Is it reasonable to be hopeful about the future?
Hank has been hopeful since 2007, trusting humans to solve problems once they recognize them; from 2018 he admits days of little hope, and in 2024 says humanity could really go either way.
Axis: hope is reasonable ... hope is naive
Concept: optimism
Positions by date: 156 records in 155 videos. shift and revise mean the position moved; tension — disagreement with the other speaker.
John
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08-20 | shift | John says the project is starting to make him believe in humanity again: for the first time he feels there may be more nerdfighters than nerdhaters, after a lifetime of feeling suited to 'Loser'. | August 20th: Winner, South Dakota 00:02:58 |
| 2007-11-21 | shift | John says he is much more optimistic than he used to be because of the good he has seen people do together, and endorses Faulkner's belief that man will prevail. | November 21st: What I'm Grateful For 00:02:09 |
| 2008-11-27 | restate | John says living through a difficult moment in history can make one more hopeful, and that the community's normalising of awesome gives him hope. | Thanksgiving in Asheville 00:01:13 |
| 2010-10-13 | restate | John says that in an irreparably broken world humans are right to hold on to hope: hope is not crazy, and it gives us a chance. | On Hope and Chile 00:02:16 |
| 2011-08-05 | restate | John says 3,000 people singing a song about quarks answers complaints about teenagers and asks how anyone could not feel hopeful about the world. | Vidcon: Thoughts from Places 00:01:13 |
| 2013-04-16 | restate | After the Boston, Iraq and Iran-Pakistan tragedies John says we can always look in hope to the helpers and try to be among them. | Flags and Helpers 00:01:27 |
| 2013-12-31 | restate | John's description says there are many reasons to be hopeful that 2014 might be the best year yet; he closes the video wishing the new year be the best one yet. | GOOD NEWS: 14 Reasons 2014 May Be the Best Year Ever video description |
| 2014-03-04 | restate | Citing Japan, Germany and Sierra Leone, John says stability for Ukraine seems far away but hopes the long arc of history bends toward peace. | Understanding Ukraine: The Problems Today and Some Historical Context 00:06:35 |
| 2014-09-05 | restate | John says the world may be broken, but hope is not crazy. | REUNION TUESDAY! FRIDAY! WHATEVER! 00:03:36 |
| 2015-07-14 | restate | John says 'The best is yet to come' is one of the very few things in life he believes to be fundamentally and incontrovertibly true. | On Exhaustion 00:00:30 |
| 2015-11-03 | restate | John says we are always in the middle of history with an unknowable future, which he finds encouraging; he remains weirdly optimistic. | Monkey Hangers 00:03:36 |
| 2016-01-26 | restate | John says he remains convinced of and deeply moved by the radical hope that has defined so much human effort. | Billionaires and Radical Hope: Thoughts from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland 00:03:03 |
| 2016-08-16 | restate | John says he really believes that in spite of it all, hope is not misguided. | Some Good News: 16 Ways 2016 Is Not a Total Dumpster Fire 00:03:41 |
| 2016-11-09 | restate | John says hope is not idealistic or silly but the founding emotion of our species. | My Post-Election Thoughts 00:03:12 |
| 2017-02-14 | restate | John hopes viewers check out the Gates letter in the description: honest and level-headed while still optimistic, which is what he wants to be when he grows up. | Human Life Is Getting Better. Faster Than Ever Before. 00:04:24 |
| 2017-05-23 (said on 2017-05-14, implied) | restate | Congratulating a newly engaged viewer, John says the world goes on, people fall in love, and hope, 'that thing with feathers', refuses to be shushed. | Boxes, Butterflies, and Regular Aunts: Live from the Past, It's Question Tuesday 00:03:15 |
| 2017-08-08 | restate | John says he was reminded that how you feel at your worst is not how you are always going to feel. | What You Make of It: Thoughts from Venice, Italy 00:02:56 |
| 2017-11-03 | restate | John says Amy made him understand that hope is not foolish, idealistic or misguided but true, and he really believes hope is the correct response to the arc of history. | Because We're Here 00:02:29 |
| 2018-02-06 | restate | 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. | Sawdust Bread 00:02:24 |
| 2018-02-20 | restate | 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. | When Your Friend Runs for Governor 00:03:31 |
| 2018-05-01 | restate | 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. | How to Win 00:03:08 |
