Sunday
Oct022011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill More Matt
Matt Ridley won the Manhattan Prize for his brilliant book, the Rational Optimist. As well as the cash prize, he gets to give the Hayek Lecture. This is what he had to say:
H/T HaroldW
Reader Comments (21)
What a great way to start a Sunday -- an injection of optimism, rationality, and if I might add, sanity. Thanks for the link.
This is a masterclass in how to deliver a lecture.
Know your subject and delivery the lecture without drama (other than that in the phrases)
Be clear
Be concise
Be understandable.
Don't patronise your audience.
Truly, a masterclass.
Thanks. I thoroughly enjoyed that. I thought the Q&A was very impressive too. It seemed to me there were real searching questions asked of Ridley that were testing him and expecting novel answers, as opposed to some of the soft ball mutual hug-a-thons you see from the alarmist side pseudo debates.
I can't help but think of the mob of protesters on Wall Street. They don't like inequality, but are well fed, nicely clothed and have cell phones and bicycles and cozy, warm places to sleep at night. But, they are angry. Want more stuff? Work harder. Work smarter. You'll get more stuff.
Mr. Coffman, I regret to tell you that the people attacking Wall Street don’t do it because they want more things. Just as their ilk attacking at various places and times around the world don't do it because they want things. They do it because it is fun and there is no cost to it.
Have you ever rioted, battled with police, broke things up when you were young and full of energy? If you have not, you would not understand it.
Andrew,
Thanks for posting the link.
Matt,
I really enjoyed listening to your talk, and I will certainly get the book. Your commentary is provocative and runs deep, stimulating all sorts of interconnected thoughts. Great work.
Robin.
Superb
Is there a flaw in Matts arguments? I can't see it if so. More strength to you Matt Ridley.
Thanks for these very kind comments!
Matt
Is there a way of downloading it as a podcast.?
Matt Ridley is the voice of well-researched common sense in a world of charlatans and con-men (and women)
An excellent, crystal-clear and uplifting talk, which I enjoyed immensely. An antidote, surely, to the prevailing pessimism, and a great introduction to the themes in The Rational Optimist, for those who have not read it yet. Bravo, Matt, and thanks, the Bishop!
Excellent talk. The Q&A was very revealing -- Mr. Ridley can really think on his toes.
For those who liked this, I would suggest checking out cafe-hayek.com. Don Boudreaux (who runs the site along with economist Russ Roberts) was on the Hayek Prize committee.
If there's a transcript, I'd be interested in finding it. There were some choice quotes, not just from Matt ("self sufficiency is poverty"), but from John Tierney as well ("most politicians believe they create jobs, most intellectuals still equate larger government with greater virtue.")
Great preso.
In the warm up they mentioned Tierney's iconoclastic 1996 essay "Recycling is Garbage".
Well worth reading. He looks objectively at recycling - while reading it I realised just how many of my own thoughts were based on some kind of non-existent moral imperative. I know a lot of people think that recycling is "a good thing" in and of itself. It's one of the new 10 commandments that children learn in school.
Jack Hughes,
It has been widely reported that Tierney's "Recycling is Garbage" article received a record amount of "hate mail" at the New York Times Magazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/063096-tierney-magazine.html?ex
I have not been able to find details on the numbers or the definition of "hate mail" in this context. It would be interesting to know the details.
Is this the same Matt Ridley who was non-executive Chairman of Northern Rock around the time it collapsed?
Matt, you are one of the clearest thinkers of our age, and its a privilege to hear you speak so eloquently.
That was a masterly exposition of the real driving force of human progress, trade and communication harnessing the collective genius of ever larger numbers of people. Thank you (and thanks for the link, Bish)
Yes, great stuff Matt. Excellent delivery and question handling (you'd never make a politician though as you actually answered all the questions.)
Can't you get the Beeb to take you on for some of their science offerings, you certainly have the pedigree and the skill. It would be a great antidote to the Brian Cox's and Paul Nurse's of this world.
You weren't in a boy band when you were younger were you, that might help?
"Is this the same Matt Ridley who was non-executive Chairman of Northern Rock around the time it collapsed?"
SidF, a simple Google would answer your query. Yes, it is the same Matt Ridley. Many seem to think that the Northern Rock experience fatally undermines his case for free markets. I'm sure that Matt would have a different view, but I can understand why he might not want to discuss it here.
For my own part, I think it wise to regulate the global capital markets but this regulation should not be burdensome or it risks fatal damage to those markets. Greedy bankers, like the poor, will be always with us, and so will greedy consumers of debt like the buy-to-let sharks that exploited easy credit in the early 2000s. This requires oversight. However, if government regulation interferes too heavily, it risks undermining the growing general prosperity that results from access to those markets - one threat here, for example, is the Tobin tax on financial transactions which is being pushed by the EU regulators.
57 minutes well spent. Much of his analysis in "The Rational Optimist" is so blindingly obvious when seen in black-and-white, one wonders why the "experts" didn't see things that way decades ago.
I particularly like his take on projected economic harm from global warming. If the world population will be sufficiently prosperous to use enough energy to generate all that CO2, then the warming can't have done much economic damage along the way.
What an intellect! He spent less than 30 seconds in the Q&A discussing nuclear power but skewered a huge issue.
He said Boiling Water Reactors looked ideal for submarines so that is what we developed even though other technologies (e.g. the Thorium cycle) might make more sense for generating electric power.
I am paraphrasing from memory; he said it way better that that!
I am seriously impressed. Brilliant.