Enlightenment Now Reflection

Enlightenment Now was Bill Gates’ new favorite book of all time in 2018, so I figured it must be worth a read. Through 23 chapters, 75 charts, and 450 pages, the Harvard psychologist, Steven Pinker, lays out the data-driven and philosophical case for why humanity has consistently improved its lot over the past 250 years due to the enlightenment ideals of science, reason, humanism, and progress. This book was similar to The Great Escape (my last book reflection), but covers many more topics in slightly less detail. I love data-heavy books because they don’t need to rely on abstract arguments to make a point, and you walk away feeling like you have a better map of the world and its history. Some stats alone can change your perspective on an issue - for example, despite global warming, the number of deaths worldwide from natural disasters has been consistently declining. 

Pinker covers a lot of ground with this book. He shows that people are living longer, healthier, and happier lives than ever before. Fewer people live in abject poverty despite massive population growth and more have access to technologies that save time and enhance our ability to travel the globe. More people can get an education, purse a wide array of careers, and vote for their representatives in a democracy. Wars, genocides, homicides, hate crimes, domestic violence, lethal accidents, child labor, racism, sexism, and homophobia are all trending downward over time. 

I think Pinker’s data are compelling and should on their own give people some optimism, however, there are some important topics that he leaves out. First, he doesn’t discuss the development and expansion of factory farming during the heart of the enlightenment (mid-19th century to the present). This industry has caused unimaginable suffering to literally trillions of non-human animals and while trends in alternative proteins are promising, you’d be hard pressed to argue that things are looking good for these animals. Another trend that is left out, despite having a chapter on equal rights, is mass incarceration. From 1970 to 2019, the jailed population in the US almost tripled. Interestingly, the COVID pandemic brought this number down, but the numbers appear to be going back up. Factory farming and mass incarceration are antithetical to moral progress, and conveniently left out of this book.

I found the discussion of inequality to be intriguing. Pinker points out that many people with anti-capitalistic sentiments tend to assume that a society’s wealth is a fixed pie and that we simply need to find a way to cut it up and distribute it among people. From this perspective, one can see why we’d be upset about great inequality - the fair thing to do would be to give everyone an equal share. However, wealth is not fixed - the pie is grown through the economic activities of firms and individuals. The question is to what degree we should reward those who generate disproportionate wealth through their entrepreneurship and innovation. Pinker cites data and studies that suggest inequality in the US is not as bad as it seems, arguing that inequality can actually give people hope and something to strive for. I’m more pessimistic about rising inequality, especially in a society where money can buy power, but perhaps this subject deserves its own post in the future.

The chapter that frustrated me the most was on existential risks, which are threats that could cause all or most of humanity and its future to perish. Pinker tries to argue that while new technological developments can lead to new weapons of mass destruction, like nuclear bombs and bioweapons, they can also lead to ways of mitigating new risks, and that the latter will come faster than the former. This seems a little too optimistic to me, especially given the stakes of an existential catastrophe. While I agree that we should not act rashly over concerns about high-cost/low-probability risks, I don’t think we should take for granted that no evil actor is ever going to be able facilitate something on a massive scale. I also think that he misunderstands the concerns regarding the future of artificial intelligence, which is something that I and many others consider to be the greatest threat to humanity. I’ll save this issue for a future post as well.

Despite these critiques, I broadly agree with Pinker on most things. The world has been getting better in most ways and people are better off than at any other point in history. While we should always seek out ways to improve, we must avoid catastrophizing to the point where it seems like the only solution is to tear down the institutions that allowed us to progress in the first place. I’m afraid this happens when we focus too much on the daily news and forget to take a step back and learn some history. 

I agree that some form of utilitarian humanism is the best place to start for developing a shared ethics (although I wish the definition of humanism was clearer about its stance towards non-human animals). Pinker makes a great point that relativism is nonsensical because by its own “logic,” there would be no reason to accept an argument for relativism if nothing were objectively true. We absolutely need science and reason to make progress on real problems that affect real beings. Just because some people use pseudo-scientific reasoning to justify their heinous beliefs (i.e. eugenics), does not mean we should disavow science altogether.

I’ll end with an anecdote. Last year my friend from the Stanford Effective Altruism club met Steven Pinker at a conference and Dr. Pinker offered to come speak to our group (he is the faculty advisor for Harvard EA). This sounded like an awesome opportunity to me, however, my fellow club members feared he would be too controversial of a figure and that might make the club look bad (at least to the very liberal folks on campus). This was both surprising and concerning to me. We must be willing to at least hear the ideas and arguments of those with whom disagree, otherwise our beliefs will simply become dogmas. For this reason, I highly recommend picking up Enlightenment Now, a book that will certainly challenge your worldview in one way or another.