| 2018-05-15 | restate | John thanks mapmakers for giving him hope and also, when appropriate, fear. | Seven Maps to Better Understand the World 00:03:14 |
| 2018-10-09 | restate | John repeats what he has often said and written: there really is hope, even when your brain says there isn't. | How Big a Problem is Mental Illness? 00:03:24 |
| 2018-12-07 | restate | 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. | BABIES! The 2018 Project for Awesome is here… 00:01:03 |
| 2019-01-29 | restate | 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. | Do You Believe in Miracles? 00:00:57 |
| 2019-02-12 | restate | John says understanding tessellations makes him optimistic in spite of it all. | Are Textbooks Obsolete? 00:03:53 |
| 2019-02-19 | restate | 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. | Battling Apathy and Searching for Meaning on Question Tuesday 00:03:24 |
| 2019-02-26 | restate | 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. | The Necessity to Struggle / The Futility of Effort 00:02:55 |
| 2019-03-26 | restate | 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. | Optimism and Spider People: Question Tuesday from the Looking for Alaska Set 00:00:29 |
| 2019-04-09 | restate | Seeing what Kissy's staff and patients accomplished in two years, John knows real change is possible. | The Only Psychiatric Hospital in Sierra Leone 00:05:50 |
| 2019-04-30 | restate | 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. | The Thing with Feathers 00:01:55 |
| 2019-08-06 | restate | John acknowledges he is hopeful and thinks the data supports his hope; he doesn't know how we unwind from this, but believes we will. | Uncertain and Afraid 00:00:58 |
| 2019-10-01 | restate | 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. | Why Are Poor Countries Poor? 00:07:23 |
| 2019-10-15 | restate | John says this is temporary: he will be okay and so will viewers; if one thing is known about the universe, it is that this is temporary. | I'm Having a Lot of Feelings 00:03:16 |
| 2019-11-01 | restate | 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. | On Looking Up to Your Little Brother 00:02:10 |
| 2019-12-10 | restate | 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. | On Loneliness 00:03:41 |
| 2020-03-31 | restate | John thinks of a Lucille Clifton poem that ends 'The future is possible' and feels hope in it. | Let's take a walk. 00:03:25 |
| 2020-07-07 | restate | The book manages one of the hardest tricks in fiction and life: never denying horror, suffering and injustice while acknowledging beauty, wonder and kindness; that hope is useful. | You're a Rock Star 00:00:29 |
| 2020-07-14 | restate | Hank's line gave John permission to produce joy even when worried and when so much is horrible; he must make room for seeking and making joy, because that cultivates hope. | The ice we skate is getting pretty thin. 00:02:55 |
| 2020-08-03 | restate | For John, seeing old pictures is a reminder that now feels permanent but isn't, and that mere despair never tells the whole story. | you're bundled up now? wait till you get older. 00:02:10 |
| 2020-12-29 | restate | There will be a way forward: an unconditional future-tense statement John is still willing to make. | Looking Back at My 2020 Goals 00:03:30 |
| 2020-12-31 | restate | Such hope is not foolish, idealistic or misguided: John believes hope is, for lack of a better word, true. · also in: We're here because were here., John's Review of Auld Lang Syne | Auld Lang Syne: The Anthropocene Reviewed 00:19:50 |
| 2021-01-26 | restate | 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. | The Sycamore Tree: The Anthropocene Reviewed 00:05:42 |
| 2021-02-16 | restate | 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. | A Lovely Winter Walk 00:02:00 |
| 2021-05-25 | restate | 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. | The Anthropocene Reviewed, Animated 00:13:16 |
| 2021-07-27 | restate | We go on because despair may be powerful but is untrue: there is light in front of all of us. | Savoring: The Sunset Series Returns 00:01:58 |
| 2022-03-01 (said on 2022-02-27, implied) | restate | John says mere despair never tells the full human story. | Hard Week 00:01:27 |
| 2022-03-15 | refine | John believes the day of a secure, sovereign Ukraine will come, but fears for every day until it does. | Ukraine and Russia: What Caused the War? 00:08:36 |
| 2022-03-22 | restate | John says it has been winter for a long time and may be for a while longer, but spring is coming. | Motivation in Hard Times 00:03:24 |
