In any case it's the kind of comments that I found myself confronted by talking around me The Rational Optimist - casually and it's also the kind of comments that I used for a long time, being Very basically an optimist. My way of usual retort was to invite not stop to negative events highlighted, but rather to look at the "big picture": watching the progress of humanity as a whole and in the long term rather than s stop together daily newspapers.
The Rational Optimist, it is exactly this approach, on a very large scale. Matt Ridley shows brilliantly the progress of all humanity from its origins to today, and it draws together a rational inventory - based on facts - clear the reasons behind the extraordinary progress of the humanity in its history. His central argument, that specialization - the fact that more men exchange among themselves the more they are able to specialize in very specific trades, and therefore they create value in these businesses - is at the heart of progress is of great strength and brings to bear another look at the organization of our society. Even for someone who is already a convinced optimist!
Beyond pure intellectual satisfaction that entails, being fundamentally optimistic (and not naive and stupid as Pangloss) leads to action, and want to contribute to this great progress of humanity. With the belief that any existing problem can be solved eventually we all find ourselves in front of a world filled with countless opportunities!
