[SKRIVA] Mänsklighetens lovande framtid
- From: Ahrvid Engholm <ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <sverifandom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 14:13:08 +0200
Här en författare som menar att vilka problem mänskligheten än har - så fixar
det sig!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/24/matt-ridley-rational-optimist
Miljö, fattigdomsproblem, överbefolkning, m m. Problem i den vägen har
bevisligen blivit mindre problematiska i snabb takt. Och läget blir ännu bättre.
Grunden för det, menar Matt Ridley i sin bok The Rational Optimist, är de
evolutionära egenskaperna hos *idéer*. (Jfr med Richard Dawkins som talar om
idéer som en sorts gener, som han kallar memer.)
Genom globaliseringen produceras allt mer idéer som dessutom når ut mycket
mer och möter andra idéer. Idéer som bryts mot varandra genererar sedan nya
idéer, vilket ger lösningar. Några utdrag:
Ridley's argument is that just as biological evolution depends on sex ...
cultural evolution depends on ideas meeting and – Ridley's term – mating,
allowing mankind to come up with, say, chocolate ice cream. Or a jet engine. Or
even The X Factor.
And what allows those ideas to meet and mate is our facility for exchanging.
Except, of course, it's not just ideas that humans exchange, but things. And as
soon as human beings, sometime before 100,000 years ago, began exchanging ideas
and things, "culture became cumulative, and human economic 'progress' began,"
says Ridley...
What Ridley was on to was a bold and immensely seductive theory, extensively
and elegantly demonstrated over 350-odd pages, with examples from the Stone Age
to the internet and Tasmania to Ming-era China. Through "exchanging", he
argues, humans discovered what he calls "the specialisation of efforts and
talents for individual gain". Specialisation, in turn, encouraged innovation.
And innovation saved time, which, in Ridley's thesis, equals prosperity – and
rising living standards.
The world, he thankfully volunteers at this juncture, is far from perfect.
Millions still live in misery. But the majority are infinitely better off than
they were 200 or even 50 years ago: since 1800, average life expectancy has
more than doubled, and real income multiplied more than nine times. Even since
1955, people earn lots more, eat better, lose fewer children, are better
educated, and own more useful things such as telephones, toilets and fridges.
They are also far less likely to die as a result of murder, accidents, natural
disasters and from any one of a whole range of diseases. And that's not just
"on average": even including impoverished Africa, Ridley says, it's hard to
find any region in the world where longevity, health and wealth haven't risen
overall since the 1950s; even the UN reckons that globally, poverty has fallen
more in the last 50 years than in the previous 500.
"The fact is," he says, "that the more we specialised as producers, and
diversified as consumers – the more we exchanged – the better off we have
become. And the better off we will be in the future, because this is a process
that doesn't stop. It just trundles along, producing higher living standards,
in an inexorable way.
"And if 6.7 billion people continue to keep specialising and exchanging and
innovating, there's no reason at all why we can't overcome whatever problems
face us – population explosions, food shortages, disease, poverty, terrorism,
climate change, you name it. In fact I think it's quite probable that in 100
years' time both we and the planet will be better off than we are now."
Resonemanget låter faktiskt som sannolikt. Utvecklingen har de sista 50 åren
gått snabbare än någonsin, och snabbare än de 100 åren innan dess, och snabbare
än de 200 åren innan dess, osv. Centralt i detta har ny teknologi för
idéspridande och utbyte mellan människor varit: boktrycket, effektivare
tidningspressar, telegrafen, järnvägen, ångbåtar, bilen, flygplan, radio,
jetplan, TV, datorn, Internet...
--Ahrvid
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IQ-HJÄLP! (DN NoN 00.02.07)
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