Pinker “great” vs. Ophuls “awful”

It’s almost an unbelievable phenomenon to observe such diametrically opposed evaluations of Where Things Are At.

Steven Pinker is on record as saying: “The truth of history is that human flourishing has been enhanced in measure after measure. Things are better than ever — and getting better all the time — because our society embraced the ideals of the Enlightenment: that through knowledge, reason, and science we can enhance human flourishing.”

Meanwhile, in his book Apologies to the Grandchildren, William Ophuls writes: “We are bequeathing to our grandchildren a ruined planet that dooms them to a hardscrabble existence, or perhaps none at all.”

A possible explanation could be this: In a typical Ponzi scheme, things can look best just before the crash.

Apropos of that, Ophuls begins his book this way: “Civilization is, by its very nature, a long-running Ponzi scheme. It lives by robbing nature and borrowing from the future, exploiting its hinterland until there is nothing left to exploit, after which it implodes. While it still lives, it generates a temporary and fictitious surplus.”

I’d love to see a debate between them.