Like many in my generation, I used to despise humans and feel hopeless about the future. The book “The Beginning of Infinity” single-handedly turned me into an optimist. It made me see humans and the universe in a completely different way. Here are some of the most important insights: “If something is permitted by the laws of physics, then the only thing that can prevent it from being technologically possible is not knowing how.” Having the laws of physics as the only hard limit to what can be achieved through human ingenuity is a super powerful state to exist in. “an unproblematic state is a state without creative thought. Its other name is death.” A lot of people romanticize some previous or future version of Earth that’s free of problems. Realizing that there never was or will be such a state - unless we’re all dead - is enlightening. It shows that we’re not living through an exceptionally challenging moment in history. Problems are a constant in a universe with complex life, but they’re solvable. “Of course I'm opposed to utopianism. Progress comes only through piecemeal, tentative improvements. I think the world will never be perfected, even when everything we think of as problematic today has been eliminated. We shall always be at the beginning of infinity. Never satisfied.” Connected to the idea that there’s no such thing as an unproblematic state. There are also no perfect solution that will eliminate all of our problems forever. Progress is incremental. This is a valuable outlook because many times we let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I am a lot more concerned about a defeatist mentality than I am about the complex problems we currently face. Thinking there’s no future and humans aren’t worth fighting for is a self fulfilling prophecy, because it promotes cynicism and apathy.