Bridging the optimism gap

The book is well worth reading nonetheless (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both say they loved it) and the broad theses seems like an excellent antidote to the global pandemic of pessimism

Enlightenment Now 

The case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress 

Steven Pinker 

Allen Lane

556 pages; Rs 699

Most people suffer from a form of cognitive dissonance that behavioural scientists call the “Optimism Gap”. Individuals are usually optimistic about their own future, while being pessimistic about the future of their country, and the world. The optimism gap is pan-global, and it’s been validated in survey after survey across decades.  

This optimism gap is one of the quirks in our thought processes that leads a solid majority of people to assume that the world is going from bad to worse. Other biases, such as the “Availability Bias”