The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Humanity is experiencing an extraordinary burst of evolutionary change, driven by good old-fashioned Darwinian natural selection. But it is selection among ideas, not among genes.

Then there appeared upon the earth a new kind of hominid, which refused to play by the rules. Without any changes in its body, and without any succession of species, it just kept changing its habits. For the first time its technology changed faster than its anatomy. This was an evolutionary novelty, and you are it.

First, I need to convince you that human progress has, on balance, been a good thing, and that, despite the constant temptation to moan, the world is as good a place to live as it has ever been for the average human being – even now in a deep recession.

The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella).

At some point, human intelligence became collective and cumulative in a way that happened to no other animal.

Random violence makes the news precisely because it is so rare, routine kindness does not make the news precisely because it is so commonplace.

Отдельные случаи насилия становят­ся горячими новостями именно потому, что представляют собой исключение из правила. Обыденная доброта «новостей не дела­ет», но как раз потому, что вошла в повседневность.

Как мне приходилось замечать, у целого класса людей восхищение своей мудростью вызывает не тот, кто питает надежду, когда другие впадают в уныние, а тот, кто питает уныние, когда другие впадают в надежду.
Джон Стюарт Милль.