Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by boxed 1403 days ago
This comment is a text book case of projection. Everything written above is 100% true of the comment itself. Critical but without substance. Looks down their nose but not realizing they are lying on their back and actually lookup UP.

The original article and Pinker are quite clear: there are HUGE problems to be solved. Theirs is not a philosophy of complacency, but of hard work. REAL hard work that can actually SUCCEED. Unlike complaining, and unlike just ignoring the problem, and unlike pretending everything is getting worse when we know it isn't.

1 comments

> Pinker are quite clear: there are HUGE problems to be solved

That's... not the impression I get from reading Pinker. On the contrary, he has an infuriating habit of presenting "x is getting better" shortly after bashing a straw man version of the groups working hardest to make x better. Everyone from civil rights activists to software developers who worked on on the Millennium Bug were, in Pinker's eyes, committing the cardinal sin of Availability Bias rather than focusing on all those nice comforting trend lines pointing in the right direction.

Source?
Pinker (2018) Enlightenment Now
I was hoping for something more specific heh