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optimism

concept · in 160 videos (2007–2026)

Expecting that things will turn out well; in 2007 Hank called himself an optimist about human extinction, and in 2009 John was one only in thinking humanity's attempts to extinguish itself will fail.

Videos by year: 2007: 5 · 2008: 1 · 2009: 1 · 2010: 1 · 2011: 2 · 2013: 5 · 2014: 4 · 2015: 4 · 2016: 5 · 2017: 6 · 2018: 10 · 2019: 18 · 2020: 11 · 2021: 9 · 2022: 12 · 2023: 16 · 2024: 13 · 2025: 21 · 2026: 16

Also known as: optimism is not insane, things will get better, the best is yet to come

Threads

Also named in the threads: Hank asks viewers to study up on the Global Goals at globalgoals.org before his video (2015) · Hank: in 200 years people will find the way we eat meat ridiculous (2016)

Questions

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

economic inequality (3) · progress (3) · climate change (4) · collective action (2) · Facebook (2) · Brotherhood 2.0 (2) · United States (3)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2007

  • 2007-02-16 · Brotherhood 2.0: February 16th — Hank calls himself an optimist about human extinction: he thinks humans will eventually tire of procreation and find new ways of existing without mass slaughter or resource depletion. (hedged) — 00:01:29
  • 2007-05-25 · May 25th: FreeMonkey's Tour — Hank concludes the feeling is not wishing anyone dead but realising there is a lot of future still to come that he will see, which makes him hopeful. (hedged) — 00:03:04
  • 2007-08-20 · August 20th: Winner, South Dakota — John says Brotherhood 2.0 is starting to make him believe in humanity again; he catches himself saying outlandishly optimistic things. (hedged) — 00:02:58
    • For the first time John feels the world may contain more nerdfighters than nerdhaters; having long thought himself suited to 'Loser, South Dakota', he now thinks maybe nerdfighting is for winners. (hedged) — 00:02:58
  • 2007-11-21 · November 21st: What I'm Grateful For — John is thankful for the Nerdfighters, whose collective awesome has changed the brothers' lives; seeing what people do together has made him much more optimistic. — 00:02:09
    • John says Faulkner was right to decline to accept the end of man, and quotes his claim that man will not merely endure but prevail; being able to believe this is a gift from Nerdfighters. — 00:02:09
  • 2007-12-19 · December 19: The Day that the Nerds Took Over YouTube — Hank says the Secret Project was exciting and made him kind of hopeful, seeing so many people promote organizations doing good simply because it is right. (hedged) — 00:02:44

2008

2009

  • 2009-01-03 (said on 2009-01-02, implied) · Giraffe Love and Other Questions ANSWERED — John calls himself an optimist only in the sense that he thinks humanity's relentless attempt to extinguish itself will fail for the foreseeable future. (playful, hedged) — 00:01:37

2010

  • 2010-10-13 · On Hope and Chile — John: we live in an irreparably broken world, but the amazing thing is not that humans refuse to give up hope; it is that we are right to hold on to it. — 00:02:10
    • John: not all stories end happily, but hope gives us as a species and as individuals what we otherwise wouldn't have, a chance. — 00:02:32

2011

  • 2011-08-05 · Vidcon: Thoughts from Places — John says that whenever anyone whines about teenagers' intellectually disengaged tastes he will play them 3,000 people singing a song about quarks, which makes him hopeful about the world. — 00:01:13
  • 2011-10-26 · 7,000,000,000 People — Hank's description: world population is about to hit an arbitrary landmark, but its growth and the explosion in resource use in the developing world are not insignificant issues; overall he is optimistic. — video description
    • Hank says humanity is doing surprisingly well compared with what was expected 40 or 50 years ago, and he is very hopeful: immense challenges, but immense resources. — 00:02:11

