Enlightenment Now

  19. Happiness gap: Ipsos 2016.

  20. Money does buy happiness: Deaton 2013; Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Inglehart et al. 2008; Stevenson & Wolfers 2008a; Roser 2017.

  21. Independence of happiness and inequality: Kelley & Evans 2016.

  22. Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016, pp. 12–13.

  23. Winning the lottery: Stephens-Davidowitz 2017, p. 229.

  24. National happiness increases over time: Sacks, Stevenson, & Wolfers 2012; Stevenson & Wolfers 2008a; Stokes 2007; Veenhoven 2010; Roser 2017.

  25. World Values Survey shows increasing happiness: Inglehart et al. 2008.

  26. Happiness, health, and freedom: Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Inglehart et al. 2008; Veenhoven 2010.

  27. Culture and happiness: Inglehart et al. 2008.

  28. Non-monetary contributors to happiness: Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016.

  29. American happiness: Deaton 2011; Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs 2016; Inglehart et al. 2008; Sacks, Stevenson, & Wolfers 2012; Smith, Son, & Schapiro 2015.

  30. World Happiness Report 2016 rankings: 1. Denmark (7.5 rungs up from the worst possible life); 2. Switzerland; 3. Iceland; 4. Norway; 5. Finland; 6. Canada; 7. Netherlands; 8. New Zealand; 9. Australia; 10. Sweden; 11. Israel; 12. Austria; 13. United States; 14. Costa Rica; 15. Puerto Rico. The unhappiest countries are Benin, Afghanistan, Togo, Syria, and Burundi (157th place, 2.9 rungs up from the worst possible life).

  31. American happiness: A fall and rise is seen in the World Database of Happiness (Veenhoven undated), which includes data from the World Values Survey; see the online appendix to Inglehart et al. 2008. A slight decline is seen in the General Social Survey (gss.norc.org); see Smith, Son, & Schapiro 2015 and figure 18-4 in this chapter, which plots the “Very happy” trend.

  32. Restriction of range in American happiness: Deaton 2011.

  33. Inequality as part of the explanation for the American happiness stagnation: Sacks, Stevenson, & Wolfers 2012.

  34. America as a happiness trend outlier: Inglehart et al. 2008; Sacks, Stevenson, & Wolfers 2012.

  35. African American happiness increase: Stevenson & Wolfers 2009; Twenge, Sherman, & Lyubomirsky 2016.

  36. Declining female happiness: Stevenson & Wolfers 2009.

  37. Distinguishing age, period, and cohort: Costa & McCrae 1982; Smith 2008.

  38. Older people are happier overall: Deaton 2011; Smith, Son, & Schapiro 2015; Sutin et al. 2013.

  39. Dips in middle age and in the final years: Bardo, Lynch, & Land, 2017; Fukuda 2013.

  40. Great Recession trough: Bardo, Lynch, & Land 2017.

  41. Each successive cohort happier through the Baby Boomers: Sutin et al. 2013.

  42. Gen X and Millennials happier than Baby Boomers: Bardo, Lynch, & Land 2017; Fukuda 2013; Stevenson & Wolfers 2009; Twenge, Sherman, & Lyubomirsky 2016.

  43. Loneliness, longevity, and health: Susan Pinker 2014.

  44. Both quotes are from Fischer 2011, p. 110.

  45. Fischer 2011, p. 114. See also Susan Pinker 2014, for a judicious analysis of the changes and constancies.

  46. Fischer 2011, p. 114. Fischer cites “a few sources of social support” in full awareness of a highly publicized 2006 report which announced that from 1985 to 2004 Americans reported a third fewer people with whom they could discuss important matters, with a quarter of them saying they had no one at all. He concluded that the result was an artifact of the survey methods: Fischer 2006.

