I don't think it's constantly ascending. I think that over any lengthy period of time, things are getting better. Every century we understand more about the universe and about ourselves than we did just a little while ago. That's a good sign.

I know humanity is capable of ridiculous evils. At the same time, though, it's capable of breathtaking goods. When I think about the future, those goods are what I focus on. Yes, the evils will happen - but why bother worrying about them too much? They'll pass.

I might trade living in the 90's for right now but there is not other time in the history of the US which I would prefer than right now. There are plenty of country's which are worse off now than they where 5 years ago but in the US with some minor variations the further back you go the worse things get.

This is what we call optimism. Just as having both risk-loving and risk-averse people creates a more stable species, so does having optimists and pessimists.

Its a perfectly reasonable thing to believe--just like its opposite--and depends solely on how you're measuring. All in all, I think it depends on the reduce function. If it was reduce(lambda a,b: a+b,[ x.happiness for x in humanity ]), then maybe there is the most happy the world has ever seen. If you took that number and divided it by the population, than maybe the average happy per person has gotten lower. And so on and so on.

I think its definitely possible to believe it.