2013

  • 2013-04-16 · Flags and Helpers — John says some people do not want that world, but we will not give it up, and we can always look in hope to the helpers and try to be among them. — 00:01:27
  • 2013-05-31 · Optimism is Not Insane — Hank clarifies that he does not think humanity is safe: we are in a significant mass-extinction event and are badly damaging the planet; but there is a very good chance humanity will still be creating and solving problems thousands of years from now, the two things we are best at. (hedged) — video description
    • Hank concludes that working for a better future comes not from wanting to avoid an inevitable apocalypse but from optimism, and there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about. — 00:03:30
  • 2013-06-07 · How To Be a Baby Properly — Hank: if all goes well, in Alice's lifetime humans will walk on Mars, computers become intelligent, the paralyzed walk again, absolute poverty all but end, and she may live past 100; or technological society may implode. It could go either way. (hedged) — 00:00:12
  • 2013-09-27 · Invalid Arguments: Climate Change — In the description Hank says he believes humanity will face climate change with the desperate ingenuity and bravado of its whole history, and survive it. (hedged) — video description
    • Hank says that as long as we agree there is a problem, he has complete faith in humanity's ability to solve it, because solving problems is what we do best. — 00:03:30
  • 2013-12-31 · GOOD NEWS: 14 Reasons 2014 May Be the Best Year Ever — John says this progress is tenuous and much of it unsustainable with current technology, but it is real and worth celebrating; he hopes 2014 is the best year yet. — 00:03:30

2014

2015

  • 2015-07-14 · On Exhaustion — John: Graffiti there read 'The best is yet to come', which John calls one of the very few things he believes fundamentally and incontrovertibly true. — 00:00:30
  • 2015-09-25 · Pissed Off for a Better World — ask: Hank asks viewers to go to globalgoals.org, find out what the fuss is about, pick a goal and draw it on their face (or have a friend do it, since that is hard), and tell people why to be a little angry and a little optimistic. — 00:02:25
    • The problem is big, hard to grasp and seems impossible to affect, but we can; the UN exists for a reason, and the Global Goals are an actual plan that amazes and inspires Hank. — 00:03:09
  • 2015-11-03 · Monkey Hangers — John admits it is kind of a sad story, but finds being in the middle of history encouraging and remains 'weirdly optimistic'. (hedged) — 00:03:34
  • 2015-11-27 (said on 2015-11-26, implied) · Never Satisfied: The Story of Humans ¦-/ — Hank argues that never looking back makes everything look hopeless, so we need a mix of dissatisfaction and work for better, plus recognition of what we have achieved as a species and as individuals. — 00:02:27

2016

2017

2018

  • 2018-02-06 · Sawdust Bread — John could use encouragement in these strange times, because despair mostly makes him complacent: nothing to be done, it's just the nature of things. — 00:02:24
  • 2018-02-20 · When Your Friend Runs for Governor — John says that had he thought of politics that way he would have known Daniel would succeed, and for him that is real cause for optimism. — 00:03:31
  • 2018-03-23 · Trump, Guns, and Net Neutrality...With Governor Steve Bullock?! — In the description Hank says he is confused about how to be an American right now and some days has little hope, given deep division and eroding faith in institutions. — video description
  • 2018-05-01 · How to Win — John says you also have to hope and go on: even when losing and a tie feels like winning, pick up the ball, run it back to midfield and believe the game is still winnable. — 00:03:08
  • 2018-05-15 · Seven Maps to Better Understand the World — John thanks mapmakers for giving him hope and also, when appropriate, fear. — 00:03:14
  • 2018-10-09 · How Big a Problem is Mental Illness? — John repeats what he has often said and written: there really is hope, even when your brain says there isn't. — 00:03:24
  • 2018-10-19 · This is the scariest graph I've ever seen — Hank: Humans are very good at solving problems, Hank says, just not at solving problems they are unable to recognize. — 00:02:46
  • 2018-11-13 · HAIRMERGENCY! — John says that optimism has fueled the human story, like people sailing an ocean with no visible end in tiny wooden boats, trusting future selves to solve the problems. (playful) — 00:02:55
  • 2018-12-04 · When it All Seems Like Too Much — Hank's view of climate change, which he knows better than most big problems, gives him more hope for others: like crime, justice, racism or suffering, it has no binary fixed-or-broken state. — 00:01:50
  • 2018-12-07 · BABIES! The 2018 Project for Awesome is here… — John calls it the central hope of human history that we accumulate, share and pass on knowledge so well that yesterday's babies may within decades solve problems that feel unfixable. (hedged) — 00:01:03

