The Rational Optimist

How Prosperity Evolves

By: Matt Ridley

Narrated by: L. J. Ganser

Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.

The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for 200 years.

Yet Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization, which started more than 100,000 years ago, has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair.

This bold book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the Internet, from the stagnation of the Ming empire to the invention of the steam engine, from the population explosion to the likely consequences of climate change. It ends with a confident assertion that thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters along the way, the 21st century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced. Acute, refreshing, and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.

©2010 Matt Ridley (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers

Excellent thought provoking book

This was a book that me ponder much about what I thought I “knew” based upon many news headlines. A good long term perspective on societal development that’s much more interesting than my little review.

This book has a lot of good points

This book has a lot of good points, however, it seems to assume that you believe in the theory of evolution. I find it somewhat amusing that he can strain over a 50-year span of time in recent history and yet throw out what happened 500,000, 1, 000,000, or 100 million years around like there is actually any proof of these timelines. We can hardly prove 200 years ago, and we're to believe his examples of 100x that? Sticking to human history is much better, not everyone believes Darwin. If you can overlook that, the rest is good.

Delightful Case for Things Looking Up

An extended argument that human intelligence and the well-being it allows is created, collected, maintained, distributed and extended by trade. Trade is "ideas having sex." Ridley builds his case with point after point then examines all the usual counterexamples and objections, taking them out one by one. It's a wonderful book. Of course it helped that he was preaching to the choir with me. What's most delightful is Ridley's goodhearted skewering of pessimists -- the technological and environmentalist Jeremiahs in particular -- with the most obvious of weaknesses is their flimsy cases. He's almost embarrassed for them. Ridley is a bit repetitive at times, but maintains a wry humor and lighthearted tone throughout, which makes his writing all the more effective. He's a good writer and he's right about everything.

innovation and entrepreneurship lead to prosperity

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

That book brought me to a revelation. He points out how mankind is unique in that we continuously build upon and leverage knowledge of past generations to in effect improve our standard of living. He also points out how great innovations most commonly come not from scientists but from entrepreneurs who look at existing processes or methods and revise, combine, etc to develop new tools and technologies. The revelation is this. Despite our very serious debt problems, I think that the next couple of decades will likely actually bring an unprecedented upswing in opportunity and prosperity (in particular in the US where business friction is actually the lowest). The internet is still quite new. When I started college, uvm still had card catalogs in the library! The effort required to find information was absurd. The access that people now have to information and accumulated wisdom of past generations is phenomenal. It’s an explosion. Information and knowledge are the fuel for innovation. There’s a lot of fuel and there’s a lot of innovation coming.

An Exceptional Read

From the narrator, to the level of research, to the historical examples, and to the analysis; this book exceeded my expectations and stayed true to it's title on teaching readers how to think like a rational optimist. Rational being the key adjective, because most people you encounter in daily life believe optimists are naive or subscribe to fantasy when they say current events are not nearly as bad as they seem when taken into historical context. This book will persuade you in stunning fashion that not only are you correct for being an optimist, but it will arm you with the facts, peer-reviewed studies, and undeniable truths to support your claims. Optimism is not fantasy, it's truth. I've never been more renewed nor felt so affirmed in my beliefs than now - I highly recommend this audiobook to anyone and everyone, regardless of political affiliation.

Only dead fish go with the flow

Would you consider the audio edition of The Rational Optimist to be better than the print version?

I find it better and more connivance for my lifestyle, very good for travelers.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The writer with his sharp observation and sense of humor. Finally a fresh and different point of view.

Which scene was your favorite?

I like the observation about how we convert energy form solar energy to any other forms of energy.

Not possible to not be optimistic about our time

Based on facts and a good set of arguments. If you feel pessimistic about life or the world you live in then listen to the book. It will make you feel grateful to be alive. It made me feel like I should be doing more than I am by sharing and exchanging more than I do.

“Dare to be Optimistic “ - Excellent Book

If you want to see the bright side of the future with a lot of interesting data, that is your book!

Hey- Maybe Things Will Actually Be OK...

The Rational Optimist has a super-compelling thesis and gives an awesome overview of human history. You'll walk away with a much better understanding of how humanity got to where it is today.

This book really reminded me of Noah Yuval Harari's book Sapiens (another book I loved), only Ridley is less snarky and cynical than is Harari. Ridley works hard to keep this book upbeat. For a reader who gets a kick out some cynical masochism (like me) - go with Sapiens. But for the reader who is looking for a refreshingly optimistic take on humanity, this is the book for you.

BOTTOM LINE: This is a great overview of human development/history, offers a lot of game-changing information (stuff I was previously unaware of), and has a refreshingly positive message about people and where we're headed.

In a word, sublime.

This is a story that everyone needs to hear. After being told, for all your life, that the world is coming to its end, that the end is nigh; it's refreshing to discover that it is only just beginning. This is a diatribe of optimism if there ever was one. If you want a vision of where we came from, how we got here, and where we are going, while being optimistic about our prospects as a species, this is that vision.