| 2022-03-29 | restate | So progress feels possible, John says, and injustice becomes even more horrific because we know that together we can choose a better world. | An H of G 00:03:24 |
| 2022-04-19 | restate | 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. | How do you cross the Sad Gap? 00:02:26 |
| 2022-04-26 | restate | 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. | An Amazing Day 00:03:10 |
| 2022-12-27 | restate | Such hope is not foolish, idealistic or misguided: John believes hope is, for lack of a better word, true. | We're here because were here. 00:19:13 |
| 2023-02-21 | restate | John says the P4A reminds him that hope is the correct response to consciousness. | Maybe Art Only Needs to Be 00:02:33 |
| 2023-03-14 | restate | 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. | The Seduction of Despair 00:03:00 |
| 2023-05-02 | restate | John is proud that Koidu Government Hospital now has a good news room, and says the work of Marie, Hawa, Success and others on the MCOE means much more good news to come. | GOOD NEWS 00:06:49 |
| 2023-05-09 | restate | 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. | on hope 00:02:50 |
| 2023-06-13 | restate | John hopes that 300 years from now we will look back on many things the way we now look back on the king's touch. | touched by a king 00:03:37 |
| 2023-07-18 | restate | John says that for too long the fight against tuberculosis has lacked the global constituency it needs, but he hopes that is starting to change. | Tuberculosis Fighters Have a Posse 00:04:22 |
| 2023-08-22 | restate | 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. | The Panera Phenomenon 00:00:29 |
| 2023-09-14 | restate | 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. | Talking Tuberculosis, GeneXpert, J&J, and more with MY HEROES 00:58:42 |
| 2023-09-27 | restate | John believes that, working together over the next decade, we will choose a world where no one dies of tuberculosis. | John Goes ... to the UNITED NATIONS? 00:04:31 |
| 2023-11-21 | restate | 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. | Minus Its Charms 00:03:27 |
| 2023-11-28 | restate | 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. | John's (Mostly Book) Holiday Gift Recommendations 00:00:00 |
| 2023-12-19 | restate | John asks whether his hope is naive and says he doesn't think so, because he has seen hope realized before. | End of a Rough Year 00:03:35 |
| 2023-12-30 | restate | Such hope is not foolish, idealistic or misguided: John believes hope is, for lack of a better word, true. | John's Review of Auld Lang Syne 00:19:39 |
| 2024-03-05 | restate | 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. | THE BEST DAY 00:04:29 |
| 2024-03-12 | restate | John says he believes in the possibility of change because he has seen change, which is why he is going to Washington, D.C. | How We End TB 00:04:20 |
| 2024-03-19 | restate | John says the project won't be easy and has real risks, but he is betting big because he believes it could transform what we think is possible against TB. | Our $80,000,000 Bet 00:02:55 |
| 2024-06-25 | restate | As his goodbye for now, John says despair is a lie and hopelessness is a lie. | taking a break 00:03:05 |
| 2024-08-27 | restate | 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. | How The Internet Is Rigged 00:00:50 |
| 2024-09-10 | restate | 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. | The world will change. 00:05:21 |
| 2024-10-03 | restate | John still thinks humanity will get through the polycrisis of climate change, growing violence and massive inequity, and survive our moment. | Broadly in Favor of Humans 00:04:25 |
| 2024-11-12 | restate | 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. | BELIEVE: The Jimmy Glass Story 00:04:17 |
| 2025-01-14 | restate | John toasts Marcus, Wimbledon and ridiculous, sublime, unconquerable hope, which, as Wimbledon's advertising hoardings used to say, is the thing with feathers. | So I Bought My Team a Pro Football Player 00:04:23 |
| 2025-02-11 | restate | Facing big global problems that risk reversing progress, John says he feels close to despair but believes despair is not the right response now. | What's at Stake 00:05:21 |
| 2025-02-18 | restate | 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. | Gastrointestinal Hypermotility in Tuatara 00:01:57 |
| 2025-03-04 | restate | John tells himself that although he sees today as the end of the story, we live in the middle of history, not knowing the end, so we have cause for hope and work to do. | The ANXIETY IS PALPABLE 00:03:30 |
| 2025-03-18 | restate | 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. | ITS ALL HAPPENING 00:04:18 |