2019

  • 2019-01-29 · Do You Believe in Miracles? — John believes in radical hope not from theology or philosophy but because he has seen that even with little cause for hope, hope is the correct response to the human condition, as Flutie and Phelan showed. — 00:00:57
  • 2019-02-19 · Battling Apathy and Searching for Meaning on Question Tuesday — John says he has felt despair at pain and found justification for it, but believes despair is simple and humanity complex: there is cause for despair, and for other feelings. — 00:03:24
  • 2019-02-26 · The Necessity to Struggle / The Futility of Effort — John works when he feels hope, when he can, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's words, hold in balance the sense of the futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle. — 00:02:55
  • 2019-03-26 · Optimism and Spider People: Question Tuesday from the Looking for Alaska Set — John: Asked how he stays happy given bad news, John says he doesn't: he gets angry and discouraged, but doesn't want to be merely that, since it doesn't reflect the whole human story. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-04-30 · The Thing with Feathers — John's favorite thing about humans: we are relentless, we don't know when we're licked, and even when we should give up, we don't. — 00:01:55
  • 2019-05-03 · What Game of Thrones is Really About — Hank: Our problem is also better than Westeros's: a massive, malleable, more predictable planet with huge resources, advanced technology pushing the pace of change, and brains made for problem-solving. — 00:09:01
  • 2019-05-31 · Uncomfortable Nuance: Natural Gas Edition — Hank says that facing a climate crisis, many call the solutions impractical or impossible, but we can do this. — 00:00:40
  • 2019-09-27 · Crisis — Hank says every crisis so far was solved in ways nobody foresaw; not knowing how is normal, and by working as individuals and as a collective we get there, so far. — 00:03:30
  • 2019-10-01 · Why Are Poor Countries Poor? — John is hopeful, not because the problems are easy, but because of Sierra Leonean health workers' commitment and patients who taught him despair is not the right response to big problems. — 00:07:23
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John: For John these were matters of life and death: he needed radical hope, the theologians' idea that hope is available to all people at all times, even the dead, and he still depends on it. — 00:02:10
  • 2019-12-06 · It is Much Easier to Destroy than Create — Hank: The world's problems can feel like a weight, but also like a puzzle we'll never finish that brings a better world with every piece laid. — 00:03:16
  • 2019-12-10 · On Loneliness — John hopes viewers felt that during the P4A; for him it came when he needed reminding that what we accomplish together is truly cause for hope. — 00:03:41
  • …and 8 statements more in 2019 — all statements of 2019

2020

2021

  • 2021-01-26 · The Sycamore Tree: The Anthropocene Reviewed — John: Though hope feels flimsy amid life's horrors, John says despair is unproductive: like a replicating virus it only makes more of itself and renders him inert and apathetic. — 00:05:42
  • 2021-02-16 · A Lovely Winter Walk — John: When John told his therapist he felt we'd never get out of this, she reminded him everything else has ended: a hope that isn't BS or Pollyanna-ish but real and verifiable. — 00:02:00
  • 2021-02-19 · Bean Meme Review — Hank says the Project for Awesome makes him feel better about the future and humanity. — 00:02:30
  • 2021-03-05 · How Much Hope is OK? — Hank: With spring coming, Hank feels that what he is experiencing is not just hope but joy. — 00:01:04
  • 2021-05-25 · The Anthropocene Reviewed, Animated — John: Writing in April 2021, still amid the crisis, John finds much to fear and lament but sees humans sharing what they learn and caring for the sick and vulnerable: even separated, we are bound up in each other. — 00:13:16
  • 2021-07-27 · Savoring: The Sunset Series Returns — John: We go on because despair may be powerful but is untrue: there is light in front of all of us. — 00:01:58
  • 2021-08-13 · How We Fix the Climate — Hank: Asked if there is hope, Hank says yes, depending on what you mean: there is no hope of escaping negative impacts, which we are already experiencing. — 00:01:39
  • 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — Hank doesn't know how we will move forward from here, but knows we will. — 00:21:15
  • 2021-11-19 · How do We Get Anything Done At All? — Hank: No two people have ever agreed on everything, yet we have gotten a lot done, which gives Hank hope that we will continue to get stuff done. — 00:03:02

