Matt Ridley - The Rational Optimist: Everybody is working for everybody else

[infinityand0]

The reason why our lives are so much better than they were is because of cheap energy. When that goes away, things will change for the worse. You can just hope and dream that something is going to come along and replace the resources for cheap energy that we have, but that's just wishful thinking. We are no witnessing strains on this energy, and it is getting more expensive. We're more than half way through the low hanging fruit right now

[Missyplemon]

I don't agree with it! Matt just see the "bright side" of specialisation of labour sine Industrial Revolution! All the examples in the MV are just the examples from RICH countries of the first world!

[SeanG200]

Posted: r-pt[dot]net

[Broooose]

but now the food is jacked up with msg, High fructose corn syrup, genetically modified, and riddled with pesticides. 100 years ago ALL food was organic. The better measurement was the true cost of getting good nutrition. 1/3 americans are obese and their cancer rates are 7th in the world. Oh, and that nuke plant, care to show how the radioactive plume for fukishima exposed the entire N hemisphere to radioactive isotopes. iodine-131 and caesium-134/137 gimme some more- how's that for progress

[hughc023]

Always good to hear the voice of optimism, in a world where the media thinks that the only news is bad news. . .

[janosabel]

This is the worst kind of mind bending disinformation.

Fifty years ago a worker on an average wage could afford to buy a whole house (with 4 floors) with 10 years worth of pay.

Today, two people, earning professional salaries, can not afford to buy a family sized flat.

Where is the improvement in the affordability of necessary things?

Everybody is working for everybody else? Maybe, until what one was doing (often for minimal pay) can be done by a machine.

[davemuscato]

@janosabel You said: "50 years ago, a worker on an average wage could afford to buy a whole house (with 4 floors) with 10 years worth of pay."

What is your source for this?

[janosabel]

@davemuscato

Personal recollection + experience. The house (perfectly habitable) I referred to above was bought for £6,000 when average pay was around £800 pa. The same house now has a market value of around a million pounds. Admittedly, computers cost a few hundred instead of millions and Hi-Fi or other gadgetry (had they existed) would have been only for millionaires.

Today, some friends of ours, both working health professionals, had to move to Northumberland to find affordable family home.

[BrockAtkinson]

@janosabel Ridley talks about this in his book; land is one of the only things that has gone up in price. There are multiple reasons for this, but an informative book to read on this is Economic Facts & Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. Basically everything else has gone down (food, water, tools, entertainment and so on).

There are some other minor goods have also gone up in price (movie tickets, popcorn etc), but those are luxury items, not essential items. And we are willing to pay for them.

[McKnowledge1000]

Everything's better except moral (and fashion).

[MrYotubeo]

Matt, The world is NOT the United States. Cant you Americans see

out there!!! There are lots of marginated people who can´t share the

"American Life Style"...

[Alvin691]

@MrYotubeo But they could if they were not held back by "democratic socialists" and corrupt politicians bent on demonizing the United States. The USA was meant to be the shining city on a hill, the example for all others to mimic. A moral Constitutional Republic, not the democracy some are trying to make it.

[XOmniverse]

@MrYotubeo The book contains plenty of information about other countries.

[dbalieiro]

[repost] @[[MayasNet|dbalieiro]]

[trakkaton]

This is the most horrible collection of fallacies I have stumbled upon EVER. It would require more than 500 characters to only LIST them.

[Baprener]

better and better???? Damm what did i miss??? the last time i checked people were starving in africa and many other places.... better?? Are you fucking kidding me???

[soylentgreenb]

@Baprener The world median person eats ~1/3 more calories and has ~3 times higher income than 1950.

[Baprener]

@soylentgreenb i understand your point of view, but....if you study better our current monetary system... youll realize that theres no place for everybody in this wolrd...../watch?v=uXCtsC34PaE­&feature=PlayList&p=5E2196B22E­0FF9D8&playnext_from=PL&index=­25

[soylentgreenb]

@Baprener I've also lived long enough to remember the 1970's, when it was widely recognized that oil was going to run out soon and we would return to some miserable post-industrial age, most of the Earth's population was going to die of starvation, a few were even daring enough to suggest that when the economic conditions got worse slavery and child labour would once again become economically attractive and their return perhaps inevitable.

[theadmiralbs]

@Baprener The fact that some still starve today says nothing about how much improvement has taken place. The video does not claim that the world is or will be perfect (in other words free from starvation) - only better.

[andrewmayne]

@Baprener They're starving because of warfare and because of bad advice about agriculture.

[noiseshapes]

@Baprener you should read the book to see what you've missed if you haven't realized it yet. The author has some hard to argue points. People starve way less then they used to.

[janosabel]

@noiseshapes

Have you red the book How to Lie With Statistics? The other day the World Bank, or some other bunch of robber barons, was making out that three out 4 Africans are in the middle class.

[XOmniverse]

@Baprener You should consult the dictionary definitions of good and better so that you understand the difference between things being good and things being better than they were before.

[kkilo34]

I fully concur.

[WholeSumNess]

Let alone what choices we have that Kings could not imagine! Here is a partial list of things that didn't exist just 150 years ago. automobiles, airplanes, radio, television, phonographic records, audiotapes, telephones, electric lights, movies, penicillin, air conditioning, refrigerators, electric ovens, microwaves, color photography, computers, income taxes, credit cards, zippers, fountain or ball point pens and pencils with the eraser attached!