development optimist or pessimist?

I confess to being a fairly exuberant development optimist. Not because I think we really know the secret to growth, but because I'm not sure that that matters. Heretical! perhaps. Of course we should keep trying to implement the best policies possible and keep trying to learn what works and what doesn't. In the meantime, the world just keeps on getting better and better in many dimensions that are critically important. I also believe that the key to solving some of the problems that are not getting better, like global warming, is the advance of incomes and technology, which is happening, with some hiccups and a number of caveats. You can focus exclusively on the exceptions and the caveats, or you can keep the 'big picture' always in the back of your mind - to help with the (happier) latter strategy, fellow DV409 student Michael Homes sent me this video that helps put everything into perspective.