Matt Ridley wrote The Rational Optimist to describe how people can sometimes be quick to judge that our present and future are not bright. People complain that they would rather live in the old days when things were “simpler” or more “tranquil” but really times were not either simple or tranquil, they were just in general worse. Ridley makes many arguments as to why people are better off now than they ever have been. In this essay I intend to explain the strong and weak points of Ridley’s excerpt, his reasoning for why he thinks humanity has prospered and my views on whether I am a rational optimist. Ridley points out many reasons why others should be rational optimists. One being that simply people are more likely to be alive longer today. …show more content…
There is plenty of scientific proof that shows that our life expectancy is much longer than someone from 50 years ago.
Another point Ridley had was how we now save so much more time doing tasks than before. By saving time we save money and are much more efficient. Happiness is also a factor when assigning if we are doing better today. Ridley points out that people today are typically richer than they would have been in a previous era. We have achieved more equality than there has ever been. The IQ scores are closer and closer to the average because people are being given more and more equal opportunities. Happiness is not directly related to how rich someone is, but it is seen that people do associate being happy with having money. Less people are in poverty today than history has shown. Some weak points Ridley has is that he uses a very old scenario to explain that
people may have seen a past time as simpler when really, they were dealing with barely surviving. This old example could not be what people mean that they wanted to go back to that time though. The use of the word “probably” weakens his argument when talking about how the price of what having a house costs today versus back in the day. Along with that, Ridley points out that with the trend of everything else the cost of buying a house should be way down, but it is not because the government does not allow for the prices to lower by much. Ridley has many observations on why he believes humanity has prospered. Ridley believes that the two reasons we are better off today are specialization and inventions. In the past people were more independent, but that doesn’t mean they had it any better. People had to do everything for themselves. They had find food, provide housing, make clothes, and so much more all on their own. Today people specialize in what they do best and sell their services in exchange for money which was earned from someone else specializing in what they do best. This has made our lives significantly more efficient. Ridley says it best that “Prosperity, or growth, has been synonymous with moving from self- sufficiency to interdependence, transforming the family from a unit of laborious, slow and diverse production to a unit of easy, fast and diverse consumption paid for by a burst of specialized production” (Ridley 41). We can have time for so much more because we specialize in our trade. There is time for entertainment, relaxation, travel, and so much more all because when we go to work we typically do our specialized task, and then we are done for the day. Hunters and gatherers are almost romanticized in our age because people think that they had it so much simpler and because of that their life was better. In reality, they were working extremely hard to provide everything for themselves and their community. They were focused on accomplishing so much that they tended to fall short in some areas. Hence, why people back then died from so many different diseases. People in the past only were able to consume as much as they produced. Today we can consume a ton more than we produce. With specialization people can become experts in their one area and rarely fail at being able to produce. Even if they do someone else has it figured out and we can exchange with them. We save time, money, and a lifestyle from specialization. Another reason Ridley thinks humanity is prosperous is that people are always working on an invention, and people continue to benefit off previous inventions. There is somebody in the world who is always working on some invention that will benefit society. Ridley shows how we “get the benefit of [inventors] labors, too, whether they are dead or alive” (Ridley 38). As a society we continue to learn and create and just keep improving. Whether we have created an invention or improving a previous one we continue to grow. Ridley shows how although people complain that our generation is falling, and the quality of life is poor, humanity is prosperous, and will continue to prosper. I am persuaded by the optimal rationalist to believe that our generation is successful, strong, and productive. Ridley makes an excellent argument that there are no other time periods people would rather live in. I have a nice lifestyle, and I would not give that up to maybe make life a little less complicated. I believe that specialization is the best way to produce the greatest output. Ridley lacks a little in explaining the good parts of the past, but even with the positives to going to the past, the future is so much better. I am best off being an optimist and continuing to see society as the beneficial working machine that it is. To conclude, Ridley makes an argument that he is a rational optimist because humanity is prosperous, and we are better off today than we ever have been. By our advancement in specialization and inventions people have is so much easier and better than in the past. I too believe that I would rather live in this generation than any other because we have become advanced in creating the best life possible. People should take a step back and realize that although there is poverty, war, and so many other horrible things out there, we are equipped with the knowledge and power to overcome those many things in the future.
Such controlled environments provide examples of humanities belief that it is more sophisticated and indeed more powerful than the wild. Despite being written some fifty years apart both Brave New World By Aldous Huxley and Blade Runner Directed by Ridley Scott present the same message. Both texts argue that with advancing technology humanity feels itself more sophisticated and more powerful than the natural rhythms of the world. However, at the same time aspects represented in each text point out that Humanity can never be completely isolated from nature.
In the year 2081 in “Harrison Bergeron,” George and Hazel both have restraints to hold back any so-called “advantage,” that they may possess. This in turn, forces innovation and evolution into a sudden hault. “Totem” on the other hand, says that evolution has overdeveloped where the social structure is back, where sympathy is nonexistent. It suggests that the development of society has also taken a standstill and is struggling to innovate. The two stories are similar in a way that both argue no matter which angle humans approach society from, an equilibrium must be established for a successful environment to unfold.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell looks at a number of social epidemics and analyzes their build up to the point where they tip. “Tipping” is that point where an epidemic booms, or grows, to its maximum potential. Gladwell begins defining “tipping” with a literal example of the famous shoes, Hush Puppies. Once considered old-fashioned, Hush Puppies experienced a social boom in the mid-90s when hipsters in New York made them trendy again. Gladwell continues explaining “tipping” with a medical epidemic of syphilis in Baltimore. Gladwell introduces us to three essential rules of epidemics: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. The Law of the Few says a key factor in epidemics is the role of the messenger: it spreads through word-of-mouth transmission. Gladwell explains this theory with an example of how Paul Revere managed to spread the news of British invasion overnight. Gladwell continues to explain that there are several types of people that create these types of epidemics. They are called Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Connectors are those people that are very social and can literally connect with people with as little as two degrees of separation. Mavens are those that know a lot about a lot of different things. They may recommend a certain restaurant and you must go because you know what they told you about it is true. And Salesmen are exactly that: people that are easily social and persuading.
