Matt Ridley on The Rational Optimist & "Ideas Having Sex"

Best-selling science writer Matt Ridley's latest book is The Rational Optimist, which explains why the author is upbeat on the prospects of a planet and a civilization that seems to lurch from one pending political, economic, or environmental catastrophe to another.

Doomsayers have it all wrong, writes Ridley, who argues that prosperity and innovation have outraced even the visions of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. He argues:

"The phrase diminishing returns is such a cliché that few people give it much thought. Picking out the pecans from a bowl of salted nuts gives diminishing returns: The pieces of pecan in the bowl get rarer and smaller. The fingers keep finding almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, or even—God forbid—Brazil nuts. Gradually the bowl, like a moribund gold mine, ceases to yield decent returns of pecan.

Now imagine a bowl of nuts that has the opposite character. The more pecans you take, the larger and more numerous they grow. That is the human experience for the last 100,000 years. The global nut bowl has yielded ever more pecans."

Reason's own science correspondent Ronald Bailey talked with Ridley recently in Washington, D.C. They discuss Ridley's book, his hopes for the future, and the policies that can improve - or undermine - the prospects for our future.

Go to http://Reason.com articles by, about, and featuring Matt Ridley.

If you like what you see, then sign up for Reason's first-ever cruise in February 2011, which features Ridley, Bailey, Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, Jacob Sullum, and other guest speakers for a week of relaxation and conversation. For details go to http://reasoncruise.com

Shot by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg, who also edited the segment.

Approximately 10 minutes.

Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

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  News & Politics

[DeraJa]

Sex really is great.

[zuiprax]

And math was invented by arabs. Who the hell cares.

[jak2492]

I thought i Plasma Beamed this guy ages ago

[Trepur349]

May I suggest you read Civilization: The West and the Rest?

[lancsFrogger]

bizarre that people will pay money to listen to matt ridley talk about stuff he knows next to nothing about

maybe i should give it a go?

[collinliau]

Love it! I wrote a blog post about the faux wisdom of cynicism once! blog.collinli.com.au/the-faux-­wisdom-of-cynicism

[feyzoh1985]

i've read the book, its wonderful.

[zuiprax]

huh, get a new one then

or there's always couples therapy

[lucentenor]

Smart man, but I don't agree about piling government, business, and finance together under the title "big" and implying bigness makes them all bad. There's a significant difference between a big business(including financial) that gets big through free commerce and better products and big government that necessarily uses force rather than trade to grow. There is, however, a distinction between legitimate businesses and mercantilistic business- "big" simply isn't a sufficient synonym for bad.

[DeraJa]

well hopefully it is at least great for you.

[kev3d]

There seem to be some conflicting views on the Arabian contribution to Trade and Math.  The Muslim Arabs did not "invent" math, they borrowed systems from India and Greece and added their own ideas which spread to Europe via Spain and the Byzantine Empire. "Algebra" and "Algorithm" originate from the 9th century Persian, Al-Khwārizmī. Trade was key to the spread of the Empire, stretching from Spain to India however much of the trade network was established through conquest, much like the Romans