2022

  • 2022-01-21 · How to Be Hopeful About Doomsday — Hank: Humans constantly do things that were once impossible, like this conversation, and in the future we will do many things that are currently impossible. — 00:02:24
  • 2022-03-01 (said on 2022-02-27, implied) · Hard Week — John says mere despair never tells the full human story. — 00:01:27
  • 2022-03-11 · Is it All Hopeless? — Hank likes the 'will humans be around' joke less and less: its hopelessness vibe makes giving up seem cool, which it isn't; it betrays the future, the past and the present. — 00:02:18
    • Hank concludes we never know where we're headed and times are rarely precedented, but no one is acting hopeless, which gives him plenty of hope. — 00:03:16
  • 2022-03-15 · Ukraine and Russia: What Caused the War? — John believes the day of a secure, sovereign Ukraine will come, but fears for every day until it does. — 00:08:36
  • 2022-03-22 · Motivation in Hard Times — John says it has been winter for a long time and may be for a while longer, but spring is coming. — 00:03:24
  • 2022-03-29 · An H of G — John: So progress feels possible, John says, and injustice becomes even more horrific because we know that together we can choose a better world. — 00:03:24
  • 2022-04-15 · Are You Stuck in The Sad Gap — Hank: Beyond the gap you see people working to solve the problem and may become one, but in the sad gap you can't believe a problem is solvable or help solve it. — 00:01:57
  • 2022-04-19 · How do you cross the Sad Gap? — John says staying, learning and listening through open-ended commitments helps him cross the sad gap: our shared problems are tremendous, but so is our shared capacity to address them. — 00:02:26
  • 2022-04-26 · An Amazing Day — John says everyone is committed to a film expressing the book's ideas: people's pain is real and deserves attention and validation, and there is hope even when your brain says it isn't. — 00:03:10
  • 2022-07-29 · How Climate Change /Actually/ Works...in 4 Minutes — Hank says the problem is not easy to solve but well understood, and he thinks people can solve basically any problem if only they agree it exists. — 00:03:41
  • 2022-08-12 · The Biggest Climate Bill of Your Life - But What does it DO!? — Hank: For the first time in decades Hank believes climate change can be tackled, thanks to many people's hard work and effects too real to ignore. — 00:20:33
  • …and 1 statement more in 2022 — all statements of 2022

2023

  • 2023-02-21 · Maybe Art Only Needs to Be — John says the P4A reminds him that hope is the correct response to consciousness. — 00:02:33
  • 2023-03-10 · Is it Good or Bad that we Haven't Met Aliens? — Hank hopes we are at the start of such a shift and may someday solve the Fermi paradox by becoming its solution, which would be pretty cool. (hedged) — 00:03:27
  • 2023-03-14 · The Seduction of Despair — John says despair is simple whereas consciousness is multitudinous: mere despair won't suffice in response to life, nor will mere optimism or mere outrage. — 00:01:47
    • John says despair is the wrong response to consciousness because we are going to change the world together, so we should be thoughtful about how we do it. — 00:03:00
  • 2023-05-09 · on hope — John says he doesn't just think we can change the world together but that we will, and hopes it will be for the better; that hope holds up to scrutiny for him. — 00:02:50
  • 2023-08-22 · The Panera Phenomenon — John says the MCOE is not a symbol of hope but an activation of hope; English lacks a word for hope realized, which is telling, but that is how he feels. — 00:00:29
  • 2023-09-14 · Talking Tuberculosis, GeneXpert, J&J, and more with MY HEROES — John grants that despair is easy before overwhelming problems but says hope is the correct response to the miracle of human consciousness; together we can make a better world. — 00:58:42
  • 2023-09-27 · John Goes ... to the UNITED NATIONS? — John believes that, working together over the next decade, we will choose a world where no one dies of tuberculosis. — 00:04:31
  • 2023-09-28 · What the Heck is the UN? — Hank likes the TB chart less than the others, but says it shows we are still in the middle of the story and don't have to live with the world as it is. — 00:07:13
  • 2023-10-04 · A Messy and Unhinged Introduction to Geoengineering — Hank's most hopeful takeaway: climate scientists mostly think we don't need geoengineering yet; despite dire talk on social media, the problem still looks solvable without this possible last resort. — 00:12:14
  • 2023-11-21 · Minus Its Charms — John says people coming together to cancel $50 million of medical debt in memory of a lovely person is, to him, the complex story of being a person. — 00:03:27
  • 2023-11-28 · John's (Mostly Book) Holiday Gift Recommendations — recommendation: John: For doomers who feel the world is collapsing, John recommends Hannah Ritchie's Not the End of the World; he loves Ritchie, Our World in Data and the book, which left him hopeful. — 00:00:00
  • …and 5 statements more in 2023 — all statements of 2023

