but david hume, spinoza, there were avid stu d e nts of hume, spinoza, there were avid students of humans and institutions that would work around for our dhaka impulses so those impulses are over with us. —— dark. impulses so those impulses are over with us. -- dark. you are saying that we need to understand that as human beings have never had it so good and that in terms of statistics on world hunger, on poverty, on loss of life to warfare, that things are rather wonderful on our planet today and that is not the way many people in both the developed and developing world actually sit and experience of the world? that is right. as long as tragedy and problems have not been reduced to zero, there will always be enough of them to feel the news and since we are driven by anecdotes and since we are driven by anecdotes and narratives rather than data, u nless we and narratives rather than data, unless we see the data, we can miss the fantastic progress. not uniformly... we cannot dismiss half of all syrians, i2 uniformly... we cannot dismiss half of all syrians, 12 million people, being displa

but enlightenment thinkers like hume, like spinoza, like adam smith, like the american founders, theyof human nature and they were all too aware of human flaws and they proposed norms and institutions that were work arounds for our darker impulses so those impulses are always with us and at various times in history they do predominate. but if i understand your most recent book, enlightenment now, correctly, you are saying that we need to understand that we as human beings have never had it so good and that in terms of statistics on world hunger, on poverty, on loss of life to warfare, that really things are rather wonderful on our planet today and that is not the way many people in both the developed and developing worlds actually see and experience of the world? that is right. as long as tragedy and problems have not been reduced to zero, there will always be enough of them to fill the news and since our sense of risk and probability is driven by anecdotes and images and narratives rather than by data, unless we actually see the data, we can miss the fantastic progress that has been

but enlightenment thinkers like hume, like spinoza, like adam smith, like the american founders, theystitutions that were work arounds for our darker impulses so those impulses are always with us and at various times in history they do predominate. but if i understand your most recent book, enlightenment now, to warfare, that really things are rather wonderful on our planet today and that is not the way many people in both the developed and developing worlds actually see and experience of the world? that is right. as long as tragedy and problems have not been reduced to zero, there will always be enough of them to fill the news and since our sense of risk and probability is driven by anecdotes and images and narratives rather than by data, unless we actually see the data, we can miss the fantastic progress that has been made. not uniformly, progress isn't magic... we cannot surely dismiss half of all syrians, that is 12 million people, being displaced on their homes, many hundreds of thousands killed. we cannot dismiss that as some sort of unimportant bleep in the data. absolutely not