Gabriel Kolko is one of American historians and authors. He wrote a book named “The Triumph of Conservatism: A Re-interpretation of American History, 1900-1916”, and “Meat Inspection: Theory and Reality” is an article in that book. It introduced about Meat Inspection Act in Progressive Era: the main reasoned why it happened, how it affected on legislation, and how government- especially president Roosevelt- executed the new law. Through this article, Kolko also showed his opinion about supporting “free market” and condemning “political capitalism”.
Blade Runner and New Brave World's Perspective's on Humanity Ridley Scott’s film “Blade Runner: Director’s Cut” and Aldous Huxley’s
Christopher McCandless can't be described with a certain term or definition because there is not one particular fixation that can be made about him. He escaped from a world he personally didn't understand. Why people couldn't treat each other righteously, why they lived the way they did. Unhappy and stuck in a mundane system always following the rules. Chris didn't like rules. Rules were a restraint that held him down from being who he was meant to be. He wanted to exist in a world where he was intended to live, where he fit in. And in doing just that, he didn't just leave his old life behind but began a new one. "Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny."(p.) 'Alex' was nothing but a human being, a little impulsive yes, but with a different way of looking at life.
Capitalism is an economic system where a country’s production, distribution of goods and services, for profit are controlled by private owners in a competitive free market. Capitalism is the economic system that the United States has always been using and is commonly associated with the American Dream; where anyone can become rich and successful regardless of background and environment. In Joseph Heller’s satire, Catch-22, Heller satirizes multiple vice and follies that exists in the United States such as religion and bureaucracy of the U.S government. One of Heller’s criticism of society, capitalism, is still a prevalent issue to this day. In Catch-22, the squadron’s mess officer of the U.S Army Air corps in Pianosa, Milo Minderbinder, is a satire of a modern businessman and a character that Heller uses to expose how dangerous the profit-mentality of capitalism can be. Heller’s text in challenging a specific vice or folly through satire proved to be exceptionally effective as today’s current issues continue to mimic those in Catch-22.
At a time where the future has never looked brighter, it is baffling how some people have become more pessimistic than ever. Why do people who are faced with traumatizing situations always seem to focus on the negatives? Why is it that when people are faced with despair, they always seem to rely on how the situation looks repugnant? Science fiction stories have a tendence to show all these questioning thoughts. There are many key details in the science fiction short story book titled Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century that shows pessimism and has a negative tendency of expecting the worst from life and how people treat each other. This is certainly shown in the acts of communication, isolation, and hopelessness.
For generations, only certain people have achieved success - they are known as geniuses or outliers; however, they did not obtain it on high IQs and innate talents alone. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell, #1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink, reveals the transparent secret of success behind every genius that made it big. Intertwined with that, Gladwell builds a convincing implication that the story behind the success of all geniuses is that they were born at the right place, at the right time and took advantage of it. To convey the importance of the outlier’s fortunate circumstances to his readers, he expresses a respective, colloquial tone when examining their lives.
"'God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.'" So says Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. In doing so, he highlights a major theme in this story of a Utopian society. Although the people in this modernized world enjoy no disease, effects of old age, war, poverty, social unrest, or any other infirmities or discomforts, Huxley asks 'is the price they pay really worth the benefits?' This novel shows that when you must give up religion, high art, true science, and other foundations of modern life in place of a sort of unending happiness, it is not worth the sacrifice.
In the text “It Always Costs”, author David Suzuki firmly defends his opinion on the detrimental effects of technology in today’s and age. Throughout his text, Suzuki continuously endorses the idea that technologies have far greater negative impacts than positive and are hardly worth the risk. He explains that these new technological innovations are assuredly unpredictable, reaching a point of somewhat unreliability. The author points out in his text that as humans, we do not have the capacities to foresee these fluctuations, for our knowledge in scientific innovation, is relatively limited. As such, he proposes that we, as citizens, must make a conscious effort to become more informed and aware of these new technologies sprouting in our
...tion, but a pessimistic one because change is hindered by the system of capitalism that prioritizes the needs of the market and economy before the environment, which is a paradox in itself because markets need the environment to produce the materials that allow it to survive to begin with first place. To reiterate Wright, the progress trap is hitting modern society and people should recall fallen civilizations in order to escape what is inevitable: collapse. Delaying the collapse is not good enough, and changing the track no matter how difficult a move this is, is needed in order to prevent to sustain life on Earth.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, truth and happiness are falsely engineered to create a perfect society; the belief of the World Controllers that stability is the the key to a utopian society actually led to the creation of an anti-utopian society in which loose morals and artificial happiness exist. Huxley uses symbolism, metaphors, and imagery to satirize the possibiliy of an artificial society in the future as well as the “brave new world” itself.
The book, The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman draws attention to some very good points concerning globalization and the world economy today. Friedman emphasizes the status of America today in relation to the other countries of the world. As I looked at the things in which he warned about or highlighted, I realized the importance of this issue. He talks about a few aspects in which need to be kept competitive in order for America to retain their current standing in the world market.
Technology has changed our lives but, has it made our lives any better? Some believe technology makes people happier because, people always want to upgrade their electronics to new, more efficient pieces of equipment. People have been progressing for thousands of years, and we still are. Researchers are always looking to improve current technology and come up with modern, efficient devices to improve our lives. If society were to stop emerging with new inventions, I feel we would be very unhappy. I believe that the leading edge of technology is what makes us happy.