Fostering progress by understanding its enemies.

I’ve been fascinated by human progress ever since I first learned about the yawning gap between the way we think the world is, and the way it actually is (Hans Rosling’s ‘Ignorance Project’). When I first heard about the amazing achievements of humanity over the past 200 years, I was (pleasantly) shocked. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this? Progress is something precious, recent and fragile, and it does not happen of its own accord. To facilitate further progress, we need to believe that progress is possible. My previous academic work deals with the pitfalls and foibles of human reason, and I think this will be useful for progress studies. Presenting people with beautiful facts and figures will not be sufficient. We need to understand where pessimism, cynicism and catastrophism are coming from.

Philosopher fond of felines (and pianos)

Two more things that give me joy in my life (apart from being grateful about progress): I have a feisty tuxedo cat named Winston Purrchill, and I play jazz piano (unfortunately, the two are not very compatible, as my cat hates my piano, since he is competing for attention with it).