June 26. The belief that humanity is moving astonishingly and overwhelmingly toward the positive – rising life expectancy, rising living standards, rising equality, falling crime, falling international conflict – is considered unacceptable in part because people who think this way do nothing to improve the world. They can’t get anything done because they don’t think it is necessary. Says J, for example. To prove the opposite, I should do altruistic things – and do so with the same intensity with which I pursue other projects.