawtguy
The statement about rising IQ is the Flynn Effect[1]. The fact that IQ has
risen over the past 80 years or so is well accepted. Exactly why this is
happening is open to debate.

The fourmilab link you mentioned seem to be based on the book "IQ and the
Wealth of Nations"[2]. They explicitly normalized all IQ data to have Briton
as 100. The author then assumes that IQ hasn't changed any in the past 50
years. The author mentions the Flynn effect and then ignores it. Once you do
that, you really can't say anything about how IQ is changing over time.
Instead he basically ends up measuring the relative growth rates of countries.

The Daily Mail link has a whole bunch of things, the graph they have of
lowering world IQ looks pretty much like the one in the fourmilab article, so
I suspect it's based on the same data.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)
2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations)

------
arethuza
I listened to "Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens" by
Eddie Izzard base on the last time Bill Gates book recommendations were on HN
and it is _superb_ so this is now an automatic buy for me.

~~~
arethuza
Izzard is someone with quite astounding levels of determination - I had no
idea until I read the book that his childhood ambition was to join the SAS,
which he may well have been quite suited for.

------
tziki
The IQ rise of 3 points per decade has stopped and even reversed in many
countries, like UK and Norway. That seems like a very big point to leave out,
hopefully it's mentioned in the book.

------
craftyguy
> War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the
> United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from
> going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the
> threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an
> effective deterrent to wars between nations.

While this may have kept the 'superpowers' from engaging in direct warfare
with each other, it has done nothing to deter them from engaging in proxy wars
with eachother. And in the process, devestating the proxy countries. It seems
Bill Gates, through all of his philanthropist work, would have realized this
first hand.

~~~
Diederich
> an effective deterrent to wars between nations

Is this false? The last time I looked, the percentage of the human population
afflicted by war has been shrinking.

~~~
craftyguy
My point is that war is not "illegal", and the current "deterrent" has done
nothing to deter proxy wars in places like (as recent examples) Syria and
Yemen. It has also done nothing to deter Russia's invasion of Crimea, the US's
boondoggle in Iraq and Afghanistan (nor the extremely vague 'war on terror'
that enables the US to arbitrarily attack anyone it perceives as a
'terrorist').

The number of folks experiencing war may be shrinking [citation needed], but
it's far from being 'illegal.'

~~~
Diederich
The wording could have been better, I agree. There are, no doubt, a whole
constellation of reasons that war less of a thing.

------
Santosh83
Not a comment on the book obviously, but just seizing on the five points
enumerated in the review, 1 is pure fluff, 2 is not a very strong point, 2 and
3 are both more first-world applicable, 4 is again more first-world centric
I'd imagine, and 5 is entirely irrelevant given that most countries still
manage to go to war (unjustified) with total impunity, especially the biggest
of them all. What is the use of declaring war illegal? The only thing world
nations are afraid of is nuclear war, but never-ending conventional war can
still retard humanity's progress significantly. It is not something we can
just dismiss.

------
phlakaton
I'm not sure how any American can read a call to return to Enlightenment
values as a feel-good, no-worries pallative. It rather seems to me that such
an appeal is a radical declaration of war against the prevailing political
winds in America today – on both the left and the right. I would read it as a
kick in the pants, not a soothing lullaby.

------
ThomPete
While I think all this might be true and I am definitely going to read the
book, it's also true that humans on average have one testicle. In other words,
global statistics aren't actually looking at more local phenomena.

What I really would love to see is it broken down into more detail with
regards to geography. I don't think it's evenly spread and I do believe that
there are some fundamental problems in the west because of globalization
namely being that the cost of living is going up but not everyone is making
more.

Anyway, interesting stuff, can't wait to get my fingers in the book.

------
thomasmarriott
"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory."
—Franklin Pierce Adams

------
antman
A comment of his previous book that whitewashed in the most absurd way modern
era's industrialized warfare and other horrors, through data selection about
thunders and other less important metrics:

[http://energyskeptic.com/2015/13-fallacies-of-steven-
pinkers...](http://energyskeptic.com/2015/13-fallacies-of-steven-pinkers-the-
better-angels-of-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined-and-slate-the-world-is-
not-falling-apart/)

~~~
sooheon
Gates and Pinker are rich, ivory tower dwelling opiate peddlers.

