Up voted for mentioning a person I admire, Steven Pinker!
(but check your spelling in the link and tag)
Have you read any of his books? Blank Slate is pretty cool, as well as How The Mind Works, and of course the one where he argues that the world is getting better - The Better Angels of out Nature. I look forward to reading his new book.
In my opinion, Pinker is right, the world in general terms is getting better. But there are more news outlets now and if it bleeds it leads, so people are exposed to much more bad news so it seems like things are bad all over. Not true!
Thanks for this article. Resteemed and tweeted so others see it hopefully.
I should know to check for variations of my own name :) I've not read his books yet, but I probably should He covers some topics I'm interest in. As he says, the media report bad news as that's their job. Some good stuff does get reported too and there needs to be a good balance of the two.