Every measurable dimension of human life has improved — dramatically, overwhelmingly, and almost unbelievably. Here's the proof, in 12 chapters.
Start Reading →Every single day, I open my phone and it's the same parade. The world is ending. Democracy is dying. The economy is collapsing. Our kids have no future. We're all screwed and someone — doesn't matter who — is to blame.
And every single day, I have the same thought: Are you people out of your minds?
Not because problems don't exist. They do. Not because there isn't real suffering in the world. There is. But because the relentless, breathless, algorithmically optimized drumbeat of doom has completely disconnected people from the most basic, provable, inarguable reality of being alive right now:
You are living in the greatest period of human existence that has ever occurred on this planet. And it's not even close.
That's not optimism. That's not spin. That's not some Pollyanna nonsense. That is what the data says — overwhelmingly, across virtually every measurable dimension of human life — and if you can't see it, it's because you've let a 6-inch screen replace your ability to think.