~~~
dang
This breaks the HN guideline against name-calling in arguments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Please post higher-quality comments, or no comments. Ones like this are
actually worse if your underlying view is correct, since in that case they
discredit the truth as well.

------
JustAnotherPat
meh, seems to me like the richest are biased into seeing a 'better' world
because that reflects well on their influence.

But is the world really better relative to the progress we've made? I don't
think you can use the sort of facts mentioned in the blurb as a case for the
increase in Humanism.

------
asciimo
It just occurred to me that I could quit my job and lie around reading books
all day and pretty much be in the same place as Bill Gates.

~~~
graphitezepp
This is a short explanation of why I am not financially ambitious.

------
juskrey
He needs some dose of Taleb

~~~
_pmf_
Who doesn't?

------
kevmo
The thing that I don't like about books and articles like this is that they
promote complacency. They obscure shitty living conditions that billions of
people are still living under by pointing to statistical averages and fun
concepts like "war is illegal" (which is highly arguable in and of itself).

I am all for recognizing that humanity is maturing, but I think books like
this actually slow the pace at which it does so.

~~~
deeg
I understand your concern but I disagree that Pinker's book will lead to
complacency. I believe the opposite: Pinker's book will prevent us from
sliding into nihilism and despondency. We have plenty of media and politicians
reminding us how terrible the world is; Trump gained the presidency in part by
convincing a sizable population that America is declining. We need Pinker to
tell us that we are actually making the world a better place.

If the media ever switches to telling us how great the world is all the time
then I'll agree with you. :)

------
vanderreeah
The vast, vast majority of people in the world have to work most of the best
hours of the day in order to pay for shelter from the weather and food for
their family. In return they get the dubious privilege of allowing their brain
to decompress in front of corporate-manufactured garbage on television.

Although we are not currently in a World War or its aftermath, and therefore
our lives could reasonably be said to be better than in, say, 1917, I think
this is taking a remarkably short view. There's a solid argument to be had
that the life of an average human (well, admittedly a man) in the 17th century
was immeasurably richer than the life of an average man in the late 20th /
early 21st century, and that this downturn is because of the Enlightenment
Pinker worships. Sure, life was shorter, but it's at least arguable that the
quantification of life ushered in by the Enlightenment is responsible for the
impoverishment of quality as a measure.

~~~
Haul4ss
I do not believe that is a solid argument at all.

A man in the 17th century would likely have to bury at least one of his
children because of disease. The man himself might succumb early to painful
illness or infection. If he needed to travel for business he would be away
from his family for months. If he lived on a farm (as many did) his days would
be filled with hard labor and his standard of living would be much lower.

To say nothing of men of color, or gay men, or women, or men who were not
landed gentry.

For many, many people, the 17th century was not a good time.

------
wallace_f
None of us have lived in any other generation, and we don't know what it would
be like.

Gates asks "Why do we gloss over positive news stories and fixate on the
negative ones?"

I dare you to asks someone on the subway what the DNC scandal was, who Snowden
is, why media doesn't report record-breaking protests around the world, what
happened at the Dakota pipeline protests, why Americans lack access to
affordable healthcare, etc. In my experience, less than 50% of people even
know what the DNC scandal is, or who Snowden is. It's not that we're drawn to
pessimism.

Civil and constitutional rights are on the decline. The world is getting
richer, but psychologists know that money doesn't make us happier (in absolute
terms).

It's easy to say we have the greatest society every, and the leaders of such
society would be pleased with such.

It's harder to be a skeptic and a critic, but that's how progress is always
made.

