I wouldn't mind Steven Pinker so much if it wasn't for the blatant cherry picking. Always trying to make today look a good as possible and the past as terrible as possible. It just produces bias on both sides when like usual - it is full of greys.

We are doing some cool things nowadays, yes there is some blow back to account for. The past had a lot of awful things, but there were something things we did that we should consider integrating with modern techniques. And so on.