Interesting reading in the New York Times Science section this week: Doomsayers Beware, a Bright Future Beckons. It’s a review of the book The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridleybut makes some points about people who focus overmuch on the idea that mankind is doomed. Apparently, there are two types of “apocaholics”: those who despair because they think the end is inevitable, and those who are more optimistic, because they also think the end is inevitable but that gives us a chance to start over and build a better world.
Ridley makes the case that what sets us apart from the Neanderthals was global trade, and that because we freely trade goods, ideas and knowledge, things just keep getting better and better. Here’s his prediction for the future:
Prosperity spreads, technology progresses, poverty declines, disease retreats, fecundity falls, happiness increases, violence atrophies, freedom grows, knowledge flourishes, the environment improves and wilderness expands.
Sounds a little utopian to me, but I truly hope he’s right.The Rational Optimist sounds like an interesting read, in any case.
shannon.turlington AT gmail.com 