------
jzymbaluk
I feel like people in this thread would also enjoy the excellent podcast How
it Began, which is an optimistic take on the history of technologies by Dr.
Brad Harris

> The overall theme? Celebration! We are privileged to be descended from men
> and women who dared to dream big and even die for the cause of progress.
> Their work is unfinished, and some parts of modernity are even worse than
> before. But most are better, much better. And we have more tools than ever
> to fix what’s still broken. How It Began celebrates that progress, and
> presents a history of the modern world to help inspire its long lasting
> continuation.

Link: [https://howitbegan.com/](https://howitbegan.com/)

------
Numberwang
I can recommend this presentation if you want to feel a bit more hopeful about
the world:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2qyYQIRQE&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2qyYQIRQE&feature=youtu.be)

------
michaelmcmillan
The Blank Slate, another great book by Pinker, is a thorough and fascinating
read that lays out the many misconceptions of human nature and its
implications. He performs an exorcism on those who confuse morality with
nature – myself included.

------
howscrewedami
Every time I hear someone say "The world is getting better" or "We're living
in amazing times", it's always a super rich person. Not saying they're wrong
or anything, just an observation.

------
justonepost
In Rainbows End, vinge argues that a more educated masses allows for the more
random, asymmetric terrorism, which gets even much worse when you think of
CRISPR, etc.

------
huskyr
When i loaded this page i just saw a photo of Gates and a large white space
with nothing beneath (screenshot:
[https://imgur.com/a/vBb99](https://imgur.com/a/vBb99)). I saw "Enlightenment
Now" in the URL and thought maybe Gates had converted to Buddhism or
something. Then i tried reloading the page with my adblocker turned off and
the text finally loaded...

------
yarapavan
Interesting facts discussed:

* The global average IQ score is rising by about 3 IQ points every decade.

* Time spent doing laundry fell from 11.5 hours a week in 1920 to an hour and a half in 2014.

~~~
voidmain0001
If you live in an area with reasonably priced electricity and access to
plentiful water. I lived in Honduras for 3 years (2009 - 2012) and laundry
consumed far too much of my time because water in the community came twice per
week, and electricity was expensive. I had a cistern which was connected to
the water main, and I installed a floating shut off valve so that I could
leave the valve open to fill with water when it came without notice and
invariably I was out working. I couldn't afford a dryer due to high cost of
electricity and I was volunteering without any spare income during that period
so I had to wash and dry clothes on sunny days. There were people in the
community that still washed clothes by hand using a scrub board and I know
that they spent many hours weekly on it.

~~~
Simon_says
Easy solution, just don't be born in Honduras.

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN? We ban accounts
that do this repeatedly, and have already had to warn you more than once.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
melling
I don’t get it. It’s a feel good book?

Something more interesting would be learn how to more quickly improve the
world. The world of 2100 could arrive in 2050, for example.

Gates has around $100 billion to improve the world. How to most effectively
leverage his money, for example?

Build a better pharmaceutical company and cure some of the diseases on his
list? Help to create better economies in Africa?

[UPDATE]

This comment got downvoted fast. I guess I’ll be happy with the improvements
and learn to live with the current rate of progress.

Any other feel good comments from the book that I could use at a party?

[UPDATE]

Don’t want to waste fu karma today. So, answer is half the world’s population
lives in cities. Perhaps we could increase by making them more liveable. I’m
all for reducing the human footprint on the world. Wildlife crossings, fewer
roads and cars, less plastic, etc. How about a billion people move one planet
over? A lot depends on increasing knowledge and reducing costs. Let’s increase
the rate of innovation!

~~~
coding123
Absolutely - even if everyone read this and suddenly feels complacent about
our progress - what's next? Everyone is scared to talk about population growth
- I mean at what point do we decide that we don't want to erase all
unpopulated land simple because its there and fill it with humans. What about
populations of wild animals - don't they get to share the earth with us? I
feel like the movies about aliens coming and killing all humans is exactly how
we treat animals on this planet. Just because they don't use verbal
communication doesn't mean they should be slaughtered for our food. Why does
progress always have to be pro-human?

