Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
A few weeks ago, one of our faithful members--was it Paules? Or Aaron?--said he wished I'd start a thread for each episode of Uncommon Knowledge. I thought I'd give that fine idea a try.
Anybody care to comment on my interview with Matt Ridley, author of the best-selling volume, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves?
The interview has been appearing this week at National Review Online, one segment at a time. As of today, though, you can watch the interview in full. Just click here.
Any thoughts you'd like to share? Comments of Matt Ridley's you found especially perceptive? Or, for that matter, particularly galling? Questions you wish I'd had the smarts to ask? Just open the little box on your computer screen and type away.
I'll be working this afternoon and evening--in addition to getting in a few licks on a couple of other assignments, I'll be prepping for my interview next week with Thomas Sowell; positively glowing, as I do so, with gratitude to everyone here at Ricochet who has suggested a question or two--but I'll check in every now and then.
Say on!
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Sep '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
This is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. It would have been my nomination for book of the year if I hadn't been having technical problems when that thread came and went. However, the distinction he makes between markets for goods and services versus markets that value assets is not correct in my opinion. I'd love to see him explore that topic in more depth because I do not view the recent bubbles in asset prices as having as much to do with the crisis as the leverage in the banking system.
May '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
I always look forward to Uncommon Knowledge, especially the episodes featuring Thomas Sowell!
I was struck by Mr. Ridley's observation that we homo sapiens are the only species who engage in barter, and how successful barter has been for the species.
It reminded me of something Dr. Walter Williams once said (paraphrasing here); that barter, trade or, capitalism, if you will, has been so successful in solving the problems of gross poverty, that other problems that are minor by comparison have now become intolerable. So from that we see the current overwhelming concerns for things like inequality, health, the environment, etc. It's not that these things are not important, it's more like, thanks to the success of capitalism, we can afford the luxury of being concerned about them.
May '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Kervinlee: Well said. Capitalism has succeeded in moving us way up Maslow's hierarchy.
Peter: Excellent interview. I'd enjoy seeing an interview with Bjorn Lomborg. I first was exposed to him via 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' some time ago. At the time, everywhere I looked liberals were decrying his book. I decided that anything that stirred up that much controversy had to be worth a look. It was. As you probably know, Lomborg presents similar kinds of analyses -- optimistic -- but with a focus on the environmental impacts. He's had several books since.
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
You'll recall Ridley's was one of two books singled out for recommendation at Ricochet by Rupert Murdoch.
May '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Thanks, Tom. I wish I could take the credit, but, it all goes to Dr. Williams.
May '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Samwise started a thread on the interview earlier. But yes, I'd like to see a thread for every Uncommon Knowledge interview. Thanks.
I enjoyed the interview, overall.
His main point about "ideas having sex" is only half right. Innovation is not inherently good, whether it occurs in technology, art, economics or another field. Cooperation between individuals results in both good and bad consequences. Basically, the world is getting better and worse simultaneously in that the potentials for both good and evil are always increasing. Each generation is faced with more decisions, too, as life is further complicated.
And, as I said in Sam's thread, Ridley's naturalist perspective is odd. He talks about us like animals.
It's not entirely true that only human beings share ideas and pass them down from one generation to the next. Individual families of apes and whales have been witnessed learning new behaviors and teaching them to their young. One pod of orcas returns to the same spot every year to rub their bellies on the pebbles. A group of Japanese macaques was supposedly witnessed to develop a habit of "washing" its food in water before eating.
Edited on Dec 11, 2010 at 2:36pmJul '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Peter, pardon my ignorance, but have you done an UK with Alan Reynolds?
He was a speaker on the NR cruise and he really had people hanging on every word.
Oct '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Matt Ridley is charismatic and persuasive here--as all refined British accents are to me--and while I certainly agree with his conclusions, I don't trust his evolutionary logic. It reminds me of a silly science article I read in Slate.com years ago where the author argued that conservatives(or maybe it was Christians) should accept evolution because they already believed in survival of the fittest in the market place.
It's just too easy to say that 100,000 years ago or whatever, two parties of hairy, hunchbacked, thick-browed hominids just figured out how to barter to increase both parties' wealth out of the blue--without even seeing an apparition of a black monolith. I am surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of twenty-something, seemingly well-evolved peers in Columbia, MO, in the Year of Our Lord 2010, who would applaud your attempt at irony if you told them that the ape man trading the organic banana for the sushi wasn't ripping off his client--or vice versa. In short there seems to be a spiritual element that Ridley, like all evolutionists, fail to consider.
Oct '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
P.s. I can't wait for the next Thomas Sowell UK either!
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
We devoted an episode of the show to Lomborg several years ago, as it happens. Immensely impressive. Also cheerful--important on television. I can't seem to find the video feed, but you can look over the transcript here.
Kenneth: Peter, pardon my ignorance, but have you done an UK with Alan Reynolds?
