{"id":3528,"date":"2016-12-29T06:53:50","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T14:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=3528"},"modified":"2016-12-29T06:53:50","modified_gmt":"2016-12-29T14:53:50","slug":"conditional-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=3528","title":{"rendered":"Conditional Optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The link below is something to cheer us all up. Pinker is a smart cookie, if there ever was one. Cognitive psychologist at Harvard who always surprises with a new turn in his research topic choices. The Language Instinct” (1994) <\/em>was one of his earlier books that was fun. These days he writes about\u00a0aggression,\u00a0<\/em>The Better Angels of our Nature<\/em>, (2011) and how the mind works in general. Books that can be understood and are certainly of value to a general audience.<\/p>\n

Here is a quote from the interview below:<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve never been \u201coptimistic\u201d in the sense of just seeing the glass as half-full \u2014 only in the sense of looking at trend lines rather than headlines. It\u2019s irrational both to ignore good developments and to put a happy face on bad ones.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As it happens, most global, long-term trends have been positive. As for the future, I like the distinction drawn by the economist\u00a0Paul Romer\u00a0between\u00a0complacent\u00a0optimism, the feeling of a child waiting for presents, and\u00a0conditional\u00a0optimism, the feeling of a child who wants a treehouse and realizes that if he gets some wood and nails and persuades other kids to help him, he can build one. I am not complacently optimistic about the future; I am conditionally optimistic.”<\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.vox.com\/science-and-health\/2016\/12\/22\/14042506\/steven-pinker-optimistic-future-2016<\/a><\/p>\n

So folk, let’s congregate to figure out how to build the equivalent of a treehouse starting 1\/20\/2017.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe these are still ahead, after all.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The link below is something to cheer us all up. Pinker is a smart cookie, if there ever was one. Cognitive psychologist at Harvard who always surprises with a new turn in his research topic choices. The Language Instinct” (1994) was one of his earlier books that was fun. These days he writes about\u00a0aggression,\u00a0The Better […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nConditional Optimism - YDP - your daily picture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=3528\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conditional Optimism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The link below is something to cheer us all up. 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