On this episode Debbie talks to Steven Pinker about measuring human happiness. “It’s better to be healthy than to be sick. It’s better to be literate than illiterate. Okay, let’s measure those things over time. Have they increased since the enlightenment? And the answer is, in every case, they have.”
These days it’s easy to feel a sense of doom. Various nuclear buttons, climate change, creeping authoritarianism here and abroad. You name it. It’s scary. But there is someone who sees hope for the future. In his new book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, author Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the headlines and see the bigger picture. Health, prosperity, safety, and happiness are actually on the rise. Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist with a broad range of interests: visual cognition, psycho linguistics, and social relations. In an era of religious and political polarization Pinker argues we need science, reason, and humanism now more than ever.
For more information about Design Matters or to subscribe to the show newsletter, go to DebbieMillman.com. If you love this podcast, please consider contributing to Debbie's Drip Kickstarter community. Members get transcripts of every interview, invitations to live episodes, Q&A sessions with guests, and a brand new annual magazine. You can learn more about this at https://d.rip/debbie-millman. And if you like this podcast, please write a review on iTunes and link to the podcast on social media. Design Matters is produced by Curtis Fox Productions. The show is published exclusively by DesignObserver.com.
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