2024

  • 2024-01-05 · I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts — Hank's optimistic take: considering those huge twin shocks, most people have actually handled them fairly well, and there are signs we may be healing a bit. — 00:04:42
    • Hank says he is not ultimately optimistic about humanity: we could really go either way. — 00:06:09
  • 2024-03-05 · THE BEST DAY — John: The game could have gone the other way and usually will, but sometimes we are reminded hope is the thing with feathers and fall in love with the broken world again. — 00:04:29
  • 2024-06-25 · taking a break — John: As his goodbye for now, John says despair is a lie and hopelessness is a lie. — 00:03:05
  • 2024-08-02 · My Letter to the Future — Hank thinks the future will figure out climate change, and makes a risky bet that geothermal power will be a big part of it, which people will then call obvious. — 00:01:57
  • 2024-08-27 · How The Internet Is Rigged — John says he wants to explore the history of this path and why he thinks its future might not be quite as dystopian as many fear. (hedged) — 00:00:50
  • 2024-09-10 · The world will change. — John: Ending TB deaths seems a distant dream, but it need not be: only will, attention and funding stand between us and a world without TB death. — 00:05:21
  • 2024-09-13 · My Governor is Weirder than Yours — Ryan Busse: Busse says in politics you must be optimistic that good can come of government, elections and science; otherwise it is a dire, sour existence. — 00:19:05
  • 2024-10-03 · Broadly in Favor of Humans — John still thinks humanity will get through the polycrisis of climate change, growing violence and massive inequity, and survive our moment. — 00:04:25
    • John says humanity is worth it: worth the toil of trying to make a better world and the hope and heartbreak of what his father calls hard-headed optimism. — 00:04:49
  • 2024-10-04 · Trees are Destroying the Earth (Again) — Hank: Given the choice between the trees' situation and ours, Hank takes ours, because now we at least have some agency and a chance. — 00:04:55
  • 2024-11-12 · BELIEVE: The Jimmy Glass Story — John says the Carlisle fans were right to hope they could score from the corner, and Glass was right to abandon his goal and become a striker. — 00:04:17
  • …and 5 statements more in 2024 — all statements of 2024

