Reddit reviews The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (P.S.)
We found 24 Reddit comments about The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (P.S.). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Harper Perennial
Lots of broad questions there. :-)
> where are we at in this cycle in the church? In the world in general?
I don't know, but one way that that church and world are different today than scriptural accounts where the pride cycle is enumerated is that scriptural accounts were generally about a single homogenous culture. Yes each culture was framed within its interactions with the surrounding cultures, but the narrative is focused mostly on the culture giving the account.
What about today? Yes, Mormonism has it's own cultures but what's different is that the doctrines and covenants in Mormonism are implemented world-wide across many different languages, nations, politics, and cultures. So it's very hard to point at the church as a whole and make a single judgement. To make any kind of judgement, you have to focus in on a particular homogenous group.
As for how to make the determination, the best approach that I've seen is this essay by Hugh Nibley:
Nibley - Book of Mormon and Prophecies of the end of the world
Here's an excerpt that explains his thesis:
> The righteous are whoever are repenting, and the wicked whoever are not repenting. "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee" who gave thanks to God that he was not a crook or a lecher, that he fasted twice a week, paid a full tithe, and was very strict in his religious observances. All this was perfectly true. The other man was a tax collector and rather ashamed of some of the things he had done, and instead of thanking God by way of boasting, he only asked God to be merciful to him, a sinner (see [Luke 18:10–13]). The surprise is that the sinner was the righteous one—because he was repenting; the other one who "exalteth himself shall be abased"—because he was not repenting ([Luke 18:14]). None but the truly penitent are saved, and that is who the righteous are (see [Alma 42:22–24]).
He goes through the Book of Mormon and shows example after example after example of how the loss of the practice of repentance is what triggers the downward slope of the cycle. But he also points out that the message of the gospel is that the pride cycle isn't inevitable -- it's conditional on whether or not the people repent (see 4 Nephi).
So for the church as a whole, I'd say that as long as the doctrine and covenant power of repentance in Christ is taught as an important principle and as long as Mormons are willing to listen to and apply it, then there will be some who avoid the downward slope of the cycle. To the extent that others do not apply repentance and the Atonement of Christ, they will cycle through pride.
Now for your other question:
> Are we any worse now than 50 years ago?
Of course the answer is "it depends" on how you define "worse". Dr. Marc Siegel, in his book "False Alarm: The truth About the Epidemic of Fear", points out how the modern fear mongering culture simply doesn't represent reality:
> Statistically, the industrialized world has never been safer. Many of us are living longer and more uneventfully. Nevertheless, we live in worst-case fear scenarios. Over the past century we Americans have dramatically reduced our risk in virtually every area of life, resulting in life spans 60 percent longer in 2000 than in 1900. Antibiotics have reduced the likelihood of dying from infections... Public health measures dictate standards for drinkable water and breathable air. Our garbage is removed quickly. We live in temperature-controlled, disease controlled lives. An yet, we worry more than ever before. The natural dangers are no longer there. but the response mechanisms are still in place, and now they are turned on much of the time. We implode, turning our adaptive fear mechanism in to a maladaptive panicked response.
Bono, in a recent TED talk, highlights several statistics the are mind-blowingly positive (to use a technical term):
Matt Ridley, author of the book The Rational Optimist, helps put things in perspective:
> ... the vast majority of people are much better fed, much better sheltered, much better entertained, much better protected against disease and much more likely to live to old age than their ancestors have ever been. The availability of almost everything a person could want has been going rapidly upward for two hundred years and erratically upward for ten thousand years before that: years of life span, mouthfuls of clean water, lungfuls of clean air, hours of privacy, means of traveling faster than you can run, ways of communicating farther than you can shout. Even allowing for the hundreds of millions who still live in abject poverty, disease and want, this generation of human beings has access to more calories, watts, lumen-hours, square-feet, gigabytes, megahertz, light-years, nanometers, bushels per acre, miles per gallon, food miles, and, of course, dollars than any that went before.
