A pep talk from Barack Obama.

Courtesy of CNBC: 

When the going gets rough, a pep talk from former president Barack Obama may come in handy.

A day after president Donald Trump's downcast speech on terrorism and political adversaries during the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), Obama discussed the power of optimism at the inaugural Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Goalkeepers" event.

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"Your response has to be to reject cynicism and reject pessimism and push forward, with a certain infectious and relentless optimism," he says. "Not blind optimism, not one that ignores the scale and scope of our challenges, but that hard-earned optimism, that's rooted in the stories of very real progress that have occurred throughout human history." 

"We have to reject the notion that we're suddenly gripped by forces that we cannot control," Obama says. "We've got to embrace the longer and more optimistic view of history and the part that we play in it." But how can anyone be optimistic under those conditions, you may ask? Obama wants you to consider this: "By just about every measure, America is better — and the world is better — than it was 50 years ago, 30 years ago or even 10 years ago." 

"I know that statement doesn't jibe with the steady stream of bad news and cynicism that we're fed through television and Twitter," Obama says. 

"Each new generation stands on the successes of the previous generation," he says, bending "that arc of history in the direction of more freedom and more opportunity and more justice." 

"I have great faith in you," he says, "and I'm certain that if you keep pushing forward, then America and the world are going to be just fine."

Look I know this is supposed to make us feel better, and it is SO nice to hear such optimism again, but really all it is doing is making me miss our former President more than ever. 

However of course he is right, we desperately need to maintain a positive outlook and work for the kind of progress that his administration worked so hard to achieve.

So I am going to do my part, and keep pushing those progressive values in the hope that all of this will eventually blow over and we will once again get back on the right track to a better tomorrow.

You know what, I guess I DO feel better.

While accepting a Profile in Courage award, Barack Obama calls on the American people to "stand up to hate."

Courtesy of NBC News:  

"For many Americans, I know that this feels like an uncertain and perilous time," Obama — accompanied by his wife, Michelle Obama, and former Vice President Joe Biden — said in accepting the annual Profile in Courage award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

"Our politics remains filled with division and discord," Obama said just days after House Republicans won passage of a bill that would dismantle much of his signature health care law."At such moments, courage is necessary," he said. 

"At such moments, we need courage to stand up to hate, not just in others, but in ourselves. At such moments, we need courage to stand up to dogma, not just in others, but in ourselves. ... 

"Courage means not doing what is simply politically expedient but doing what [people] believe in their hearts is right," he said. "And this kind of courage is required of all of us."

Here is video of Obama's entire speech.

I would like the last man whom I recognize as my President to know that I try everyday to follow this advice.

I try everyday to not allow my anger to get the better of me.

I try everyday to remain optimistic.

I try everyday to be a good example to others.

But it is harder now than it has ever been before.

Which I guess is why we need to find the courage to keep moving forward, to keep fighting for progress, to keep fighting for equality, and to keep fighting for a peaceful world.

I will just continue to keep in mind that if Barack Obama could remain positive through eight years of the most aggressive disrespect we have ever seen directed at a sitting President, and still keep fighting for all of us without caring that it would only attract even more anger and vitriol, then how could I do any less?

Would you like to be inspired? Your wish is my command.

That gentleman is futurist Jason Silva. And he may be just about the most optimistic human on the planet. Well among the top three at least.

Rather than being concerned about where science and technology might be taking human beings, Silva is packing his things so he does not miss the first shuttle to the future.

Here is Silva from an interview with New Statesman in November of last year: 

“I think that technology has always been a double-edged sword,” Silva says. “If you look at the work of Steven Pinker, Better Angels Of Our Nature, the world has never been less violent than today. The chances of a man dying at the hands of another man have never been lower than today. If we can transcend our overactive amygdalas that are always focusing on the danger, you’ll find the world is getting better on a whole range of indicators.” 

“There’s always been a terror about new technology. The same was said about the radio and television. There’s a great book by Steven Johnson - it’s called Everything Bad Is Good For You - he talks about how video games, for example, engage our problem-solving and strategy skills in an immense way. There are all these counter-intuitive examples of tools that we were afraid of, but at the end of the day it’s just evolution, man. Minds like ours were made for merger.” 

Silva is also dismissive of the possibility that we’ll run out of resources, because “technology is a resource-liberating mechanism”. Nanotechnology will allow us to perform alchemy, reconfiguring materials on an atom-by-atom basis. Water wars are ridiculous because “we live on a water planet”, and advanced desalination technology “is going to give us more water than we ever could need”. Overpopulation is misdirection. Technology doesn’t hurt us, it brings us out of poverty and is our method of reaching a higher plane of existence. The little details don't matter when you realise that the big picture averages out as an overwhelming positive. 

“People say these new technologies are only for the rich, I say, ‘yeah, just like cellphones’. Everyone in Africa has better communications technology than the US president had 25 years ago.” If anything, Silva appears to be arguing for a post-scarcity future of the sort written about by a range of economists and science fiction authors for decades, if not centuries. “The capitalist underpinnings of society would be completely transcended - people would be liberated,” he explains.

Essentially Silva believes that our futures are only hampered by our imaginations and our fears of where they may lead.

I am a big fan of this kind of thinking, because in many ways it reflects my own.

Which is one of the main reasons that I am so hard on religion and work to reduce its influence on how we think, and how we perceive ourselves. So long as we see ourselves as subservient and beholden to a magic man in the sky, we undermine our ability to see ourselves as gods and the creators of magic that we live with everyday.

We can communicate across the world in an instant, see into the vastness of space, fly though the air at supersonic speeds, and enter virtual reality worlds almost as real as the one all around us.

When I think of the future I am always optimistic, but I am also very aware that there are people desperate, and I mean DESPERATE, to hold us back.

P.S. If you want to see a great Star talk episode featuring Silva and Neil deGrasse Tyson click here.