Ray Katz, one of the responders to this piece, writes Pinker has "a blind spot about the climate" which is depressing. I didn't read Pinker's Better Angels book, but I did read Stuff of Thought, which I thought was really good. I think what throws off some of the other responders, and maybe the author, Cheryl, is that Pinker, with his scientific/academic orientation, doesn't claim more than he explicitly says. If he says "things are better, based on the data on x, y and z," then it's not right to say "Pinker thinks things are better, based on all data." We know that people are often swayed more by anecdotal evidence than statistical evidence, and my sense is Pinker was trying to push back on this kind of thinking rather than promote overlooking the bad in the world.