~~~
Santosh83
I have yet to meet anyone who gave a good answer to this question. It is
obvious that we (as a species) behave like this because we can get away with
it. Plain & simple. Whether it is a good long-term strategy is unclear to our
brains that refuse to look at far-off effects. Time will tell.

Besides moral relativism helps us to justify much of our destructive behaviour
and inability to accept hard changes that might be necessary to make the world
better for all living things.

------
drcode
Good on Bill Gates to not just choose a feel-good book for sake of "virtue
signaling", but a book with real substance in it. (The fact that this book
happens to be optimistic is incidental)

~~~
dalbasal
I dunno how strong it is, but I have a feeling that the virtue signalling you
mention is at least tangentially at odds with the "reason, science, and
humanism" he mentions.

------
Froyoh
What's the book? Can't load the page on mobile.

~~~
randcraw
Based on the URL of the OP, I think it's Steven Pinker's new book shipping on
February 27: "Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and
Progress"

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073TJBYTB/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073TJBYTB/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

------
randiantech
"The bomb? The plague? Trump? Not to worry; things are getting better."[0]

Comparing Trump to nuclear bombs and plagues does not seem a good idea to
start a conversation about reason, science, humanism, and progress.

[0][https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/kirkus_review_of...](https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/kirkus_review_of_elightenment_now.pdf)

------
brownbat
Charles Kuralt has an old documentary about the shopping mall. He mourns
outdoor shopping downtown, worries about progress, then eventually gives up
and announces, "Well, this is the way we live now."

Uh, maybe. Kuralt didn't live to see Amazon.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-retail-
debt/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-retail-debt/)

Or if you prefer Randall Munroe, linear extrapolation can be risky.
[https://www.xkcd.com/605/](https://www.xkcd.com/605/)

Crime, housing prices, and population growth always go up... until they don't.

Mortality rates might be next to zag, who knows:
[https://www.vox.com/2016/12/8/13875150/life-expectancy-us-
dr...](https://www.vox.com/2016/12/8/13875150/life-expectancy-us-dropped-
first-time-decade)

I think Pinker's right. I hope he is. But it's hard to evaluate claims that
extend so far beyond human lifespans. The empires in Persia bounced between
progressive tolerance and tyrannical repression for stretches of over two
hundred years. From Gobleki Tepe's perspective, our entire known history is a
blip... too little data for any coherent long run analysis.

------
amasad
Love Pinker but thought this was too funny not to share: "Steven Pinker jinxes
the world" on how a lot of the trends that he spoke about started to stall and
even reverse since the publication of the book.

[https://amp.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6ggwap/stev...](https://amp.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6ggwap/steven_pinker_jinxes_the_world/)

~~~
agumonkey
I remember something called like frontpage or coverage effect; by the time
mainstream people talk about something big, it peaked.

