Rational Optimist
How Prosperity Evolves
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Rational Optimist
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Narrated by:
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L J Ganser
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By:
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Matt Ridley
About this listen
Matt Ridley, acclaimed author of the classics Genome and Nature via Nurture, turns from investigating human nature to investigating human progress. In The Rational Optimist Ridley offers a counterblast to the prevailing pessimism of our age, and proves, however much we like to think to the contrary, that things are getting better.
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.
©2010 HarperCollins Publishers (P)2010 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about Rational Optimist
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mark Lancaster
- 22-10-18
An interesting alternative +ve view on future
Matt Ridley is definitely a wizard. Putting his faith in the ability of human race to over come global challenges through commerce & innovation. As opposed to the naysaying prophets of doom. A very well written book. Left feeling that I needed to double check some of the facts & figures that he stated.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Judy Corstjens
- 17-06-14
Could have been even better
This is a great subject - why we should be optimistic about the future, after all, the human race has not done too badly so far, from hot baths to antibiotics - and there is much to enjoy in this book. I was particularly amused by the section that reviewed calamities that never happened (e.g. acid rain, Y2 bug, Malthusian starvation). There is also a serious and thoughtful message about eco-friendliness and 'green' politics: technology and going forward may be a better solution than trying to put the clock back to an idyllic rural past that never really did or can exist. Green policies, driven by emotions, can lead to mistakes and errors (e.g. the disaster of bio-fuels and the folly of wind farms). However, I also found the book rambled a bit and would be improved by a good edit. Also, some of the material seemed a bit derivative – but it was possibly just out of date, since the book was written in 2008. I have read several books in recent years - Pinker's 'Better Angels' and 'Why Nations Fail' that cover many of Ridley's points, but a do a better job.
Narration: Awful! Matt Ridley mentions in the book that he 'grew up in London in the 1970s' He does not, therefore, have a grating American accent. I could not get over this contradiction. I like it when the author reads - Tony Blair, George Bush, Sarah Palin, Christopher Hitchens - but if you don't have the skills to do that then get somebody who sounds like the author would. Am I bigoted to want that?
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- DL Williams
- 28-12-19
Excellent
A very informative and insightful view into the human existence thought-out time past, present and predicted future. The narrator's tone of voice very compelling that keeps you listening to the very end.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Jason
- 27-05-23
Excellent👍
Excellent, outstanding work well worth Reading and well worth reading to get a truly in depth understanding about culture and the future
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- michelle stewart
- 13-03-24
lovely listening to optimistic history and a future worth striving for
liked the narrators voice and how he debunked a lot of the news that is geared up to be pessimistic
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Alan Michael Forrester
- 08-07-13
Interesting facts but lacklustre philosophy
"The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves" is about the fact that the world is becoming a better place and why that is happening.
The author gives us lots of interesting facts about how the world is improving. He also explains something about why supposedly apocalyptic problems like global warming are somewhat exaggerated. He often criticises bad environmentalist ideas accurately.
What lets the author down a bit is philosophy. He sometimes praises free markets but doesn't seem to have much good to say about individualism and often refers to "collective brains". His theory about ideas having sex isn't fleshed out at all. It just means people put seemingly different ideas together and that's all there is to it. He doesn't answer any of the following questions. Why do they do this? How do they do this? How does it work? Are there any inherent limitations to it? "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch is a lot better on philosophical issues, as are the books of Ayn Rand.
LJ Ganser reads the book clearly.
This is worth listening to if you are unfamiliar with facts about human improvement.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- arinze onyiah
- 04-03-22
inspired
I learnt a lot about the evolutionary nature of innovation as a means of overcoming human problems
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- Anton
- 30-03-23
it aged well
It's funny that the top review I see now (in 2023) is some review from 2022 stating that this book will not age well. 12 years of outcomes was not good enough for the review author, so he OPTIMISTICALLY looking for the future to prove his doom preaching right. this is exactly what this book is (in part) about.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Pedro Molina Sanchez
- 07-03-11
A truly inspiring and uplifting story.
The rational optimist gives a thorough and fascinating account of the history of human progress. Moreover, it makes a extremely robust case for hoping that the best it is still yet to come thanks to the human promiscuity for exchange of ideas, goods, knowledge...
Full of arguments to use in fighting the pessimist waves that seems to inundate everyday conversations about progress and the future. Unmissable
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- patrick
- 29-03-16
Phenominal
I want to force my family to read this!!
It shoul be compulsory reading in schools.
The second most influential book I have ever read.
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