Our future, even the years close upon us, are set to be times of abundance and well-being. The most prosperous and Utopian times in the history of our species. There is a conspiracy afoot that prevents you from knowing this, and even when seeing the evidence, in failing to believe. 

Is the truth being withheld by the media, covered up by governments, or suppressed by evil corporations? No, it’s worse than that: it’s you. You’re human, and unfortunately that means the very substance of your mind and senses has been programmed over millions of years to trigger at news of danger, rumors of failure, and threats real or imagined that may adversely impact your life.

Engage a mind so evolved with a world-spanning communications network, one so capable that you not only can—but will absolutely—hear of the latest virus in Wuhan, and that mind will be overwhelmed, obsessed, and often depressed by the result. There’s no easy answer to this, any more than in dealing with our penchants for too many sweets and other substances whose joys may not surpass their deleterious effects.

So, taking our Eeyore nature in stride, what amazing things lie just around the corner, even while we hang our heads in gloom? While 94% of those polled in the U.S. think the world will stay the same or get worse, here are a few things to consider:

• Declining since 1981, extreme poverty and has been cut in half globally since 2010.

• Deaths from famine are at their lowest point since the 1860’s, less than 1 death per 100K.

• Global life expectancy continues to rise, almost 3 years per decade now.

• Child mortality has been cut in half since 1990.

Advancing science and technology are contributing to human wellbeing at an accelerating pace.

• World GDP has increased 33% in the last decade.

• Solar energy has grown 10X in the same period.

• Renewable energy is now the cheapest option, without subsidies, undercutting fossil fuels 10 years ahead of schedule.

• Prime editing is a new DNA editing tool with the potential to correct 89% of genetic defects.

• 3D Printing is making customized prostheses cheaper and more capable than ever before and is now used for everything from building houses to crafting new rockets.

• A.I. is set to generate nearly $3 trillion dollars in business and recover 6.2 billion productivity hours in 2021.

And that’s just the beginning. A.I. is making rapid strides. The DeepMind software MuZero is able to play Atari and board games without pre-programmed rules, quickly becoming a superhuman master at whatever it tries.

Artificial Intelligence will soon expand into all areas of our lives, making health care far more effective than our current “sick care” paradigm, increasing global GDP in double digits, providing cheap autonomous transportation and delivery services, including autonomous flying cars like the EHang model demonstrated in January 2020 at an event hosted by the Governor of North Carolina at Kitty Hawk.

With 5G coming and recent satellite cluster launches by SpaceX and OneWeb, every place on Earth will soon be connected to the web. Inexpensive phone and tablet technology will bring billions of new young minds from around the world into the accumulated knowledge of mankind online. That alone will set fire to advancements of which we can have no conception.

Commercial space is going mainstream this year, with almost too many private companies developing orbital and space technologies to count. This century has plenty of time left to see humanity become a multi-planet species. No one’s going to ask a government to pay for it. Entrepreneurs have reduced the cost and improved the tech, and it beckons like the challenge of Everest.

How many of these things are you aware of? Did you know a supercomputer developed a new drug, Halicin, with the potential to kill all antibiotic resistant superbugs? Did you know paralyzed patients have been able to walk using a mind reading exoskeleton? Did you know direct brain to broadband interfaces are scheduled for testing in humans next year? That Google’s 54-qubit Sycamore processor performed a calculation in 200 seconds in 2019 that would have taken the world’s previously most powerful supercomputer 10,000 years.

Abundance and convergence.  Many of these “breakthroughs” are happening now because technologies like computing and artificial intelligence are merging together, converging with sensors, networks, robots, VR, medicine, biology, and manufacturing. This is creating new business models and economies. The result is an exponentially advancing potential for human greatness.

But what about climate change, rising authoritarianism, apocalyptic weaponry, terrorism, and superrich corporations and billionaires in command of all the world’s wealth?

Well, change at the pace and depth of experience before us is a terrible stressor to our ill-equipped minds and ancient biological heritage. We don’t get to inherit the stars with the ease of being handed the keys to daddy’s sports car. 

There is a great deal to do, together, to fairly allocate the opportunities before us, and to usher in the next great age of humankind. Rather than turn against one another in our petty squabbles and childish fears, it is time to recognize the inherent and irreplaceable value in every single human on the face of the Earth, and beyond.