Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (Summary)
Every day, the news screams about violence, poverty, and disaster. It feels like the world is falling apart. But what if that feeling is wrong? What if, statistically, you are living in the most peaceful, prosperous, and healthy era in human history? The data says you are, and it's not even close.
Your News Feed Is Lying to You
The nature of news is to report on sudden, negative events, not gradual, positive trends. This creates a systematically pessimistic view of the world that is not supported by data.
A plane crash that kills 150 people is front-page news, but the 100,000 successful flights that happen every single day are not. In the same way, the 137,000 people who escape extreme poverty every day go completely unreported.
Humanity's Great Escape from Poverty
For most of human history, nearly everyone was desperately poor. The last 200 years have seen a dramatic and unprecedented decline in extreme poverty worldwide, thanks to the engine of the Industrial Revolution.
In 1820, 90% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. Today, that number has fallen to less than 10%, even as the world's population has increased sevenfold.
You're Living in the Most Peaceful Era in History
Despite the perception of constant conflict, the likelihood of an individual dying a violent death has plummeted over centuries as states gained a monopoly on force and trade made other people more valuable alive than dead.
A person living in 14th-century England had about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being murdered in a given year. Today, in modern England, that chance is less than 1 in 100,000—a hundredfold decrease in the risk of homicide.
Progress Isn't Magic—It's a Choice
The immense progress we've seen is not a natural law; it's the direct result of applying Enlightenment ideals like reason and science to solve human problems. These ideals must be actively defended against forces of tribalism, authoritarianism, and magical thinking.
The eradication of smallpox wasn't an accident. It was the result of a deliberate, decades-long global vaccination campaign driven by scientific discovery and international cooperation—a triumph of humanism that saved an estimated 150-200 million lives in the 20th century alone.
