# "The Darwinian Honeymoon - Why I am not as impressed by human progress as I used to be" by Elias Schmied

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/lesswrong-curated-popular-5643401/the-darwinian-honeymoon-why-i-am-not-as-impressed-by-human-progress-as-i-used-to-be-by-elias-schmied
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/lesswrong-curated-popular-5643401/the-darwinian-honeymoon-why-i-am-not-as-impressed-by-human-progress-as-i-used-to-be-by-elias-schmied.md
Podcast: [LessWrong (Curated & Popular)](https://stenobird.com/podcast/lesswrong-curated-popular-5643401)
Published: 2026-05-12T18:30:36+00:00
Episode link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2037297/episodes/19166213-the-darwinian-honeymoon-why-i-am-not-as-impressed-by-human-progress-as-i-used-to-be-by-elias-schmied.mp3
Audio file: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2037297/episodes/19166213-the-darwinian-honeymoon-why-i-am-not-as-impressed-by-human-progress-as-i-used-to-be-by-elias-schmied.mp3
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Duration seconds: 432

## Resource

Crossposted from Substack and the EA Forum. A common argument for optimism about the future is that living conditions have improved a lot in the past few hundred years, billions of people have been lifted out of poverty, and so on. It's a very strong, grounding piece of evidence - probably the best we have in figuring out what our foundational beliefs about the world should be. However, I now think it's a lot less powerful than I once did. Let's take a Darwinian perspective -...

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## Transcript

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