| 2025-04-22 | restate | 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. | The Unimportant Things 00:03:23 |
| 2025-05-13 | restate | John says the fall is a reminder that when we pay attention to a crisis and focus resources on it, change can happen and the world can get better. | I Have the BEST News 00:02:00 |
| 2025-06-10 | restate | John says he really believes we might be able to stop it. | 90,000,000 Lives for $20 00:02:26 |
| 2025-06-17 | restate | 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. | My Religion 00:01:56 |
| 2025-10-01 | restate | 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. | Real Reasons for Hope 00:04:52 |
| 2025-10-09 | restate | 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. | I Like Being Alive 00:03:36 |
| 2025-10-28 | restate | John says it takes many people, from preventive therapy champions to political leaders, to bring lasting change, and he knows lasting change is possible. | Elon Cancelled This...Let's Do it Anyway 00:03:53 |
| 2025-11-11 | restate | 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. | John's Annual Psychophysical Decline 00:00:29 |
| 2026-01-06 | restate | 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. | Hope Is Not a Feeling 00:02:26 |
| 2026-02-03 | restate | 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. | Does the truth still matter? 00:04:23 |
| 2026-02-13 | restate | 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. | Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! 01:47:01 |
| 2026-02-14 | restate | 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. | Project for Awesome 2026 part 3! 00:37:55 |
| 2026-02-14 | restate | 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. | Project for Awesome 2026 part 4! 01:00:24 |
| 2026-03-10 | restate | Looking at the TB fighters and at Nerdfighteria, John sees how real, positive change can happen even amid corrupt systems. | Is Hank Green Running for Congress? 00:04:33 |
| 2026-04-14 | restate | 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. | Babies. Babies. Babies. 00:05:21 |
| 2026-04-28 | restate | John says that because people now trust the hospital and it sees three times as many patients, there is real hope there. | What I Can't Show You 00:00:58 |
| 2026-09-08 | restate | John says this should be cause for hope. | The Life Expectancy Lies That Won't Die 00:05:21 |
| 2026-10-08 | restate | 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. | The Test of a First Rate Intelligence 00:03:54 |
| 2026-10-20 | restate | John believes some people watching his video will live to see a world where tuberculosis is no longer the world's deadliest infection. | Correcting a Mistake in Everything Is Tuberculosis · 50 x 50 Science 00:07:47 |
Hank
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-05-25 | first on record | Hank says realising how much future is still to come, and that he will see much of it, makes him hopeful. | May 25th: FreeMonkey's Tour 00:03:04 |
| 2007-12-19 | restate | Hank says seeing so many people promote organizations doing good, simply because it is right, made him kind of hopeful. | December 19: The Day that the Nerds Took Over YouTube 00:02:44 |
| 2011-10-26 | restate | Hank says he is very hopeful about the future of the species: immense challenges, but immense resources to face them. | 7,000,000,000 People 00:02:11 |
| 2013-05-31 | restate | Hank: working for a better future comes from optimism, not from fear of an inevitable apocalypse; there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about. | Optimism is Not Insane 00:03:30 |
| 2013-06-07 | restate | Hank: the future could go either way - great advances or the implosion of technological society. | How To Be a Baby Properly 00:00:31 |
| 2013-09-27 | restate | Hank says that once we agree there is a problem, he has complete faith in humanity's ability to solve it. | Invalid Arguments: Climate Change 00:03:30 |
| 2014-01-03 | restate | Hank says we should be cautious but not pessimistic, because pessimism will hold us back. | The Golden Gate Bridge Didn't Collapse!! 00:03:35 |
| 2014-12-26 | restate | Hank says Malala's Nobel acceptance speech gave him hope about some very depressing, seemingly hopeless situations. | The Best and Worst of 2014 00:00:51 |
| 2015-09-25 | restate | 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. | Pissed Off for a Better World 00:03:09 |
| 2015-11-27 (said on 2015-11-26, implied) | restate | Hank holds that if we never look back at what we have achieved everything looks hopeless; hope needs both dissatisfaction and recognition of past progress. | Never Satisfied: The Story of Humans ¦-/ 00:02:27 |