2025

  • 2025-01-03 · My 2025 Bingo Card — Hank says history gives him hope: humans keep messing things up and fixing them, making terrible decisions and then correcting them. — 00:02:28
  • 2025-01-14 · So I Bought My Team a Pro Football Player — John toasts Marcus, Wimbledon and ridiculous, sublime, unconquerable hope, which, as Wimbledon's advertising hoardings used to say, is the thing with feathers. — 00:04:23
  • 2025-02-18 · Gastrointestinal Hypermotility in Tuatara — John says despair is unproductive: it wants him to sleep and feel hollow anger, and tells him there is nothing to do, like bringing a little bucket of water to a fire. — 00:01:57
  • 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank predicts humanity will eventually eradicate measles: they will worry until then, it can be done, that world is better, and we'll get there, though it is hard. — 00:05:02
  • 2025-03-18 · ITS ALL HAPPENING — John says it feels like we live at the end of the story, but this is the middle of the story, and together we have to fight for a better end. — 00:04:18
  • 2025-04-22 · The Unimportant Things — John says football and the documentary remind him that hope is correct: not always rewarded, with as much heartbreak as joy, but correct because things might get better, especially when we orient our love together. — 00:03:23
  • 2025-06-13 · Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways) — Hank's first way to hope: hopelessness is usually the less rational position, presented by a brain that cannot imagine the actual infinite and bizarre world. — 00:00:58
  • 2025-06-17 · My Religion — John: Forgiveness available to all people at all times, even beyond death, is radical hope, John's ground of being and the backbone of his theology: hope is not always rewarded but always justified. — 00:01:56
  • 2025-10-01 · Real Reasons for Hope — John's last reason for hope: our lives feel like a story from birth that ends today, but today is not the end of the story, it is the middle. — 00:04:52
  • 2025-10-09 · I Like Being Alive — John calls the felled trees' regrowth a metaphor for hope: they won't look as they did, yet they survive; hope sprouts different but undiminished from the wounds we inflict and survives the unsurvivable. — 00:03:36
  • 2025-10-28 · Elon Cancelled This...Let's Do it Anyway — John says it takes many people, from preventive therapy champions to political leaders, to bring lasting change, and he knows lasting change is possible. — 00:03:53
  • 2025-11-11 · John's Annual Psychophysical Decline — John says he knows this experience is temporary, that hope remains the correct response to consciousness, and that despair is a lie, even if a very convincing one. — 00:00:29
  • …and 10 statements more in 2025 — all statements of 2025

2026

  • 2026-01-06 · Hope Is Not a Feeling — John defines hope as a decision made over and over to believe that the world and those in it matter, and that there is cause to believe things can get better. — 00:02:26
  • 2026-02-03 · Does the truth still matter? — John thinks the truth still has some power he feared it had lost amid memes and deepfakes; for now that is where he finds hope, if a thin one. — 00:04:23
  • 2026-02-13 · Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! — John says distrust of expertise and the undermining of institutions in the US and elsewhere should scare us, but must not make us think hope is irrelevant: hope still has every reason to be part of our worldviews. — 01:47:01
  • 2026-02-14 · Project for Awesome 2026 part 3! — John: As AFC Wimbledon draw level, John says life is full of surprises and hope is always the correct response to consciousness: not always rewarded, but always justified. — 00:37:55
  • 2026-02-14 · Project for Awesome 2026 part 4! — John says the first birth is a reminder of what is possible when everything feels impossible, and that there is reason for hope even though so much is going in the wrong direction. — 01:00:24
  • 2026-03-10 · Is Hank Green Running for Congress? — John: Looking at the TB fighters and at Nerdfighteria, John sees how real, positive change can happen even amid corrupt systems. — 00:04:33
  • 2026-03-27 · What is 'Slop' (and why it gives me hope) — Hank says there is a chance this makes us care about human effort more: we will value weird choices and interesting leaps, since if human effort is the scarce part, he would think it would make us care about it more, not less. (hedged) — 00:10:37
  • 2026-04-14 · Babies. Babies. Babies. — John says more mothers receiving dignified care gives him hope: when despair creeps in he is reminded that together we can do extraordinary things, though also catastrophic ones. — 00:05:21
  • 2026-05-01 · Despair is Not Wisdom — Hank says that if we thought despair was wisdom, a hospital in Sierra Leone would not exist and babies would be dead; instead they can be tickled. — 00:05:11
  • 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says a disease that cannot be eradicated can still be treated: many treatable diseases go untreated, and we can make far fewer people and children die of infectious disease. — 00:09:15
  • 2026-09-08 · The Life Expectancy Lies That Won't Die — John says this should be cause for hope. — 00:05:21
  • 2026-10-08 · The Test of a First Rate Intelligence — John says holding such opposed truths together is hard, especially now, but essential, because otherwise we rest on our laurels or give in to despair. — 00:03:54
  • …and 6 statements more in 2026 — all statements of 2026