Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?
I feel like we are living in uniquely pessimistic times, at least when compared to the last ~70 years. The world order is being challenged, and not for the better. Massive geopolitcal problems are ahead with no good prospects - continuing Russian aggression in Europe, looming aggression in Taiwan, gloomy prospects over Iran nuclear situation. The US may well see a new civil war in the next few decades. Demographics, particularly in Europe, are not looking good. There are climate change risks to look forward to. Deglobalisation will lead to less global economic efficiency/prosperity. Tech advancement appears to have stagnated, and in any case the dream of technological innovation making tomorrow better has been replaced with the reality of tech making a lot of our lives worse, disconnecting people, pitting people against each other, hijacking our attention. Culturally, we seem to be getting worse at getting along with each other. Generally, we seem to have given up on making things better overall, and instead just focus on trying to prevent bad/worse outcomes. I can't remember when I last saw someone outline a positive vision of the world we are building with a rough idea of how to get there - mostly, anything referring to the future is some cyberpunk dystopia.
Given all the above, what makes you optimistic about the future? Why do you believe that the world of tomorrow will be better than the world of today? What do you look forward to in the world of the future?
220 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 245 ms ] threadOn the face of it that sounds like "wahey, sexy fun!", but if you consider it for a second you're actually suggesting a life without a real relationship with another person which is beyond depressing. If that tech becomes mainstream humanity has a major problem.
None of those things stop people having relationships.
Energy inefficient, contradiction, evil big tech nightmare, creepy, inflationary.
* I'm guessing the GP meant "currently incurable diseases", so pointing out the supposed contradiction isn't very helpful.
* You're right that strong regulation would be needed to prevent the captured data from being auto-uploaded to the cloud, and even that might not be enough if it means all our embarrassing semi-public moments are sitting on the hard drives of strangers, ready to be used as blackmail material or sold for viral views to some social media algorithm.
* Tax them heavily except for people who are permanently lonely (and require them to have therapy too).
* Do you also think that countries shouldn't have a minimum wage? I assure you that a world with 50% unemployment and no UBI will be much worse than one with 10% inflation.
From my perspective lots of stuff looks grim and increasingly people seem just resigned to it.
Microtransactions required to activate heated seats in your car. The threat that companies will sell your period tracking information. Health providers "sharing" data with Google. Amazon products mapping and doing image recognition on the items in your home or providing video police without a warrant...
Yet we don't really seem to care at all. All the while, this data is repackaged and sold to advertisers who use it to amplify fringe messages designed to foster outrage, fear, and hate at each other rather than at them.
When I was younger, people used to fear that your phone was listening to you or that your tv might allow someone to watch you in your home... now, those things are product features.
Really only my kids give me any hope for the future.
I'm sorry, but the fact that this is the first thing you list under "grim" is just comical to me. This isn't even a 1st world problem, this is a 0.1-world problem.
It really doesn’t take a genius to see how all those things will come together on the near future. A subscription to heated seats is merely an example of where things are clearly headed.
The logical endpoint is that my car just charges me per use for what I use. No money down, no repair cost, no buying a new one. Just like flying: I buy a ticket, I’m done. I’m not maintaining a 737.
Some might prefer that, and at any rate it’s not an example of OMG the world is going straight to hell.
Laissez-faire capitalists will tell you that the solution to this is perfect competition. I'll observe, though, that perfect competition doesn't seem to have thrived in many industries. I'd guess that one cause is that no one (particularly investors) wants a business with razor-thin margins.
If you don't believe that consolidation will lead to fewer options and an imbalance of power in more industries, look at the history of today's monopolies. Look also at the advice that investors like Peter Thiel give to startups in books like Zero to One.
It's ok if you don't want to own a car, and just want to drive it. Just stop calling it "your car" then.
I thought we would have some control over how the world turned out, but no, if there is an opportunity to extract money, I'll be forever at the losing end of that equation. I want to opt out in a system that provides no means to do so.
I wish there was a way to identify and protest the product managers in charge of making these decisions. Hell, I'd pay to subscribe to that service.
Paying a subscription charge for heated seats is just the tip of the iceberg example from today's headlines.
It is an exemplar of the rot in our society that increasingly demonstrates the items you purchase you don't own nor can you repair them and that no meaningful privacy exists.
Perhaps this less "first world" example that follows from the same rot will appease you.
Once upon a time, farmers owned the equipment and seeds they purchased and harvested. Now, they own nothing.