  47. Fischer 2011, p. 112.

  48. Hampton, Rainie, et al. 2015.

  49. Connectedness of social media users: Hampton, Goulet, et al. 2011.

  50. Stress in social media users: Hampton, Rainie, et al. 2015.

  51. Changes and constancies in social interaction: Fischer 2005, 2011; Susan Pinker 2014.

  52. Suicide rates depend on availability of methods: Miller, Azrael, & Barber 2012; Thomas & Gunnell 2010.

  53. Risk factors for suicide: Ortiz-Ospina, Lee, & Roser 2016; World Health Organization 2016d.

  54. Happiness-suicide paradox: Daly et al. 2010.

  55. US suicides in 2014 (42,773, to be exact): Data from National Vital Statistics, Kochanek et al. 2016, table B. World suicides in 2012: Data from World Health Organization, Värnik 2012 and World Health Organization 2016d.

  56. Female suicide decline: “Female Suicide Rate, OECD,” HumanProgress, HumanProgress.org/story/2996/.

  57. Suicide by age and period for England: Thomas & Gunnell 2010. Suicide by age, cohort, and period for Switzerland: Ajdacic-Gross et al. 2006. For the United States: Phillips 2014.

  58. Falling adolescent suicide rates: Costello, Erkanli, & Angold 2006; Twenge 2014.

  59. Negative spin on suicide figures: M. Nock, “Five Myths About Suicide,” Washington Post, May 6, 2016.

  60. Eisenhower and Swedish suicide: http://fed.wiki.org/journal.hapgood.net/eisenhower-on-sweden.

  61. Suicide rates for 1960 are from Ortiz-Ospina, Lee, & Roser 2016. Suicide rates for 2012 (age-adjusted) are from World Health Organization 2017b.

  62. Medium suicide rates in Western Europe: Värnik 2012, p. 768. Decline of Swedish suicide: Ohlander 2010.

  63. Generational increase in depression: Lewinsohn et al. 1993.

  64. Triggers for PTSD: McNally 2016.

  65. Expanding empire of psychopathology: Haslam 2016; Horwitz & Wakefield 2007; McNally 2016; PLOS Medicine Editors 2013.

  66. R. Rosenberg, “Abnormal Is the New Normal,” Slate, April 12, 2013, based on Kessler et al. 2005.

  67. Expanding concepts of harm as moral progress: Haslam 2016.

  68. Evidence-based psychological treatment: Barlow et al. 2013.

  69. Global burden of depression: Murray et al. 2012. Adult risks: Kessler et al. 2003.

  70. The paradox of mental health: PLOS Medicine Editors 2013.

  71. Lack of gold standard: Twenge 2014.

  72. No rise in depression over a century: Mattisson et al. 2005; Murphy et al. 2000.

  73. Twenge et al. 2010.

  74. Twenge & Nolen-Hoeksema 2002: Between 1980 and 1998, successive cohorts of Generation X and Millennial boys aged 8–16 became less depressed, with no change in the girls. Twenge 2014: Between the 1980s and the 2010s, teenagers had fewer suicidal thoughts; college students and adults were less likely to report they were depressed. Olfson, Druss, & Marcus 2015: Rates of mental illness in children and adolescents fell.

  75. Costello, Erkanli, & Angold 2006.

  76. Baxter et al. 2014.

  77. Jacobs 2011.

  78. Baxter et al. 2014; Twenge 2014; Twenge et al. 2010.

  79. Stein’s Law and anxiety: Sage 2010.

  80. Terracciano 2010; Trzesniewski & Donnellan 2010.

  81. Baxter et al. 2014.

  82. For example, “Depression as a Disease of Modernity: Explanations for Increasing Prevalence,” Hidaka 2012.

  83. Stevenson & Wolfers 2009.

  84. Excerpted from the book version: Allen 1987, pp. 131–33.

  85. Johnston & Davey 1997; see also Jackson 2016; Otieno, Spada, & Renkl 2013; Unz, Schwab, & Winterhoff-Spurk 2008.

  86. Statement: Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation 2000. “So-called climate crisis”: Cornwall Alliance, “Sin, Deception, and the Corruption of Science: A Look at the So-Called Climate Crisis,” 2016, http://cornwallalliance.org/2016/07/sin-deception-and-the-corruption-of-science-a-look-at-the-so-called-climate-crisis/. See also Bean & Teles 2016; L. Vox, “Why Don’t Christian Conservatives Worry About Climate Change? God,” Washington Post, June 2, 2017.

