Half Full: The History and Bright Future of 10,000 Years of Optimism

The world is not going to hell. America is not staring into an abyss, there is no third world war looming on the horizon, and this is not the golden age of pessimism. There is every reason to worry about climate change, violence and fake news peddlers, but history is made by optimists, not by pessimists. For 10,000 years already.

Once our ancestors figured out how to cook their food, they shrunk their intestines and quadrupled their brain size. And they wondered, what else can we improve? At...