| 2016-01-22 | restate | Hank says he honestly believes we are on our way to a better, brighter future. | Why Are Vegetarians Annoying? (An Exploration of a Cultural Rift) 00:03:19 |
| 2016-10-21 | restate | Hank says Americans, and humans, have problems but are good at taking on problems. | Coming Out, Goats, Government, and Attack Ads with Denise Juneau 00:08:09 |
| 2017-01-13 | restate | Hank says there are still good dogs and still good people. | Top 10 Best Dogs Ever 00:03:45 |
| 2017-01-20 | restate | Hank says the tweet about wonderful people making the world better holds no matter who is president. | Behind the Scenes of My Life video description |
| 2018-03-23 | refine | 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. | Trump, Guns, and Net Neutrality...With Governor Steve Bullock?! video description |
| 2018-10-19 | restate | Humans are very good at solving problems, Hank says, just not at solving problems they are unable to recognize. | This is the scariest graph I've ever seen 00:02:46 |
| 2018-12-04 | restate | 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. | When it All Seems Like Too Much 00:01:50 |
| 2019-03-01 | refine | Hank, a pretty optimistic and pro-human person, is not that optimistic when 1,000 people out of 300 million are allowed to ruin something by being bad and making money at it. | I Get a Robocall While Making a Video About Robocalls 00:03:38 |
| 2019-05-03 | restate | 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. | What Game of Thrones is Really About 00:09:01 |
| 2019-05-31 | restate | Hank says that facing a climate crisis, many call the solutions impractical or impossible, but we can do this. | Uncomfortable Nuance: Natural Gas Edition 00:00:40 |
| 2019-09-27 | restate | 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. | Crisis 00:03:30 |
| 2019-12-06 | restate | 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. | It is Much Easier to Destroy than Create 00:03:16 |
| 2019-12-27 | restate | Hank says worry almost always works best hand in hand with hope. | Why I'm Worried about 2020 00:03:05 |
| 2020-03-20 | restate | Hank says it will suck, but we will catch ourselves and rise because that's what we do, and this time we will do it together. | The Sudden Obliteration of Expectation 00:09:52 |
| 2020-04-10 | restate | Hank says his worries go in every direction, but he does not have less faith in humanity than three months ago. | Things I'm Finding Encouraging 00:03:27 |
| 2020-07-31 | restate | Hank has hope: he thinks higher education will survive by accepting that it has done tremendous good while letting budgets balloon, competing like businesses for customers instead of educating students. | Your Brain Gets Smart, but Your Head Gets Dumb 00:02:23 |
| 2020-08-21 | restate | Having seen collective action of the kind, if not the magnitude, climate change needs, Hank is more fearful of a less prosperous world but more hopeful, since people make sacrifices when they see what's on the line. | The Water's Getting Warm 00:03:12 |
| 2020-10-14 | restate | Hank realized that a great deal has happened and continues to happen, and all of it has been, for the species, ultimately survivable. | John Predicts the Future! 00:03:24 |
| 2021-02-19 | restate | Hank says the Project for Awesome makes him feel better about the future and humanity. | Bean Meme Review 00:02:30 |
| 2021-03-05 | restate | With spring coming, Hank feels that what he is experiencing is not just hope but joy. | How Much Hope is OK? 00:01:04 |
| 2021-08-13 | restate | 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. | How We Fix the Climate 00:01:39 |
| 2021-10-07 | restate | Hank doesn't know how we will move forward from here, but knows we will. | We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong 00:21:15 |
| 2021-11-19 | restate | 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. | How do We Get Anything Done At All? 00:03:02 |
| 2022-01-21 | restate | Humans constantly do things that were once impossible, like this conversation, and in the future we will do many things that are currently impossible. | How to Be Hopeful About Doomsday 00:02:24 |
| 2022-03-11 | restate | 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. | Is it All Hopeless? 00:03:16 |
| 2022-04-15 | restate | 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. | Are You Stuck in The Sad Gap 00:01:57 |
| 2022-07-29 | restate | 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. | How Climate Change /Actually/ Works...in 4 Minutes 00:03:41 |
| 2022-08-12 | restate | 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. | The Biggest Climate Bill of Your Life - But What does it DO!? 00:20:33 |