  87. Garbage barge: M. Winerip, “Retro Report: Voyage of the Mobro 4000,” New York Times, May 6, 2013.

  88. Environmental friendliness of landfills: J. Tierney, “The Reign of R
ecycling,” New York Times, Oct. 3, 2015. The New York Times “Retro Report” series, including the story cited in the preceding note, is an exception to the lack of follow-ups on crisis reporting.

  89. Boredom crisis: Nisbet 1980/2009, pp. 349–51. The two main alarmists were scientists: Dennis Gabor and Harlow Shapley.

  90. See the references in notes 15 and 16 above.

  91. Anxiety over the life cycle: Baxter et al. 2014.

  CHAPTER 19: EXISTENTIAL THREATS

  1. Mythical missile gap: Berry et al. 2010; Preble 2004.

  2. Nuclear retaliation for cyberattacks: Sagan 2009c, p. 164. See also the comments from Keith Payne reproduced in P. Sonne, G. Lubold, & C. E. Lee, “‘No First Use’ Nuclear Policy Proposal Assailed by U.S. Cabinet Officials, Allies,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 12, 2016.

  3. K. Bird, “How to Keep an Atomic Bomb from Being Smuggled into New York City? Open Every Suitcase with a Screwdriver,” New York Times, Aug. 5, 2016.

  4. Randle & Eckersley 2015.

  5. Quoted on the home page for Ocean Optimism, http://www.oceanoptimism.org/about/.

  6. 2012 Ipsos poll: C. Michaud, “One in Seven Thinks End of World Is Coming: Poll,” Reuters, May 1, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mayancalendar-poll-idUSBRE8400XH20120501. The rate for the United States was 22 percent, and in a 2015 YouGov poll, 31 percent: http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/i7p20mektl/toplines_OPI_disaster_20150227.pdf.

  7. Power-law distributions: Johnson et al. 2006; Newman 2005; see Pinker 2011, pp. 210–22, for a review. See the references in note 17 of chapter 11 for an explanation of the complexities in estimating the risks from the data.

  8. Overestimating the probability of extreme risks: Pinker 2011, pp. 368–73.

  9. End-of-the-world predictions: “Doomsday Forecasts,” The Economist, Oct. 7, 2015, http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/10/predicting-end-world.

  10. Apocalyptic movies: “List of Apocalyptic Films,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films, retrieved Dec. 15, 2016.

  11. Quoted in Ronald Bailey, “Everybody Loves a Good Apocalypse,” Reason, Nov. 2015.

  12. Y2K bug: M. Winerip, “Revisiting Y2K: Much Ado About Nothing?” New York Times, May 27, 2013.

  13. G. Easterbrook, “We’re All Gonna Die!” Wired, July 1, 2003.

  14. P. Ball, “Gamma-Ray Burst Linked to Mass Extinction,” Nature, Sept. 24, 2003.

  15. Denkenberger & Pearce 2015.

  16. Rosen 2016.

  17. D. Cox, “NASA’s Ambitious Plan to Save Earth from a Supervolcano,” BBC Future, Aug. 17, 2017, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170817-nasas-ambitious-plan-to-save-earth-from-a-supervolcano.

  18. Deutsch 2011, p. 207.

  19. “More dangerous than nukes”: Tweeted in Aug. 2014, quoted in A. Elkus, “Don’t Fear Artificial Intelligence,” Slate, Oct. 31, 2014. “End of the human race”: Quoted in R. Cellan-Jones, “Stephen Hawking Warns Artificial Intelligence Could End Mankind,” BBC News, Dec. 2, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540.

