The Rational Optimist
Over 10,000 years ago there were fewer than 10 million people on the planet. Today there are more than 6 billion, 99 per cent of whom are better fed, better sheltered, better entertained and better protected against disease than their Stone Age ancestors.The availability of almost everything a person could want or need has been going erratically upwards for 10,000 years and has rapidly accelerated over the last 200 years: calories; vitamins; clean water; machines; privacy; the means to travel faster than we can run, and the ability to communicate over longer distances than we can shout. Yet, bizarrely, however much things improve from the way they were before, people still cling to the belief that the future will be nothing but disastrous.In this original, optimistic book, Matt Ridley puts forward his surprisingly simple answer to how humans progress, arguing that we progress when we trade and we only really trade productively when we trust each other.The Rational Optimist will do for economics what Genome did for genomics and will show that the answer to our problems, imagined or real, is to keep on doing what we've been doing for 10,000 years – to keep on changing.
Stats for nerds
18recommend
58mentions
35people
2010–2026years
52% recommend47% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I liked reading "the rational optimist" by matt ridley
One point I remember is that with trust, trade is infinite.
This completely follows in my life.
I trust costco, and I buy stuff there without doing any calculus.
I don't trust apps on the apple store, I basically don't buy any of them (even/especially the free ones). Even the phone itself has about 10,000 pages of privacy policy.
GOG sells games without DRM that you can download and played offline, forever. I don't worry about buying any game.
- This sounds like the feature creep tesla always struggled with.
also, no mobile app? that is a feature.
The appeal of this vehicle is that it IS like your 1998 ranger, not: mobile app = data collection = monetized vehicle = mobile upgrades = basically all the things that are bad with technology.
Honestly, all these "monetized experience" companies forget that (like matt ridley's rational optimist says) with trust, trade is unlimited.
- I like the books "the rational optimist" ridley and "debt" graeber. You get interesting perspectives.
What I remember from the rational optimist - with trust, trade is unlimited.
what I remember from debt - just too much, need to read it.
That said, why would an investor give money to altman if he is untrustworthy? it just gets worse and worse.
- This is too full of Silicon Valley VC language. ugh
Go to the source materials.
- Rational Optimist. Matt Ridley
- The Better Angels of Our Nature. Steve pinker
- Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future. Johan Norberg
- the capitalist manifesto: why the global free market will save the world. Norberg
- Wizard and the prophet. Charles Mann
- Factfulness. Hans rosling
Or, just look at the data
http://ourworldindata.org/ http://www.gapminder.org/ - > Well there is some historical precedent for optimism
I like the book "The Rational Optimist" by Matt Ridley
basically things have been getting better.
(personally I have my reservations about privacy, and "smart" devices)
- I recently read The Rational Optimist, and it provided a refreshing perspective in a time where global events can often leave one feeling disheartened. Despite the challenges of climate change, political strife, wars in Europe, an energy crisis leading to financial instability, the book offered a much-needed reset for my mind.
Humanity has made incredible progress over the last centuries and decades, and it's important to maintain a sense of optimism.
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