| 2023-03-10 | restate | 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. | Is it Good or Bad that we Haven't Met Aliens? 00:03:27 |
| 2023-08-04 | restate | Hank says we are entering the overlap period, when the problem is too big to ignore but can still be solved, so a decades-long natural experiment like this is priceless. | The Biggest Science Story of the Week 00:05:09 |
| 2023-09-28 | restate | 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. | What the Heck is the UN? 00:07:13 |
| 2023-10-04 | restate | 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. | A Messy and Unhinged Introduction to Geoengineering 00:12:14 |
| 2024-01-05 | restate | 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. | I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts 00:04:42 |
| 2024-01-05 | refine | Hank says he is not ultimately optimistic about humanity: we could really go either way. | I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts 00:06:09 |
| 2024-08-02 | restate | 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. | My Letter to the Future 00:01:57 |
| 2024-10-04 | restate | Given the choice between the trees' situation and ours, Hank takes ours, because now we at least have some agency and a chance. | Trees are Destroying the Earth (Again) 00:04:55 |
| 2024-11-22 | restate | The description says putting the pieces back together will take time but will bring a better world, though most days Hank thinks it will take forever. | Populism, Media Revolutions, and Our Terrible Moment video description |
| 2025-01-03 | restate | Hank says history gives him hope: humans keep messing things up and fixing them, making terrible decisions and then correcting them. | My 2025 Bingo Card 00:02:28 |
| 2025-02-28 | restate | 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. | We Will Eradicate Measles 00:05:02 |
| 2025-04-11 (said on 2025-04-10, implied) | restate | Hank says humanity can and will still do great things, including one day no one dying of preventable diseases. | How Actually Crazy is This Mess? 00:18:12 |
| 2025-06-13 | restate | 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. | Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways) 00:00:58 |
| 2025-06-27 | restate | Hank says even tasty food that isn't ultra-processed is too good for us, but the benefits of solving this are too large for us not to get there. | You’re Not Addicted to Content, You’re Starving for Information 00:07:38 |
| 2025-07-04 | restate | Hank says there is no use being weighed down by a world that isn't actually this one; this one is hard enough. | This Graph Changed My Life 00:04:32 |
| 2025-07-25 | restate | Hank says we decide whether trees cause a second mass extinction or are part of the Garden of Earth; he thinks we can choose the latter, and letting trees kill everything again would be shameful. | The Molecule that Changed Everything 00:06:50 |
| 2025-10-17 | restate | Since he cannot know where we are going, Hank says he has no choice but to be a little excited to see where we end up. | We Never Know What Anything Means 00:05:22 |
| 2026-01-02 | restate | Hank hopes the next decade will be about people taking some of their agency back; he almost has to believe it, even if he does not think it is true. | I Got a New Disease and I Kinda Liked It. 00:07:16 |
| 2026-01-09 | restate | Hank agrees with John's point that believing in a hopeful worldview makes it more likely that hopeful things come to pass: he thinks it is probably right. | There is Only One Source of Value 00:00:00 |
| 2026-03-27 | restate | 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. | What is 'Slop' (and why it gives me hope) 00:10:37 |
| 2026-05-01 | restate | 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. | Despair is Not Wisdom 00:05:11 |
| 2026-08-28 | restate | 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. | Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill 00:09:15 |
Background
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-01-03 (said on 2009-01-02, implied) | background | John says he is an optimist only in that he thinks humanity's relentless attempt to extinguish itself will fail for the foreseeable future. (playful, hedged) | Giraffe Love and Other Questions ANSWERED 00:01:37 |
Dates are upload dates, which set the order. Where the speaker gives a different recording date in the video, it is added as "said on YYYY-MM-DD, implied" (derived from the date said in the video).
Timeline notes
- John: first recorded event is shift (earlier stance may be outside 2007–2026 or unrecorded)