What all of this data points towards is a story of unprecedented human progress despite the very real challenges we have faced and still face today. There certainly have been and will continue to be setbacks and bumps in the road. But the human story is a story of hope. And it is through the compassionate use of the gifts and talents God has blessed mankind that we will be able to overcome the physical challenges we face in this world.
For "spiritual" definitions of "worse" I'd just point back to the first part of this comment and say that we're only worse off if we've let go of the covenant, repentant relationship with Christ. I'd say that no, IMO, that has not occurred significantly in the LDS church. It is very much a Christ-centered faith and one that espouses repentance rather than avoids it.
Now whether the world as a whole is better of spiritually, that's debatable. My personal pet-peeve is seeing the total spiritual bankruptcy of those in my generation who have espoused post-modernism. Many have confused skepticism with cynicism. The problem I see with a pervasive cynicism is that it almost always leads to nihilism. It feeds off of itself in a kind of perpetual negativity. And the dangerous part is that many people think being cynical is the same thing as critical thinking.
Critical thinking should lead you to hope or to an idea of what positive action you can take. It leads to things like honest questions, listening, understanding, decision making, faith, action, etc. It is an enabling process. Cynical thinking removes hope or leads to negativity. It leads to mocking, ignoring others, a focus on who is right rather than what is right, doubt, indecision, etc. Cynical thinking is a disabling process. Often people confuse the two since they both originate from independent thinking, but they lead you in opposite directions and views of the world.
In a spiritual context, skepticism without cynicism will lead to introspection which leads to repentance. But unbridled cynicism won't lead to repentance because it undercuts hope and faith (which are prerequisites to repentance).
But post-modernism is just one example. Nationalism, politics, faith in a church/religion, family pride, etc. All can fuel pride when hubris isn't checked. Repentance bridles and anchors the human condition. And the scriptures and history are full of examples of what happens when hubris is unchecked.
Certainly! The best resource I have found is Matt Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist, which does a very good job presenting the argument that the problem is resource distribution, not raw population.
Thanks! I'll check these out... and maybe I'll reread the Dark Tower series, so friggin' great.
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Edit:
Amazon links:
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
Abundance Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker
Stephen King's Dark Tower Series
Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles)
Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series
(yeah, these are smile.amazon.com links... if you aren't already supporting some organization with your Amazon purchases, how about my kid's school's PTA?)
Progress of the past few centuries has been an overwhelmingly positive force for improvement in the lives of most humans. The downsides are small by comparison.
Does anyone really yearn to return to a world without electricity, modern medicine, transportation, communication, and most important: Reddit?
I recommend The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves for a nice debunking of nostalgia for the good ol' days before all this progress.
I highly recommend you read The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley. It won't answer all your questions, and it is speculation, but it appears to me to present a fairly solid case for why all the doomsday scenarios (rise in global poverty, catastrophic climate change, resource shortages) are defeatable.
It's much easier to sell a paper and win a vote by spouting pessimism, but the truth is the future is looking increasingly bright.
There is a great book by Matt Ridley which argues that on pretty much every measurable scale life is better today than in any period in history.
For example higher life expectancy, access to education, likelihood of dying a violent death.
Progress ise mõraneb või lääne inimeste usk progressi mõraneb?
Igatahes, soovitaks lugeda raamatut nimega Rational Optimist:
> For two hundred years the pessimists have dominated public discourse, insisting that things will soon be getting much worse. But in fact, life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.
> In his bold and bracing exploration into how human culture evolves positively through exchange and specialization, bestselling author Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. An astute, refreshing, and revelatory work that covers the entire sweep of human history—from the Stone Age to the Internet—The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.
I'm not OP and can't cite specific specific evidence but there's a very good book called The Rational Optimist that talks at length about this.
I have made abundant thinking a part of a daily meditation. If you haven't read it then check out "The Rational Optimist." http://www.amazon.com/The-Rational-Optimist-Prosperity-Evolves/dp/0061452068
>but my grandparents wouldve been considered lower class in the 50s and they had a refrigerator, TV and a phone.