~~~
hodgesrm
It's a well-known superstition in sports:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_Illustrated_cover_jinx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_Illustrated_cover_jinx).

~~~
agumonkey
thanks, didn't know the english idiom

------
keane
Pinker wants to establish metrics to evaluate the state of the world. Once he
establishes the metrics, he wants to show that the state of the world is
improving over time. Showing improvement by these metrics, he wants us to
celebrate this. This is easy to appreciate. He is right. There really are
large differences in living and these differences are commonly experienced as
better. There is real cause for celebration and continued efforts at
improvement. If this were all he was doing, his book might be universally
praised.

But despite the truth of his cited facts, Pinker makes many common errors in
reasoning when he attempts to claim sweeping philosophical conclusions from
his series of empirical observations.

You can see Pinker's faulty thinking in his attempt to define progress: "What
is progress? You might think that the question is so subjective and culturally
relative as to be forever unanswerable… Most people agree that life is better
than death. Health is better than sickness… All these things can be measured.
If they have increased over time, that is progress."

Progress may exist. It is not established by whether most people agree on
something or not. That the majority believes something to be the case, does
not make the thing the case. It does inform us, namely of how humans
experience the something but it does not establish the something to be the
case.

He repeats this error moments later: "Granted, not every one would agree on
the exact list."

Whether every one did agree on the exact list wouldn't change the situation.
That 100% of Earth believed X would not make X the case.

He follows this with a fallacy: "If you’re reading this, you are not dead,
starving, destitute, moribund, terrified, enslaved, or illiterate, which means
that you’re in no position to turn your nose up at these values."

This is a cute display of polemic but not a valid argument. The fact that I
can read, does not establish that reading is good. Reading may be good but
whether reading is good or not is not at all determined by whether I can read
or not. His sentence here is something that _seems that way_ but is not true
(my freedom does not establish what I must value).

He continues with his previous rule-of-majority error: "As it happens, the
world does agree on these values. In the year 2000, all 189 members of the
United Nations, together with two dozen international organizations, agreed on
eight Millennium Development Goals for the year 2015 that blend right into
this list."

Again, even if all 7 billion people expressed that they believe "murder is
wrong" this would not establish that murder is wrong.

This isn't to say that murder is not wrong. It's just to say that pointing out
what humans do cannot establish what is wrong. Murder is wrong objectively
(independent of human minds and their opinions and perceptions) or it is not
wrong at all. Anything else is merely observation of what humans happen to
hold or happen to practice. Pinker, Sam Harris, and others on the TED stage
attempt to ignore this troublesome hindrance to the worldview they promote,
dismissing it with a wave of their hand when it is raised and moving along
with their presentation. The widely-held feelings and sentiments of humans
everywhere do tell us something, just not what Pinker and Harris suggest:
there is an intrinsic understanding of right and wrong in every human and we
should pay attention that this is present. But this doesn't change the
situation that values are objective realities or they are merely subjective
whims/emotions/opinions (and may be treated like all other
whims/emotions/opinions: ignored).

Pinker as a discussion of _what is happening_ –fine, useful, needed. Pinker
suggesting both that many values many humans happen to hold should be held and
on this basis and that those who notice this is not philosophically sound are
simply pessimists–laughable.

~~~
kleer001
> if all 7 billion people expressed that they believe "murder is wrong" this
> would not establish that murder is wrong.

How else do you propose we establish morality if not by consensus?

~~~
keane
Options vary. The first option is to admit defeat and adopt Moral Nonrealism.
Most of academia and global intelligentsia have done this; Pinker finds them
frustrating as fuddy-duddy spoilsports for insisting on logically-sound
conclusions.

The other option is to adopt Moral Realism (ie, Theism). This won't please
Pinker either.

I explain more about this at [http://liamk.org/is-love-
real](http://liamk.org/is-love-real) and in my comment history on this site.

Lawyer and political commentator Ben Shapiro also explains this on the
libertarian-themed and ethics-focused show _The Rubin Report_ here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9IwamztdqA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9IwamztdqA)

~~~
kleer001
Somehow I knew you were going to lean on theism, I should have put that in my
comment, oh well.

Nuts to that. I live in the real world.

The actual action of morality can have no basis except consensus. Biology is
morality free as is physics. Even if you insist there's a "pure" moral law
somewhere you still have to enforce it or it's a toothless theory. Then to
enforce it you really have to get down to brass tacks and democracy.

~~~
keane
_> The actual action of morality can have no basis except consensus._

If we said this, what we'd be saying is roughly "what a society does in
aggregate is based on what the majority of individuals in a society agree to
do" (a tautology).

 _> Biology is morality free as is physics._

Exactly! Moral facts cannot be determined by empirical observation. If you
limited yourself to empirical observation ("Empiricism") as you seem to do,
you are left with Moral Nonrealism.

 _> Even if you insist there's a "pure" moral law somewhere you still have to
enforce it or it's a toothless theory._

What's in question is "do morals facts exist". You're saying "Alright, if
moral facts exist they'd need to be enforced by a society _in order to ensure
the society complied with them_ ". This is true; but in the same way that the
society's acknowledgement that the moral facts exist doesn't change their
existence, the society's enforcement of them also doesn't affect if they exist
or what they are.

 _> Then to enforce it you really have to get down to brass tacks and
democracy._

Democracy is one way that certain societies have chosen to organise
themselves. They are often very effective at enforcing what a society believes
to be correct. But this isn't disputed. What humans do –what they believe,
what they say, what ethics they choose to conduct themselves by, how they
organise with each other to enforce agreed upon norms– and whether these
behaviors help them survive or thrive–is not in contention. These are just
observations of what humans do (anthropology, etc).

For Ben Shapiro's explanation, you can see the video starting at 45:44 through
59:20. As he puts it, "you don't get to burn down my house and then use the
planks from my house to build your own philosophy". Here's a link to just that
section:
[https://www.youtube.com/embed/s9IwamztdqA?start=2744&end=356...](https://www.youtube.com/embed/s9IwamztdqA?start=2744&end=3560)

