"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Monday, October 12, 2015

The Rational Optimist (Matt Ridley, 2010)

Via Paul Jr.  Had read the reviews and it met high expectations.

Essentially:  it recounts, skillfully and inventively the narrative that gets severely underplayed. That things are good; have gotten better; in all probability will continue to get better; it's rational to be an optimist!

Media gets clicks and ratings by emphasizing trouble.  Politicians chase votes by emphasizing the negatives.  Skeptics/cynics come across as smarter/more clever than optimists.

Yet the world is an immensely better place than it's been at any time in history - not even close - and there's no particular reason to think that progress will halt, let alone regress.  Even chronic bad governance - which certainly has held back, or contributed mightily to holding back, so many countries - can't overwhelm the innovation machine in all the places where it is deeply grounded.
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