Why I choose to be optimistic about humanity’s future
Despite disasters, wars, and unimaginable challenges, we humans have made it this far. If you had spoken to skeptics throughout history, most of them would never have believed the world we live in today. We generate electricity that lights up entire cities. Surgeons can operate on hearts without even opening the chest. Satellites orbit the Earth, connecting billions of people instantly. Rovers explore Mars and send back pictures from places no human has ever been. And probes like Voyager have left our solar system, carrying messages from humanity into the unknown.
The challenges we face are huge, but what gives me hope is that more people than ever are working on them every single day. Engineers create solutions to problems that would have seemed impossible decades ago. Architects build cities that rethink how humans live together. Doctors invent emergency procedures under extreme conditions that later become standard practice. Even in war or disaster, innovation finds a way. The technologies and methods born in extreme circumstances often ripple outward, improving lives far beyond where they started.
Progress rarely comes in a straight line. It emerges in ways you don’t expect. War pushes engineers to invent things that later improve civilian life. Doctors in disaster zones discover methods that change emergency medicine forever. Even the darkest moments can give rise to breakthroughs. The real measure of progress isn’t the chaos in the moment, it’s where it leads us over time.
Philosopher Alain Badiou reminds us that truth and progress often appear in the most unexpected moments. For Badiou, events, ruptures that disrupt the ordinary, are opportunities to create new truths. Humanity’s capacity to innovate under pressure mirrors this idea: crisis often produces breakthroughs that shape our world in ways that were unimaginable before. Each small, positive step can be seen as part of a larger “event” of progress, a sudden reconfiguration of what is possible.
Arne Næss gives another perspective that makes sense to me. He talks a lot about long-term thinking and how everything is connected. Progress isn’t always a straight line. It happens quietly, slowly, in ways you might not notice at first. When you look at humanity through that lens, even small acts like building paths in nature for, flood barriers, creating solar-powered schools, discovering new medicine, are all part of something bigger, something moving us forward as a species.
The world around us, though, tends to focus on drama and disasters. News stories highlight accidents, conflicts and tragedies all while ignoring the steady progress happening every day. Hollywood does the same thing: action and shock are easy to produce. Stories that inspire, that show real stories and human ingenuity, are harder to write and get an audience to. In real life, it’s also easier to talk about what goes wrong than what goes right.
Take the news, for example. On TV2 in Norway a news report about a ferry accident in Thailand started the news broadcast by saying that a ferry with 600 had sunk. This was in an area where a lot of Norwegian backpackers were travelling. Only at the very end of the broadcast did they say that no Norwegians were involved. The story grabbed attention by causing unnecessary fear. It is a terrible tool. Positive developments rarely get the spotlight, even though they often shape the future in ways far more meaningful.
Optimism isn’t about ignoring reality. It’s about noticing the patterns of progress that exist alongside failure, chaos, and conflict. Engineers, doctors, scientists and creators keep moving forward, finding solutions and creating possibilities. Humans innovate, adapt, and improve. Under all conditions.
If you think in Badiou’s terms, these breakthroughs are the “truths” that appear when you least expect them. In Næss’ terms, they’re part of a long, connected process of life improving through thoughtful action. Even when the moment feels bleak, the cumulative effect is remarkable.
The future isn’t guaranteed, and the challenges are real. But history shows us that humans, despite chaos, continue to create, discover, and improve. Engineers building renewable energy systems, scientists mapping the human genome, explorers sending rovers to distant planets, they should all remind us that progress is happening, even when we aren’t paying attention.
The world isn’t perfect, but it’s full of positivity and possibility. And it’s this persistent capacity for progress, even in the middle of crisis, that makes me confident about what humanity can achieve.
I choose to be positive. Otherwise I would have to live life like some people I know, constantly complaining and bitching while at the same time doing absolutely nothing about it.
”In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.” Dalai Lama