Launching today
A History of Optimism
2,600 Years of History Disproving Doom
2 followers
2,600 Years of History Disproving Doom
2 followers
Twenty-six centuries of evidence that people, taken together, leave the world better than they found it, from the first arguments in Athens to the engineers now teaching machines to think.
A History of Optimism is available for free online, with no paywall or login etc etc. It's a book // long-form article you read in the browser: a prologue, 18 chapters, and a coda covering about 2,600 years, from the first arguments in Athens to the engineers now teaching machines to think.
Each chapter covers one turn in our story. The printing press, open water, the scientific method, steam, medicine, the moon, silicon. Every picture is public domain or CC0, from places like the Met, the Rijksmuseum, the Library of Congress, and NASA. Every chapter is sourced, with 313 sources in total, all listed at the end and linked chapter by chapter.
I made it because a lot of folks usually argue the case for optimism badly, or not at all; but I think the record is better than our collective doom-spreading mood. Taken together, people keep leaving the world better than they found it. Not every person, and certainly not every year, but over the long run, again and again, we keep getting better.
I wanted one place that lays out that evidence.
I'm an optimist at heart, and I hope you are too.