The scientific revolution in the 16th century was one of the biggest societal shifts in human history, driven by the discovery of new and better methods of figuring out who was right and who was wrong.

Julia Galef – a well-known writer and researcher focused on improving human judgment, especially about high stakes questions – believes that if we could develop new techniques to resolve disagreements, predict the future and make sound decisions together, we could again dramatically improve the world. We brought her in to talk about her ideas.

I mean, it seems like, taking a longer term view, people are more reasonable than they were 200 years ago, so bit by bit the quality of discourse in public has mostly been improving. Or has it?

Read the full article at 80000hours.org