January 27, 2011
WE ARE ALL DESIGNISTS:
The strong case for global optimism: We've come to accept that the world is doomed. But a closer look at our long-term prospects paints a much rosier picture. (Michael Elliott, 1/25/11, Fortune)
It's in the long term, however, that the case for being cheerful becomes most interesting. We've gotten used to the idea that war, famine, deadly climate change, or -- I don't know -- annihilation by asteroid is our inevitable fate. But in The Rational Optimist, one of the most important books of 2010, the science writer Matt Ridley (who, I should say, is an old friend and former colleague of mine) dismissed the doomsayers out of hand.He took the insight of 19th-century economist David Ricardo that trade boosts economic specialization and efficiency and applied it to the behavior of our species. Ridley argued that the process of social exchange -- or "ideas having sex with each other" -- has demonstrably led to continued improvement in the human condition. Moreover, since in a networked world it is easier than ever to exchange ideas, this improvement will continue. It isn't "necessity that is the mother of invention," Ridley told me. "Prosperity is; connectedness is; linkages are." Economic evolution, he argues, "will raise the living standards of the 21st century to unimagined heights."
One of the unfortunate ironies is that most peoples won't get to enjoy the prosperous future because Darwinism turned out to be wrong and they flourishing.