If your grandparents had a TV in 1950 they were top 20% of US households, not lower class at all.
Refrigeration in the US was pretty common by then so forgive my 1950 figure for inaccuracy. 1940-45 seems more appropriate.
>Forget about the internet, MRIs, mobile phones, etc. Nobody had those because they werent invented.
Conveniently you "forget" all the things that make your life easier. This is a horrible trap to fall into.
Louis XIV, the sun king had 48 entrees for dinner each night. It took 500 servants to prepare all these meals. He was massively rich, the richest man in France.
You are relatively poorer than Louis XIV. You have no palace or servants or 48 entrees prepared for you each night.
What you do have are supermarkets with a selection of foods that dwarf what Louis XIV ever experienced. You can buy fresh produce and meat. Prepackaged dinners and beverages. Even have a cake made with your name on it.
You have no chefs but right now from your phone you can order a myriad number of things and have them delivered to you in under an hour, even alcohol.
You have no carriage but in under 5 minutes you can be on your way wherever you want using Uber.
You have no tailors but instead a vast selection of stores in malls with the huge selection of styles. With online shopping you don't even have to leave your home.
If you get sick, instead of leeches you get the work of hundreds of thousands of chemists and researchers providing drugs that keep you in your health.
If you don't think you're richer than Louis XIV (or your grandparents) it seems you forget what you have so you can focus on what you do not.
This little tirade is adapted from the book The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley which I encourage everyone to read.
I could also come up with a number of online articles about the woes of ethanol, but I find a really good overview and argument against ethanol in "The Rational Optimist" by Matt Ridley
As you said in your other comment, the government is not (I maintain that it currently is, but shouldn't be) a business, so it shouldn't be investing in anything besides national defense and maybe some research. We shouldn't be subsidizing green energy any more than we should be subsidizing oil (which we do).
I'm okay with a temporary solution to fix the problem that government subsidies and market interference has caused, but once it's resolved, the government should leave the market alone. For example, a doctor doesn't keep a patient on medication forever after a surgery, but only until the patient is healed.
I could also consider bounties from the government for solving ecological problems, such as cleaning up atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, cleaning up oil spills, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through science (e.g. using seaweed to reduce methane production in cattle).
Perhaps in just an optimist (great book BTW), but I honestly think that at can come up with innovative solutions that don't require government intervention.
Amen
People just like to complain about the growing income gap (between rich and poor) or the rape culture or the growth in violence when in fact all statistics show that the world is a much better place now than it was 50 years ago: in these times being poor meant not having a fridge and not eating every day. Today it's having a smartphone that's not an iphone. Rape occurrences got halved over the last 20y and litteracy rates have gone up significantly in places where it was really low.
Just read The Rational Optimist which shows how the world is so much better than it used to, and humans have always found ways to avoid the catastrophy that doomsayers were announcing.
My saying that the question was stupid was not productive. I'll grant you that.
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But how you pose the question can change people's perception of it. Were you trying to say "genocide, what's the big deal?". Because that's how you question (especially the last sentence) read to me. Or were you saying something like "it seems like humans are destroying the planet and there is no hope of saving it, so why bother?" If that was what you meant it really didn't land. Also, if you want a book about how there is progress and not everything is terrible, then I would recommend The Rational Optimist.
If you want some other great books I recommend The Rational Optimist and anything by Thomas Sowell. You have any recommendations?
I don't think it's any surprise that we see images like this once free market capitalism really began.
No amount of anecdotal evidence can taint the fact that by the 2050's, poverty will largely be eradicated throughout the entire world. All the while we are still growing in population (until about that time, where population will cease to grow in size, but instead start dropping).
>it does not appear to benefit the majority of the world.
Well that's like, your opinion man.
>Can you explain why you think that poverty solves itself, so to speak?
This question is, and should be treated as, separate to the other comments I've made above this. There is no question that poverty does indeed solve itself, as economies become free from central planning and brutal rulers.
