Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

Honestly? I try not to think about the future because doing so brings wave upon wave of existential dread. Things aren't looking good, and it might be a bit of a hedonistic maxim but if thinking about it just makes me feel worse why should I? Let me work away at achieving my "local optimum" since that's all I can realistically do.

When has there ever been a period of time where humans have the capacity to destroy the planet? I’m not even talking about climate change but nuclear weapons. I think the likelihood of a nuclear exchange is extremely likely within the next hundred years.

Especially as nations learn that once you’re a nuclear power you’re respected on the world stage.

How do you honestly come back from this? I’m genuinely curious because until some technology can be made to prevent this, it’s the only existential threat that can happen at any moment.

While I agree with almost everything you say (thanks, BTW, for a great question) I find myself being optimistic. Certainly, the world's oligarchs, both in the USA and other countries, are nailing down their control of political parties, news, militaries, etc. This is not good.

That said, in the early 1900s we had a similar thing going on and Roosevelt convinced the wealthy to share a little bit of their wealth with the common people, and that sort of worked out. I think it likely that the modern day oligarchs will make similar decisions.

This is likely to take the form of universal basic income, a 'smart' digital currency that can be turned off for people who don't do what they are supposed to, and it is likely that common people owning any meaningful amount of property will probably go away also.

So, where is the optimism? I believe that advances in science, massive automation, increasingly fun technology like VR and AR, more time for family and friends, will still provide a decent life for most people on the planet.

I was a kid in the 70s and people were far gloomier about the future than they are now, especially after I moved to the USA. Think of yourself as swimming in the open ocean: you can't feel the big waves (low frequency/long wavelength), just the chop you are trying to paddle through.

I think there are a lot of good things happening. There's finally progress on climate repair (tiny, but nonzero) which means we may have more time to fix things.

The last 40 years of entrenched bullshit is finally tottering due to its geriatric constituency, so I think there's a good chance for positive change on the horizon. And even the re-emergence of some of the worst people (let's just aggregate them into "the racist shitheads") I see as a positive sign: they were always around, but in the background. Now they have emerged because it's clear they are on the wrong side of history and they know that if they do nothing they will be greatly diminished.

There's no gleaming path to the future like you used to see in glossy utopian pictures in the 1970s. It will be bumpy. But overall I think the derivative is positive.

I'm not sure the USA will get its shit together, but it's only about 4% of the world's population.

There are generations coming of age right now that do not remember a time when things were "normal". I have hope that they will have the motivation to change things that my generation, and the ones before mine, chose to leave up to fate.