The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley (his blog). The premise of the book is Ideas have sex and they multiplies like bunnies, leading to ubiquitous economic growth. Ridley is an offspring of E.O Wilson's consilience - An amalgamation of best ideas of Steven Pinker, Jeffery Sachs, Geory Clark, Robert Bailey to name few (not to mention Adam Smith, Charles Darwin & Friedrich Hayek) and sprinkled with optimism of libertarian version of Thomas Friedman. This is one hard to quote book since its a cascade of facts (and ideas) and one could easily take it out of context (but I couldn't resist here and here). It's a fun read and inevitably makes one feel so good about the future. Now, please tell me when was the last time we felt good watching cable news?. While at this, I think its about time someone does a study on health effects of watching cable news - Malcolm Gladwell, Freaknomics duo, anyone?
I am not sure when that will happen but this book is a "holistic" Prozac for cable news addicts.
"The wonderful thing about knowledge is that it is genuinely limitless. There is not even a theoretical possibility of exhausting the supply of ideas, discoveries and inventions. This is the biggest cause of all for my optimism"
-Matt Ridley
"We see in almost every part of the annals of mankind how the industry of individuals, struggling up against wars, taxes, famines, conflagrations, mischievous prohibitions, and more mischievous protections, creates faster than governments can squander, and repair whatever invades can destroy".
- Lord Macaulay
"The wonderful thing about knowledge is that it is genuinely limitless. There is not even a theoretical possibility of exhausting the supply of ideas, discoveries and inventions. This is the biggest cause of all for my optimism"
-Matt Ridley
"We see in almost every part of the annals of mankind how the industry of individuals, struggling up against wars, taxes, famines, conflagrations, mischievous prohibitions, and more mischievous protections, creates faster than governments can squander, and repair whatever invades can destroy".
- Lord Macaulay
No comments:
Post a Comment