Try reselling or harvesting and re-planing seeds from your crop this year and Monsanto will see you in court even if those crops grew from seeds carried onto your property by the wind. Those seeds and all future generations belong to them not the farmer.
But if they deactivate the prepaid extras when you sell the car, that would be pure evil.
People used to laugh at Stallman, but increasingly it seems like he was actually a prophet of what's to come.
Because the world of today is mostly better than the world of the past. OK, sure, you can find (or manufacture) counter-points to that by being extremely selective in what you consider "the past", but on balance, technological and social/cultural advancement have made the world a better place. So there are some peaks and valleys in a graph of some hypothetical "world happiness / goodness" index, but so what? If the long-term trend is "better", I'm not too bothered by the idea that "right now" is a local minima.
What do you look forward to in the world of the future?
* The continued advancement of mRNA technology, to enable rapid development of vaccines for new diseases, and new treatments for existing conditions
* Fusion power to provide nearly limitless, clean, cheap energy
* Improvements in desalinization technology to make clean fresh-water more readily available
* Nearly ubiquitous electric vehicles that use the clean energy from fusion (and solar) to provide transport without spewing carbon into the atmosphere
* Even better AI to develop new drugs, and newer, lighter, stronger building materials, and better battery chemistries, etc.
* More advances in genetic engineering to enable the creation of better crops that can, e.t. withstand drought conditions better, to stabilize food supplies, etc.
And so on. Generally, I'm bullish on what technology can do for us. What I'm less bullish on is human nature and our ability to use newer technologies wisely. But even there, I think that we, as a race, will eventually "grow up" and find ways to avoid some of our own self-destructive tendencies. Maybe that part is wishful thinking, but it's where I'm at right now.
I'm reminded of something I read, I think it was in Engines of Creation[1] where the author made the following point about technological advancement (possibly paraphrased slightly due to faulty memory): "If a technological advancement isn't fundamentally impossible under the laws of physics, then the only question is when it will happen, not if it will happen."
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_of_Creation
But we do have a great upcoming source of cheap energy from the big fusion reactor in the sky. Solar power has been dropping in cost 80% per decade for the last 50 years, and that looks to continue for at least the rest of this decade.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32101957
Many species, and viruses too, have population-level boom-bust cycles. Maybe humans will self-destruct enough to wipe out a fair number of us and our impacts will dwindle for a few millennia. It'd be cool if other species took the reins for a bit.
What gives me hope is that we shouldn't be the end of evolution, just another step along the way. Maybe someday a better homo will replace us, or AI, or aliens, or just us, evolved more.
I don't think there's anything more we can do about homo sapiens in particular; we've reached our biological limits when it comes to ability to cooperate and think on a global scale. Either we improve the species at the biological level or we're just gonna keep having the same issues, amplified by new technologies but beholden to our primitive minds.
So hopefully we'll get replaced soon!
Life, uh, finds a way :D
But yeah, I don't think there's any saving our species anymore, I just hope enough of us perish soon so other beings can have a shot. Maybe we can go through a dinosaur-like mass extinction and transformation, where our version of "birds" millions of years later can still be very successful even without dominating.
But really, what do you expect of a species barely differentiated from chimps? Genocide and in-group obsession is in our blood; we are cursed by our genes. It would be cool if something like super-smart ants took over for a while. Or flying dolphins.
> Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life
However to the extent that any of us might, just might, be able to help steer this civilization out of the death spiral it seems currently locked into -- such a correction will, almost by definition, require a very strong degree of (the right kind of) optimism. If we just say "F it", and give into pessimism -- we won't have any chance at all.
Therefore, from rationalist first principles -- we might as well go with optimism. In fact if the current situation we're in can be thought of as an evolutionary test -- then it is one that is selecting for 3 traits: (1) intelligence, (2) ability to cooperate, and (3) optimism (again, of a certain "right kind" that I don't have time to go into at present).
I realize this argument sounds a bit pat (like Anselm's argument for the existence of God), but I do think there's a lot more substance to it.
Especially as nations learn that once you’re a nuclear power you’re respected on the world stage.
How do you honestly come back from this? I’m genuinely curious because until some technology can be made to prevent this, it’s the only existential threat that can happen at any moment.
- obviously we have new pitfalls our ancestors didn't ... but when was this not true for the human species? there's always been adjustment periods to new social changes and technology. The printing press created one heck of an information upheaval that changed power structures of institutions and nations, and yet it's considered a net good now.
- On a more individual scale, the human brain for some has a tendency to always need to worry or be anxious about Something. The ancients were simply anxious about other things. This has been a thought that's helped me from negativity getting in the way of the potential positives I could accomplish.
