Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

9. Secular stagnation: Summers 2014b, 2016. For analysis and commentaries, see Teulings & Baldwin 2014.

10. No one knows: M. Levinson, “Every US President Promises to Boost Economic Growth. The Catch: No One Knows How,” Vox, Dec. 22, 2016; G. Ip, “The Economy’s Hidden Problem: We’re Out of Big Ideas,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 20, 2016; Teulings & Baldwin 2014.

11. Gordon 2014, 2016.

12. American complacency: Cowen 2017; Glaeser 2014; F. Erixon & B. Weigel, “Risk, Regulation, and the Innovation Slowdown,” Cato Policy Report, Sept./Oct. 2016; G. Ip, “The Economy’s Hidden Problem: We’re Out of Big Ideas,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 20, 2016.

13. World Bank 2016c. American GDP per capita has grown in all but eight of the past fifty-five years.

14. Sleeper effect in technological development: G. Ip, “The Economy’s Hidden Problem: We’re Out of Big Ideas,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 20, 2016; Eichengreen 2014.

15. Technologically driven age of abundance: Brand 2009; Bryce 2014; Brynjolfsson & McAfee 2016; Diamandis & Kotler 2012; Eichengreen 2014; Mokyr 2014; Naam 2013; Reese 2013.

16. Interview with Ezra Klein, “Bill Gates: The Energy Breakthrough That Will ‘Save Our Planet’ Is Less Than 15 Years Away,” Vox, Feb. 24, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/2/24/11100702/billgatesenergy. Gates casually alluded to the “‘peace breaks out’ book that was written in 1940.” I’m guessing he was referring to Norman Angell’s The Great Illusion, commonly misremembered as having predicted that war was impossible on the eve of World War I. In fact the pamphlet, first published in 1909, argued that war was unprofitable, not that it was obsolete.

17. Diamandis & Kotler 2012, p. 11.

18. Fossil power, guilt-free: Service 2017.

19. Jane Langdale, “Radical Ag: C4 Rice and Beyond,” Seminars About Long-Term Thinking, Long Now Foundation, March 14, 2016.

20. Second Machine Age: Brynjolfsson & McAfee 2016. See also Diamandis & Kotler 2012.

21. Mokyr 2014, p. 88; see also Feldstein 2017; T. Aeppel, “Silicon Valley Doesn’t Believe U.S. Productivity Is Down,” Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2016; K. Kelly, “The Post-Productive Economy,” The Technium, Jan. 1, 2013.

22. Demonetization: Diamandis & Kotler 2012.

23. G. Ip, “The Economy’s Hidden Problem: We’re Out of Big Ideas,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 20, 2016.

24. Authoritarian populism: Inglehart & Norris 2016; Norris & Inglehart 2016; see also chapter 23 in this book.

25. Norris & Inglehart 2016.

26. History of Trump through his election: J. Fallows, “The Daily Trump: Filling a Time Capsule,” The Atlantic, Nov. 20, 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/11/on-the-future-of-the-time-capsules/508268/. History of Trump in his first half-year as president: E. Levitz, “All the Terrifying Things That Donald Trump Did Lately,” New York, June 9, 2017.

27. “Donald Trump’s File,” PolitiFact, http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/. See also D. Dale, “Donald Trump: The Unauthorized Database of False Things,” The Star, Nov. 14, 2016, which lists 560 false claims he made in a span of two months, about twenty per day; M. Yglesias, “The Bullshitter-in-Chief,” Vox, May 30, 2017; and D. Leonhardt & S. A. Thompson, “Trump’s Lies,” New York Times, June 23, 2017.

28. Adapted from the science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

29. S. Kinzer, “The Enlightenment Had a Good Run,” Boston Globe, Dec. 23, 2016.

30. Obama approval: J. McCarthy, “President Obama Leaves White House with 58% Favorable Rating,” Gallup, Jan. 16, 2017, http://www.gallup.com/poll/202349/president-obama-leaves-white-house-favorable-rating.aspx. Farewell address: Obama referred to the “essential spirit of innovation and practical problem-solving that guided our Founders” that was “born of the Enlightenment” and which he defined as “a faith in reason, and enterprise, and the primacy of right over might” (“President Obama’s Farewell Address, Jan. 10, 2017,” The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/farewell).

31. Trump ratings: J. McCarthy, “Trump’s Pre-Inauguration Favorables Remain Historically Low,” Gallup, Jan. 16, 2017; “How Unpopular Is Donald Trump?” FiveThirtyEight, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/; “Presidential Approval Ratings—Donald Trump,” Gallup, Aug. 25, 2017.

32. G. Aisch, A. Pearce, & B. Rousseau, “How Far Is Europe Swinging to the Right?” New York Times, Dec. 5, 2016. Of the twenty countries whose parliamentary elections were tracked, nine had an increase in the representation of right-wing parties since the preceding election, nine had a decrease, and two (Spain and Portugal) had no representation at all.