He was a speaker on the NR cruise and he really had people hanging on every word. · Dec 11 at 2:47pm
Jun '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Aaron are you a pessimist by nature? I don't mean to put you on the spot, but your post is almost Manichean in tone. I disagree that innovation is both good and bad, as it is innovation that rids us of the "bad" ideas that pop up from time to time. Consequently, innovation is good. Cooperation is neither good nor bad, it is intent that is good or bad. If you and I cooperate to achieve a bad aim, it is not our cooperation that is bad, but our aim. How pray tell, Aaron, is "the world" getting both good and bad? If you mean by world the physical planet on which we live, it can be neither good nor bad. If you mean by "the world," the people that dwell in it, then your view or people is particularly black. This is especially so since one of the points made in the interview was that the people were becoming more pacific in outlook. Life is not more complicated, if anything it is getting less so. Take this thread as an example, you're in Texas and I'm in Vancouver, yet we are communicating. That's good!
Edited on Dec 11, 2010 at 3:02pmRe: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Kenneth: Peter, pardon my ignorance, but have you done an UK with Alan Reynolds?
He was a speaker on the NR cruise and he really had people hanging on every word. · Dec 11 at 2:47pm
We haven't, but that's a darned good suggestion. Gracias.
Jul '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Hey, Peter. I, um, had dinner with Alan Reynolds...
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
You're onto something here, imho. Ridley works hard to fit barter into the evolutionary scheme. Maybe he succeeds, and maybe he doesn't, but these struck me as the least compelling arguments in the book. Ridley's story of dramatic improvement in our material condition really gets started only in the eighteenth century. And what happened to kick it off wasn't a new phase in evolution. It was the emergence of capitalism.
Thanks for making that point. You crystalized my own thinking. (Fwiw.)
May '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Peter Robinson
We devoted an episode of the show to Lomborg several years ago, as it happens. Immensely impressive. Also cheerful--important on television. I can't seem to find the video feed, but you can look over the transcript here.
Peter, are the videos for those old UK episodes lost? Lots but not all are on the Hoover Youtube account. Any chance of recovering the missing videos? I will read the Lomborg transcript though. Thanks for pointing it out.
Nov '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
I'm halfway through the book. I haven't watched the interview, but I certainly will.
The book is certainly very interesting, I think the most interesting point so far is the distinction between specialisation and generalization. I had never thought about it quite in that way before, but it's a great point.
By the time I have finished the book and watched the interview this thread will have come and gone, but I would definitely suggest the book to anyone who hasn't read it yet.
May '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
I did get into with Samwise about Ridley- I recommend that y'all go read the other thread. The thrust of the argument is that Ridley's time scale is far longer than the one we typically look at here, and far broader. Indeed, the social pathologies we are facing may bring down our American empire if we can't fix any of it- but that does not mean that there is no other power ready to take up the cause and progress further in a natural carnal sense; and to whatever extent the US is commiting societal suicide as a post-Christian nation, there are others growing (and evangelizing).
Yes, Ridley is a materialist not much into spliritual matters- but his perspective is important to us.
Dec '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
I only watched Thursday's episode and had enough of Ridley. The sensible things he said seemed obvious, but his claim of being a fiscal conservation but not a social conservative is either a cognitive dissonance or contradiction in terms.
Without social conservatism, all that folderol about making divorce difficult, religion more influential, mores against fornication, homosexuality, and so forth which Ridley thinks is happily dispensed with, well, Ridley's world collapses into moral chaos, destruction of the nuclear family and free marketeering goes wanting as tyrannies, oligarchies, aristocracies are set up to manage the chaos.
The Fall of Rome and its decadence didn't lead to innovative exchanges and good ideas having sex.
May '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
Cas, what I meant by life getting ever more complicated is the number of decisions the average person must make. A thousand years ago, the average person would not have made countless small decisions about what to eat, what to wear, what to buy, etc. Nor would one decide whom to marry, what profession to pursue, where to live, etc. Options were simply unavailable. One was also more reliant on heritage for beliefs regarding life and society.
We have more freedom, thanks to tools and knowledge. That's good. But it means we are challenged with more questions and more decisions.
My other point is that both tools and knowledge have empowered us, so our decisions have greater consequences. A nation can save a fellow country from disease and famine; or it can kill thousands of people with a single bomb. Automobiles enable one to visit family hundreds of miles away; or to kill an entire family by drinking while driving.
Technology and knowledge are morally neutral, but they empower the will.
As a Catholic, I believe life is about embracing or rejecting God's love. We do so with greater freedom now, but the choice is the same.
May '10
Re: Anybody Want to Talk About my "Uncommon Knowledge" Interview with Matt Ridley?
To put it another way, I perceive the difference between a person thousands of years ago and a person today as being analogous to a footsoldier and a general. They're fighting the same war and both are challenged. The threats and opportunities they face are simply different.
Humanity's advances of freedom are good and wonderful. We are honored to live during this point in history. But life is basically the same as it ever was... which is why the tales of Shakespeare and Homer are still relevant and thrilling so many centuries after they were created.
It's not a pessimistic view, Cas. In fact, such a view might help one to better recognize beauty in ancient history.
Edited on Dec 11, 2010 at 4:53pm