- "if it bleeds, it leads" is one of the truest quips about the news I've heard and seen. Simply logging off of news and focusing on local connections will do wonders for the mindset. What you see on TV does not equate to reality.
And lastly, some may feel this quote is overly twee, but the older I get the more it rings true:
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. '" - Mr. Rogers
"was"?
I've been telling people this for like over a decade and they don't think I'm joking, there is a hint of seriousness to this though. I mean these are all things that killed a relatively lower amount of people, stuff we could bounce back from and adapt to basically - it wasn't like the prospect of any of the things you listed basically means all life on earth is completely screwed over for centuries and centuries until cockroaches become sentient or whatever.
At least if you get in a fight with a huge cat you have a chance of killing it with your bare hands [1]
[1] https://youtu.be/vXr_1KqZtAY
[1] https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/50349/20220416/huma...
Gimme the cat. I'll take agonizing hours over days.
2. Again, the internet has been around for some time, and it was arguably better 10-15 years ago. Old message boards and old YouTube are certainly better than modern Twitter, TikTok, instagram 'influencers'. Yes, there was plenty of rubbish on the internet back then too, but at least we knew it was rubbish - now it is mainstream culture.
3. Logging off the news will not switch off the big risk that will affect all of us, like the stuff I outlined in the original post. But yes, at least it will help with worrying about things outside your control. Still, that is kind of saying "yes, there are few reasons to be optimistic, the world is getting worse - find ways of dealing with it".
- less reliance on gasoline / fossil fuels for energy
- waking up from wishful thinking about China / Russia
- we invented brand new medical tech to handle Covid, which maybe could open all kinds of fronts in fighting other diseases
Except that we didn't work to maintain what we had. Education systems were gutted, public infrastructure was sold off to the highest bidder (Bayh-Dole act, every privatization of government services that followed), maintenance was deferrred (many roads and bridges are deteriorating in both Europe and the USA, 80% of nuclear plants in operation today will reach EOL in roughly ten years without replacement).
Yes, periods of prolonged prosperity aren't unique, and they always end in one of two ways: destruction or decadence. Take your pick.
for almost a hundred years we've seen each generation get wealthier
This isn't true. The last generation to be wealthier than their parents were the baby boomers: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charting-the-growing-genera... . The average wealth per person has been decimated since then: Generation X is only half as wealthy as baby boomers, while the average millennial is ten times less wealthy than a boomer. And this isn't just because of their current age:
> In 1989, Baby Boomers and Generation X under 40 accounted for 13% of household wealth, compared to just 5.9% for Millennials and Generation Z under 40 in 2020.
So in 30 years time, the younger generation lost over half its wealth to the older generation.
Daily flights from earth to nearby planets. 99 percent of all diseases cured (other than hourly Covid variants). Universal Income for nearly all. Limitless energy.
We've just had a stark lesson on how important the price of energy is to our economy. In the future, the opposite is going to happen. The price of solar power has been dropping about 80% per decade for the last 50 years or so, and it looks like that is going to continue for the rest of this decade at least. It hasn't had a significant impact yet because solar has been more expensive than alternatives, but we've reached the crossing point, and solar power is now cheaper.
Energy is a major direct and indirect input into the price of pretty much everything.
Some people are going to figure out some good ways of turning cheap intermittent power into dollars, and those people are going to make a ton of money, dragging the rest of the economy with it.
(Unless of course that mechanism is completely useless, like crypto).
The other major factor, of course, being land.
While I don't expect many major economies to implement a Land Value Tax in the near term, to balance out these costs more fairly among citizens and corporations, it's worth noting that we are about to see peak population being reached in China [2025] and the EU [2026], which may have interesting macro-economic effects.
[2025] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/china-s-p...
[2026] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
Labor is the other big component.
Yet in other parts of the country people pay that for 1000 square feet.
The fact that people aren't building skyscrapers or gold mines in "much of the country" doesn't mean that there isn't high demand for housing or precious metals.
I would be interested to know, for example, how much energy would cost if there were unlimited free space (with good weather and topography) for installing solar panels within easy transmission distance from all energy consumers.
In that sense, energy prices are dependent on land prices.
We should focus more on how to avoid long-tail blackouts than how to profit from periods of abundance, particularly as electricity becomes critical for transportation and heating, which have traditionally relied on fuels that are easy to store.
