Matt Ridley -- The Rational Optimist

A former science and technology editor for The Economist magazine, Matt Ridley is a journalist and best-selling author whose books include Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. His most recent book is The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves.
Matt Ridley discusses the evolutionary process of "ideas having sex," calling it the secret behind human progress. He asserts that "barter was the trick that changed the world" and outlines his argument that life for the average human being is richer, healthier, and kinder than ever. Finally, he discusses whether limited government and rational optimism go hand in hand.

[@HeavyK.]

In early 1970's I was told in second or third grade by two teachers on the same day. "The next ice age is coming in 10 years and most of us will die - probably all of us."
I didn't see much point in working hard at school or anything else. I thought we were all going to die. It was a couple years before I began to realize this was not true.
Of course most children up to 7-8 years old don't know that adults can lie to them.
I have often wondered since. Would my life have been more productive in those next couple years of school had I NOT been burdened with the knowledge of my death and the end of all humanity.
As a 55 year old, I've watched the first people to walk on the moon on live television. And things seemed like the world was going to be tremendously wonderful. And I enjoyed being part of it and looked forward to contributing to it.
Then I was hit with the reality. Suddenly my dreams of flying cars were crushed under the weight of great deceivers.
The time we live in now is pretty incredible yet the complaining has no sense of proportion. I thank God for Ridley getting out the rational view.

[@zzebowa]

This guy has it spot on. Specialisation and trade has made us all much richer.

[@LibertyDownUnder]

24:10 sums up the whole problem.
Too much Government is far more damaging than too little Government.

[@jodycameron-roy2544]

This is very refreshing. You should get Matt Ridley back again--I think he's written another book. Yohan Norberg is also a good idea for a guest on uncommon knowledge!

[@Peter-gc7lb]

Great talk, and a very interesting book. A recommended read to all!

[@markaaron9957]

You don't have to go far to find someone saying "the world's going to hell in a handbasket."
One thing I've known for years is that if you could use a time machine to go back 50 years, you wouldn't have to go far to find someone saying "the world's going to hell in a handbasket." Go back another 50, same thing. And on and on and on. No matter how many times you go back another 50 years, it's the same.
Thus I've always been skeptical when hearing doom and gloom claims. And I've noticed that many catastrophes that were supposed to happen in 5, 10, or 20 years never occured. A lot of the pessimism is driven by our senior citizens, whom I'm soon to join, they look back and think the world was better. But what they are actually remembering is their own agility, spryness, and the emotional condition of having their whole lives AHEAD of them. If you're one of them, how about hearing me and getting at last the wisdom you were supposed to? You have nothing to lose but the doom and gloom.

[@carousingcockatiel24]

7:22 "We are spending a longer time living and a shorter time dying"
Not only that, there are now research efforts being made for that specific purpose. Such organisations as SENS and Calico focus heavily on understanding what happens to human body as it ages and how we can fix that, thus extending healthy lifespan to, well, a hundred years of healthy life on average is certainly doable, but there is no theoretical upper limit really. But the amount of progress being made is immense. If you want to know more, visit the Discord server that enthusiasts of this topic have put up, where you can discuss these things in greater details and even talk to some scientists directly involved in the field of age-research: discord.gg/ftSbffu

[@lao5610]

Just bought the book and, even though I’m only a few chapters in, I admit it’s very interesting. The only issue I have is he fails to state the logical conclusion. If increasing progress is the result of increasing interconnectivity and increasing interconnectivity is the result of increasing progress, where does it end? If the free exchange of ideas is the catalyst of progress and the assimilation of the new ideas is the result of that progress; does that mean progress, as a function of time, is limited by the carrying capacity of our species?

[@RobertWGreaves]

I think the optimists and the pessimists overstate their cases. Especially when it comes to measuring inequality based on averages. But even relative comparisons over decades are too much like comparing apples to oranges. Yes things ARE getting better, but on the whole many more of us could be doing far better than we. So things are not getting bleak, but they are getting relatively disproportionate.

[@ciarancaulfield7565]

Here after Jordan Peterson podcast

[@megavide0]

4:07 "Of course there are things going in the wrong direction..."
Vielleicht ist die Welt (so gesehen) tatsächlich schon "gerettet".
Und vielleicht ist die "Übersicht", das einzige, was uns wirklich fehlt. (?)
Die Erfolge, die Ridleys Statistiken glänzen lassen sind allerdings doch weitgehend Folgen technologischer oder medizinischer ( ...) Innovation. (Sofern ich das richtig verstehe...)
Unsere dominante Gesellschaftskultur ökonomischer Rivalität und Käuflichkeit sehe ich diesbezüglich immer noch als Hemmschuh für die flexible Implementation, Verbreitung und Verfügbarmachung guter Ideen.
Unsere aktuellen sozialen Krisen & Spannungen/ unsere Probleme mit Extremismus, die (Bürger)kriege und Völkermorde von denen uns berichtet wird... -- alles, was eben nicht so gut aussieht -- kann durchaus als Folge einer exklusiven Erschließung und Zuteilung zivilisatorischer Errungenschaften (nach marktwirtschaftlichen Kriterien) verstanden werden.
Ethisch betrachtet kann es eigentlich nicht angehen, dass Menschen aus rein wirtschaftlichen Gründen von der Teilhabe an zivilisatorischen Errungenschaften ausgeschlossen werden.
Und dieses blinde Ausschlußverfahren nach dem Spielprinzip ökonomischer Legitimation und Manipulation könnten wir hinter uns lassen, wenn wir uns dazu entschließen würden, unsere Motive und Entscheidungen konsequent an ethischen (sozialen) Kriterien und Erwägungen zu orientieren.
Eben dadurch, dass unser soziales Engagement im Paradigma der Vermarktung weitgehend an die Vorbedingung einer ökonomischen Kompensation gebunden ist entstehen uns immer wieder neue gesellschaftliche Krisenherde, die unüberwindbar scheinen, solange die Betroffenen nicht als zahlende Kunden auftreten können. Für die Lösung unserer wirklich drastischen sozialen Krisen und Probleme gibt es keinen lukrativen Markt. Die Kostenfrage ist sozusagen ein Meta-Problem, das die Lösung unserer wesentlichen sozialen Probleme erschwert.
Demzufolge sähen unsere Statistiken vielleicht sogar um einiges besser aus, wenn wir die Zielsetzungen unserer Arbeit frei von wirtschaftlichen Erwägungen und Anreizen treffen könnten.
Es geht aktuell also insbesondere darum Lösungen zu finden, um mehr Menschen an den konkreten zivilisatorischen Vorteilen und Errungenschaften teilhaben zu lassen, die wir (hier oben) auf der Schokoladenseite des Lebens genießen.

[@nogtname123]

foward slash

[@Darkside007]

Mr. Robinson, some unsoliticed advice:
Ask your questions quickly, and get out of the way. You spent a lot of time setting up these elaborate sets of premises and laying out details that were simply unnecessary to the question.
A rule, if you like, should be that an answer in an interview like this should be at least as long as the question. If it is a simple answer, the question is unnecessary, and if it is a long answer, there were unnecessary elements in the question.