One of Australia’s most prominent pollsters just read (and really liked!) What We Owe The Future, and was inspired to ask a question about perceptions of the longterm future on their fortnightly opinion poll.
[Description of image: At each of 10, 100, 1000, 10000 years in the future, more Australians think life will be worse off for humanity than better off, with eg 35% worse, 45% unsure and 20% better at 10,000 years]
I was surprised by this!
Perhaps it shows that the Steven Pinker et al world-is-getting-better meme isn’t that established outside of niche intellectual circles.
No actionable takeaways, just an interesting survey that I expect very few people here will come across elsewhere.
Australians are pessimistic about longterm future (n=1050)
One of Australia’s most prominent pollsters just read (and really liked!) What We Owe The Future, and was inspired to ask a question about perceptions of the longterm future on their fortnightly opinion poll.
https://​​essentialreport.com.au/​​questions/​​perception-of-the-future-for-humanity
[Description of image: At each of 10, 100, 1000, 10000 years in the future, more Australians think life will be worse off for humanity than better off, with eg 35% worse, 45% unsure and 20% better at 10,000 years]
I was surprised by this!
Perhaps it shows that the Steven Pinker et al world-is-getting-better meme isn’t that established outside of niche intellectual circles.
No actionable takeaways, just an interesting survey that I expect very few people here will come across elsewhere.