Best time to be alive, so far; but a hundred years from now, it'll probably be even better, except for all the naysayers talking about how cheap fusion is going to drain the oceans in 100,000 years, and decrying that the poorest people are stuck with substandard personal holovids.
In the end life isn't perfect, but it generally has gotten better
I agree with your point, but people take this as a given (that because things are better now they will keep improving). It can get worse, and it doesn't need to bounce back in the long run.
That said, in the early 1900s we had a similar thing going on and Roosevelt convinced the wealthy to share a little bit of their wealth with the common people, and that sort of worked out. I think it likely that the modern day oligarchs will make similar decisions.
This is likely to take the form of universal basic income, a 'smart' digital currency that can be turned off for people who don't do what they are supposed to, and it is likely that common people owning any meaningful amount of property will probably go away also.
So, where is the optimism? I believe that advances in science, massive automation, increasingly fun technology like VR and AR, more time for family and friends, will still provide a decent life for most people on the planet.
I think there are a lot of good things happening. There's finally progress on climate repair (tiny, but nonzero) which means we may have more time to fix things.
The last 40 years of entrenched bullshit is finally tottering due to its geriatric constituency, so I think there's a good chance for positive change on the horizon. And even the re-emergence of some of the worst people (let's just aggregate them into "the racist shitheads") I see as a positive sign: they were always around, but in the background. Now they have emerged because it's clear they are on the wrong side of history and they know that if they do nothing they will be greatly diminished.
There's no gleaming path to the future like you used to see in glossy utopian pictures in the 1970s. It will be bumpy. But overall I think the derivative is positive.
I'm not sure the USA will get its shit together, but it's only about 4% of the world's population.
I was also a kid in the 70s and while it did seem pretty gloomy then, I think people are gloomier about the future now.
> And even the re-emergence of some of the worst people (let's just aggregate them into "the racist shitheads")
In the 70s there were racist shitheads, but they were pretty afraid to come out into the sunlight. Now they're just out in the open. I think I liked it better when they felt like they had to hide.
The other thing about the 70s compared to now: it felt like pretty much everyone was on the same page back then. There wasn't right-wing news and left-wing news, there was just news.
Just out of curiosity, who are we talking about here? And are we sure it's not just because of more coverage? Lots of racist stuff that would have gone completely unnoticed in the 70s now makes national news.
I'm sure many of the marchers happened to be racist but I'm not sure that can be characterized as the main point or driver of why they were there.
You can definitely make the case that a lot of Trump supporters are driven by reactionary racial attitudes, but it's not quite the same as open racial intimidation with white robes and burning crosses.
The last thing I can think of like that was Charlottesville 2017. That went pretty badly for the racists and AFAIK they failed to stage any meaningful follow-up.
Some white supremacists tried to join an anti-abortion demonstration earlier this year and they got booed out.
Perhaps in part due to the revocation of the FCC fairness doctrine [0] in 1987. I wasn't old enough to understand what news broadcasting was like _before_ this, and there are some criticisms of the doctrine, but what we have now _feels_ so much worse.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
[0] Here's one from '79: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvX25IG4tvY
If they want to get with the program they'll have to do something about a giant portion of the population being horrible people. I don't know what to say about solutions regarding that but then again I go as far as pretending not to speak English when I encounter people from there while abroad so I don't have to have any bullshit. If I can sus them out as being alright (No utterance of bigotry as I hear them talk in English is a big one, basic international etiquette like not interrupting people on an automatic basis over everyone else in the room is too), I might be OK with them but otherwise it's just way, way more trouble than it's worth to bother too hard on that when there's a giant world of people who don't act like that.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peUYpHbuu5w
> a giant portion of the population being horrible people
If everyone you meet is a jerk, maybe it's time to look in the mirror.
I'd like to add something - a quote amusingly often misattributed to Sigmund Freud or William Gibson, although probably just from someone on Twitter [1] - "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."
[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/10/25/diagnose/
Separately from that, you can't post this sort of flamewar comment to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. We ban accounts that post like this, so please don't.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I think it's too early to tell if we've just replaced a medium risk of a medium scale tragedy with a low risk of an unimaginably bad tragedy.
There were two world wars last century, and we're not even a quarter of the way through this one yet.
Sure the stock market is doing poorly. The stock market isn't the economy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-tim...
Perhaps a reason to be optimistic is that this trend will reverse, but it is hard to see a road to that. In the medium term, we are looking at a large population of retirees to be supported by a dwindling working population, that are also faced with servicing a massive debt that the older generation accumulated; at the same time faced by a rising challenger nation. That sounds like it could be dreadful, actually.