Doomsday Deferred
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Cheer up, Chicken Little.
Things may seem to be falling apart, but don’t they always? In every era, in every age, people are saying, “This is the worst it’s ever been.” And later, that period is remembered as the golden age or the good old days.
And now we’ve intensified the gloomsaying and doomsaying with a media creed that says if it isn’t bad, it isn’t news – so almost everything you read and hear is outrageous, alarming, or grim.
To make money, raise ratings, or stay in power, media owners and sponsors have to keep you frightened.
To maintain your own equilibrium, you need a sense of history and some sensible sources of information. One of my favorites is The Economist – not that it’s chirpy and cheery, just that its perspectives are longer, wider, and deeper than those of the misinformation, disinformation, celebrity gossip, and uncomprehending cliches du jour that pass for news on most American media.
Now Matt Ridley, a British science writer and former Economist journalist, has published The Rational Optimist – an antidote to both of the foregoing plights.
As The Times has it in John Tierney’s review of the book, despite the constant forebodings of inevitable ruin,
“Every now and then someone comes along to note that society has failed to collapse and might go on prospering.”
Dr. Ridley tracks the record of cumulative progress from the Stone Age to now, and on into what he suggests will be a brightening, not frightening, future.
What spurs the improvements, he thinks, are innovations and trade – exchanging not only goods but also ideas – which is what originally stimulated the development of language, mathematics, science, engineering, and medicine.
Ants do some clever things, too, as do other species, but these took millions of years to evolve, while humans advance their innovations from one generation to the next – impeded only (though often) by politics and wars.
Ridley feels sure that a century from now even a much larger world population will be healthier, wealthier, and better fed using less land than farming uses today. To the extent climate change proves a real menace (he’s a bit skeptical), it will be solved not by treaties but from the bottom up by innovations in energy technology – though a steep carbon tax could accelerate that process.
Finally, this whole march onward and upward is now being enriched by computers, the internet, Google, and proliferating means of sharing ideas that will pull billions of innovators into the collaboration.
Let’s hope he’s right.
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Those interested in Ridley’s very good book might wish to know about my own book, THE CASE FOR RATIONAL OPTIMISM (Transaction Books, Rutgers University, 2009), which makes quite similar points and arguments, but develops the case for optimism over a broader range of subject areas. See http://www.fsrcoin.com/k.htm
Comment by Frank S. Robinson — May 21, 2010 @ 6:37 pm
And your book was a year earlier. For reasons cited above (If it isn’t bad, it isn’t news), Good-News books have a hard time getting the attention they deserve (unless the author has a connection with the Economist, which also reviewed Ridley’s). Another example: Julian Simon’s 2000 book, “It’s Getting Better All the Time.”
My latest book (Towers/Maguire, 2006) takes a longer view. It’s titled, “If Instead of Apes We Had Come From Grapes, We Wouldn’t Just Yet Be Wine.” (light verse)
Comment by Al — May 21, 2010 @ 8:15 pm
Enjoyed the interview for the Robinson book. (There’s a link to it on the url he gives.)
Comment by Barb — May 21, 2010 @ 9:23 pm