However, the reason that poverty becomes reduced when no single institution tries to take the reigns (or rather, when the opposite happens--when each person is free to do as they wish) is simply because humans are amazing self-maximizing, social creatures that trade and specialize.
Each person generally has a desire to self-maximise, and the only way to do that is to create a mutually beneficial exchange, and the best way to do this is to specialize and trade one's labour, or the product of one's labour. Every time such a trade happens, both people involved benefit (profit)--or else, if one did not, the trade would simply not happen. The reason that two people can trade and both gain is because of the subjective theory of value; both subjectively value their incoming assets greater than their outgoing assets.
That's why I find economics so fascinating; it is only concerned with human action that is valuable enough for another person to pay for it. It's what makes capitalism the most humane and moral system to have ever been created.
If you're actually interested in how prosperity evolves and grows, you should totally check out Mat Ridley's The Rational Optimist:
I understand the concept of incentives as a method of acquiring the best service. I know where you're going and I get that fire dept's could be more efficient. The trouble is, that efficiency comes at a price that is of more value than dollars and cents. When human lives are on the line, I just don't care how much money is being wasted in inefficiency.
Quick example I recall reading recently (I think it was Matt Ridley's Rational Optimist, awesome book check it out)
Public transit is terribly inefficient. The buses run every hour from 10AM - 11PM and the last two hours hardly cover the costs of staying open because only there are only 3-4 people per bus.
As a business, the efficient choice would be to stop the bus at 9PM and to hell with the 3 or 4 people who get out of work past 9.
Its just an analogy but you can apply it to any context and clearly see how raw efficiency isn't always the better option for humanity.
So yes, fire depts and schools would probably be more efficient under a privatized scenario, we are agreed there, But we need to weigh the pros and cons. I've been over the cons already (shoddy apartment building burning in shitty part of town, nobody cares, lousy education in some areas but not others, etc ), and I'm not doing it again. There are just too many for me to even consider changing my mind.
Seriously, read rational optimist
While we're making book recommendations, you should try this, this, or this. Or maybe these, or this, or hell, this if my summary of the current situation of the state as universal malefactor and the alternatives as looking better every day are unconvincing to you.
As for some misguided belief that the people will "rise up" in some faux revolution with onward marching and people's councils and all that kind of jazz; not at all, generally speaking, people are stupid. For example those that think that it's a paranoid fantasy the state operates in its own interests first despite the cacophony of evidence supporting this fact all over the world and the simple fact that it has always been so. But people also don't like being fucked over, and they're not stupid enough that they won't take whatever actions are necessary to directly counteract being fucked over as those actions become clearer and easier for them to take.
Another great thought-provoker
http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-Prosperity-Evolves-P-S/dp/0061452068/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1416175069&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Rational+optimist
No worrys, everything is coming together
An interesting counterbalance is The Rational Optimist. The world is using more resources, but GDP and energy seem to be decoupling, clean energy sources are starting to take off, and technology keeps moving on. If we get the incentives right (revenue neutral carbon tax ideally, also smart city policies) there isn't any real reason that we have to be doomed to a resource collapse.
As you mention, energy prices have recently collapsed and may stay depressed for a while. It reminds me about the Population Bomb that never really happened.
I prefer Matt Ridley's view. The world is rapidly getting better at a quicker pace by virtually any metric.
Just leaving this here for those interested in this thesis:
https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-Prosperity-Evolves-P-S/dp/0061452068
And this:
https://www.amazon.com/Skeptical-Environmentalist-Measuring-State-World/dp/0521010683
We tend to focus on the problems because large parts of American sociology is currently focused on changing the world. I highly recommend reading/listening to this book to temper some of the doom and gloom - https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-Prosperity-Evolves-P-s/dp/0061452068
It's not perfect, but it focuses on the positive aspects of how society has evolved over time.
I've also heard good things about Enlightment Now - but I haven't had the time to read it yet https://www.amazon.com/Enlightenment-Now-Science-Humanism-Progress/dp/0525427570