What odd times to live in!
Just try to reconcile this . . .
https://stevenpinker.com/publications/enlightenment-now-case-reason-science-humanism-and-progress
. . . with this:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/03/civilization-ending-climate-change-is-knocking-on-our-door/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/03/the-fall-of-tunisia-last-of-the-arab-spring-nations/
[The answer to the conundrum, of course (though not understood by Pinker), is that we live at the peak of all the “progressive” trajectories. Those trajectories have yielded an awful lot. To the point of awful hypertrophy. Utter overshoot. Pending collapse.]