  20. In a 2014 poll of the hundred most-cited AI researchers, just 8 percent feared that high-level AI posed the threat of “an existential catastrophe”: Müller & Bostrom 2014. AI experts who are publicly skeptical include Paul Allen (2011), Rodney Brooks (2015), Kevin Kelly (2017), Jaron Lanier (2014), Nathan Myhrvold (2014), Ramez Naam (2010), Peter Norvig (2015), Stuart Russell (2015), and Roger Schank (2015). Skeptical psychologists and biologists include Roy Baumeister (2015), Dylan Evans (2015a), Gary Marcus (2015), Mark Pagel (2015), and John Tooby (2015). See also A. Elkus, “Don’t Fear Artificial Intelligence,” Slate, Oct. 31, 2014; M. Chorost, “Let Artificial Intelligence Evolve,” Slate, April 18, 2016.

  21. Modern scientific understanding of intelligence: Pinker 1997/2009, chap. 2; Kelly 2017.

  22. Foom: Hanson & Yudkowsky 2008.

  23. The technology expert Kevin Kelly (2017) recently made the same argument.

  24. Intelligence as a contraption: Brooks 2015; Kelly 2017; Pinker 1997/2009, 2007a; Tooby 2015.

  25. AI doesn’t progress by Moore’s Law: Allen 2011; Brooks 2015; Deutsch 2011; Kelly 2017; Lanier 2014; Naam 2010. Many of the commentators in Lanier 2014 and Brockman 2015 make this point as well.

  26. AI researchers vs. AI hype: Brooks 2015; Davis & Marcus 2015; Kelly 2017; Lake et al. 2017; Lanier 2014; Marcus 2016; Naam 2010; Schank 2015. See also note 25 above.

  27. Shallowness and brittleness of current AI: Brooks 2015; Davis & Marcus 2015; Lanier 2014; Marcus 2016; Schank 2015.

  28. Naam 2010.

  29. Robots turning us into paper clips and other Value Alignment Problems: Bostrom 2016; Hanson & Yudkowsky 2008; Omohundro 2008; Yudkowsky 2008; P. Torres, “Fear Our New Robot Overlords: This Is Why You Need to Take Artificial Intelligence Seriously,” Salon, May 14, 2016.

  30. Why we won’t be turned into paper clips: B. Hibbard, “Reply to AI Risk,” http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/AIRisk_Reply.html; R. Loosemore, “The Maverick Nanny with a Dopamine Drip: Debunking Fallacies in the Theory of AI Motivation,” Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, July 24, 2014, http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/loosemore20140724; A. Elkus, “Don’t Fear Artificial Intelligence,” Slate, Oct. 31, 2014; R. Hanson, “I Still Don’t Get Foom,” Humanity+, July 29, 2014, http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/07/29/i-still-dont-get-foom/; Hanson & Yudkowsky 2008. See also Kelly 2017, and notes 26 and 27 above.

  31. Quoted in J. Bohannon, “Fears of an AI Pioneer,” Science, July 17, 2016.

  32. Quoted in Brynjolfsson & McAfee 2015.

  33. Self-driving cars not quite ready: Brooks 2016.

  34. Robots and jobs: Brynjolfsson & McAfee 2016; see also chapter 9, notes 67 and 68.

  35. The bet is registered on the “Long Bets” Web site, http://longbets.org/9/.

  36. Improving computer security: Schneier 2008; B. Schneier, “Lessons from the Dyn DDoS Attack,” Schneier on Security, Nov. 1, 2016, https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2016/11/lessons_from_the_dyn.html.

  37. Strengthening bioweapon security: Bradford Project on Strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, http://www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/sbtwc/.

  38. Protection against infectious disease protects against bioterrorism: Carlson 2010. Preparing for pandemics: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “Preparing for Pandemics,” http://nyti.ms/256CNNc; World Health Organization 2016b.

  39. Standard antiterrorist measures: Mueller 2006, 2010a; Mueller & Stewart 2016a; Schneier 2008.

  40. Kelly 2010, 2013.

  41. Personal communication, May 21, 2017; see also Kelly 2013, 2016.

  42. Easy to commit murder and mayhem: Brandwen 2016.

  43. Brandwen 2016 lists several real-life examples of product sabotage with damage ranging from $150 million to $1.5 billion.