~~~
kleer001
> Exactly! Moral facts cannot be determined by empirical observation.

I didn't say that at all. Moral facts can be (can only be) found by empirical
observation. The observation of what _PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO_. Anything else is
academic masturbation. Sure, you can ask people and take their answers with a
grain of salt, but you'll be running around in tautological circle diving
morals from ancient books or poetic 'truths'.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I didn't say that at all. Moral facts can be (can only be) found by
> empirical observation. The observation of what PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO.

That renders the “moral” part meaningless. What is moral is what people
_ought_ to do, irrespective of what they actually do. Now, you can argue that
morality is a null concept, and thus “morsl facts” is necessarily an empty set
(and if you start with a premise of strict materialism, this conclusion is
inevitable; there is only “is”, no “ought”), but you can't coherently argue
that moral facts both exist and can be determined by empirical observation of
behavior.

~~~
kleer001
I heartily disagree. You're chasing a ghost.

Morality is how people react to what is done, how they enforce the rules and
such. That's the "doing" I'm pointing at. I'm sorry if that was unclear in my
initial statement. It seems you may have thought I was assuming perfect moral
behavior from all people. No, that's silly. People are cheating trash, lol.
Not all the time, of course, but it's in the grain.

Morality is as fractal as truth is, entirely dependent on the depth of
questions being asked, the edge of inside and outside determined on the number
of iterations. And morality is certainly not something to be determined in the
vacuum of thought, it's a gritty, dirty, and nasty thing with edges in the
slow slime and quick muck, it's ornate and like the rest of reality.

> but you can't coherently argue that physical facts both exist and can be
> determined by empirical observation...

Heh-heh, gotcha! ;)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Morality is how people react to what is done

That is a loose description of one sense of the word, but not the sense
associated with “moral facts” in its usual use. “Morality” can refer to either
“what ought to be done” or to “beliefs about what ought to be done”; the
elements of the former (if they exist as facts, a point which is a matter of
substantial dispute) are “moral facts”; the elements of the latter are “facts
about morality” or, more clearly, “facts about moral sentiments”. The latter
indisputably exist and are normal material facts subject to empirical inquiry,
but they aren't the same thing as the former, nor (even assuming the former
exist) do they have any necessary relationship to the former.

~~~
kleer001
Beliefs matter nothing next to action.

Especially if you want to get something done or make a statement that can be
proven false about the world as it is.

Electrons don't believe anything, but you can pretend they do, if you like.

------
rsbartram
A great read. So is this one. - [https://latechnews.org/create-winning-
corporate-venture-capi...](https://latechnews.org/create-winning-corporate-
venture-capital-fund/)

~~~
igravious
Wow – waaaay off-topic.

------
halfnibble
Does the author cover the spectacular lifestyles and living conditions that
Dear Leader has gifted to the people of North Korea? Just curious.

------
mengibar10
"...we are living in the most peaceful time in human history..."

Tell that to the people in Iraq. Under phony pretext their country was
invaded, over a million people died. Destabilizing the whole middle east is
still in full swing arming non-state entities, even groups which are in the
terror organizations list (YPG, PKK, etc.)

A bomb blasts and kills 100 people in Afghanistan and it is not even news
anymore.

It hurts when these claims come from an American.

