Friday, February 11, 2011

Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley has written an insightful book, The Rational Optimist - How Prosperity Evolves. It seems that I'm in the minority as only 20% of people have a genetic tendency toward optimism.   The author gives statistical reasons to believe in a brighter future.

This generation has access to more calories, watts, lumen-hours, square feet, gigabytes, megahertz, light-years, nanometers, bushels per acre, miles per gallon and dollars than any previous generation.

All the dire predictions of debilitating shortages and unchecked disease are based upon extrapolations of life without innovation.  But according to Matt, "Embracing dynamism means opening your mind to the possibility of posterity making a better world than preventing a worse one".

He promotes the concept that ideas and innovation are limitless. And I love his premise that is the basis of my blog (Everything's Connected) that the secret of the modern world's progress is interconnectedness.

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