  44. B. Schneier, “Where Are All the Terrorist Attacks?” Schneier on Security, https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2010/05/where_are_all_the_te.html. Similar points: Mueller 2004b; M. Abrahms, “A Few Bad Men: Why America Doesn’t Really Have a Terrorist Problem,” Foreign Policy, April 16, 2013.

  45. Most terrorists are schlemiels: Mueller 2006; Mueller & Stewart 2016a, chap. 4; Brandwen 2016; M. Abrahms, “Does Terrorism Work as a Political Strategy? The Evidence Says No,” Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2016; J. Mueller & M. Stewart, “Hapless, Disorganized, and Irrational: What the Boston Bombers Had in Common with Most Would-Be Terrorists,” Slate, April 22, 2013; D. Kenner, “Mr. Bean to Jihadi John,” Foreign Policy, Sept. 1, 2014.

  46. D. Adnan & T. Arango, “Suicide Bomb Trainer in Iraq Accidentally Blows Up His Class,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 2014.

  47. “Suicide Bomber Hid IED in His Anal Cavity,” Homeland Security News Wire, Sept. 9, 2009, http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/saudi-suicid
e-bomber-hid-ied-his-anal-cavity.

  48. Terrorism is ineffective: Abrahms 2006, 2012; Brandwen 2016; Cronin 2009; Fortna 2015; Mueller 2006; Mueller & Stewart 2010; see also note 45 above. IQ is negatively correlated with criminality and psychopathy: Beaver, Schwartz, et al. 2013; Beaver, Vauhgn, et al. 2012; de Ribera, Kavish, & Boutwell 2017.

  49. Hazards of larger terrorist plots: Mueller 2006.

  50. Serious cybercrime requires a state: B. Schneier, “Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet,” Lawfare, Sept. 13, 2016.

  51. Skepticism about cyberwar: Lawson 2013; Mueller & Friedman 2014; Rid 2012; B. Schneier, “Threat of ‘Cyberwar’ Has Been Hugely Hyped,” CNN.com, July 7, 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/07/schneier.cyberwar.hyped/; E. Morozov, “Cyber-Scare: The Exaggerated Fears over Digital Warfare,” Boston Review, July/Aug. 2009; E. Morozov, “Battling the Cyber Warmongers,” Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2010; R. Singel, “Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet,” Wired, March 1, 2010; R. Singel, “Richard Clarke’s Cyberwar: File Under Fiction,” Wired, April 22, 2010; P. W. Singer, “The Cyber Terror Bogeyman,” Brookings, Nov. 1, 2012, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-cyber-terror-bogeyman/.

  52. From Schneier’s article cited in the preceding note.

  53. Resilience: Lawson 2013; Quarantelli 2008.

  54. Quarantelli 2008, p. 899.

  55. Societies don’t collapse under disasters: Lawson 2013; Quarantelli 2008.

  56. Modern societies are resilient: Lawson 2013.

  57. Biological warfare and terrorism: Ewald 2000; Mueller 2006.

  58. Terrorism as theater: Abrahms 2006; Brandwen 2016; Cronin 2009; Ewald 2000; Y. N. Harari, “The Theatre of Terror,” The Guardian, Jan. 31, 2015.

  59. Evolution of virulence and contagion: Ewald 2000; Walther & Ewald 2004.

  60. Rarity of bioterrorism: Mueller 2006; Parachini 2003.

  61. Difficulty of designing a pathogen even with gene-editing: Paul Ewald, personal communication, Dec. 27, 2016.

  62. Comment in Kelly 2013, summarizing arguments in Carlson 2010.

  63. New antibiotics: Meeske et al. 2016; Murphy, Zeng, & Herzon 2017; Seiple et al. 2016. Identifying potentially hazardous pathogens: Walther & Ewald 2004.