Optimism lies at the core of a problem-solving and progress-oriented approach to the world.

David Deutsch proposed Optimism as the following principle:
"All evils are caused by an insufficient amount of knowledge".

This follows directly from the concept that if a solution to a problem does not go against the laws of nature, then it is just a matter of finding the right knowledge.   But this principle also has deeper implications.   It can only be true if there are no fundamental limitations to knowledge and if there is such a thing as objective progress and truth in fields outside of science such as morality and philosophy.  Many bad philosophies that are still popular today deny these concepts and have led to anti-progress attitudes.

Traditional definitions of optimism and pessimism reflect these attitudes, and Deutsch gave them their own labels:

• Blind optimism - a reckless, overconfident attitude that allows one to proceed as if one knew bad outcomes wouldn't happen.

• Blind pessimism - essentially the precautionary principle, which implores us to avoid anything that is not known to be safe.

Blind pessimism is particularly dangerous because it contains the alluring meme that we can protect ourselves from future calamities by reigning in progress.  It also ties into the modern concept of sustainability, which is essentially about preventing things from changing.  Societies that fail to grow their knowledge rapidly enough must eventually end up turning some problem into a catastrophe.  As a result, strategies designed to prevent foreseeable disasters are not only bound to fail eventually, but they are also very dangerous because they limit our ability to grow knowledge and deal with unforeseeable disasters.

 

Making progress and solving problems not only requires an optimistic stance towards the world but also the physical ability to implement the solutions.  These are physical transformations that also require energy and resources.   It is in this context that Deutsch defines wealth as "the repertoire of physical transformations that one is capable of causing".  

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At any one time wealth can be roughly correlated with the availability of things like money, energy, or power, but these things are not fundamental and are all ultimately outgrown by the growth of knowledge.  Wealth, like knowledge has potentially no limit.

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To sustain wealth generation we must strive for governance systems that embrace innovation and are constantly able to error correct to make best choices possible based on new incoming knowledge.

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