But, What About Exponential Progress?

As we’ve seen, an unjustified degree of optimism about the future of disease, space travel, and other challenges afflicts not just hype-men with something to sell, but also many of the best-informed scientists. Those with enough knowledge to be able to rule out obvious impossibilities often are lured toward the Siren’s call of “how-possibly” plausibility. The horizon bias—born of the modern faith that the right knowledge and technology will quickly resolve all problems—perennially obscures obstacles standing in our way.