Avoid assuming declinism

“Things used to be better before” is something that needs to be proven rather than assumed. In most aspects that I’ve seen, society is trending positively over time.

The consequence of this is to increase the burden of proof for dismantling existing institutions that have facilitated a lot of our societal progress.

This is a lot of what Enlightenment Now and similar books have as their thesis.

Of course, this does not mean things are as good as they should be, or that progress trends could not be improved or sped up. Progress as optimization.