Steven Pinker 5: Is the world getting better or worse? A look at the numbers

Steven Pinker at TED2018
Is the world getting better or worse? A look at the numbers  (transcript)
Summary
We must know about the numbers in this story. In the analysis of recent data on homicide, war, poverty, pollution and other things are better progressively than 30 years ago.

However, it doesn't mean that everything gets better for everyone all the time but people, especially intellectuals hate progress.
It seems to be because it comes from our cognitive psychology and the nature of journalism.

According to the cognitive psychology, we have the availability heuristic that is a mental shortcut to estimate risks. We estimate risks easily from memory when we judge it easily. It means that we think that bad things can happen quickly, but good things aren't built in a day.

However, human nature works here. We learned from his previous TED talks.
We have the power to seek our connection 1) and an instant for language. 2)
We can grow our imagination 3) and reason. 4)

This is his last story that is really difficult.
His message is that although the numbers are better, we have to overcome our heuristic ability and we have to continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing. There must be no limit to betterments we can attain.
The speaker tells us that we will never have a perfect world and it would be dangerous to seek one.
However, we have to do because we are the only sentient creature with the power of reason and the urge to persist in its being.

The message I got ftom this story is that we have to learn why we live more. It's not that just we live but we have to redeem what we've lost now.
It's our resource that opens a space for a kind of redemption.
The speaker tells us that human nature has been blessed with it.

Words in this story
instant /adj/ happening or coming immediately.
heuristic /adj/ enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves.
betterment /noun/ improvement, amelioration
attain /verb/  achieve, accomplish, reach
sentient /adj/ able to perceive or feel things.
redeem /verb/ compensate for the faults or bad aspects of (something).
redemption /noun/  saving, freeing from sin, absolution
blessed /adj/ made holy; consecrated.