The Rational Optimist

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:33:30 -0500

Summary

Matt Ridley sets out to explain why, despite how it may feel, we live in the brightest point in history and the future is likely to be even brighter. Homo Sapiens are an incredible species, which always raises the question of how we got to be this way. What set us on this path that allowed us to specialize in ways unique in our known universe. Ridley wants to argue that the distinguishing feature was trade. Trade allows for specialization, and we should think of specialization as skill storage. You learn how to make an axe, I’ll learn how to grow corn etc. etc. In this way the amount of knowledge available continues to grow the more trading connections we enter into. For a few ears of corn, I can make use of years of R&D that you’ve committed to making the axe. From a game theory point of view this is a win win. As you can make axes better than me, and I can grow corn better than you. The result is a net increase in material wealth. As the community grows and more nodes in the form of human brains join the network, the amount of specialized knowledge grows combinatorically because although the skills are siloed the results are not. For example, if you make a better axe, I can clear forests easier to make more corn than before and so on. This is a fundamental argument for free and global trade, as there seems to be no upper limit to idea storage in the universe.

Rational_optimism on George's Blog

The Rational Optimist