X-Message-Number: 32971 Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 20:37:29 -0400 Subject: A somewhat on topic book recommendation, "The Rational Optimi... From: Rudi Hoffman <> --0015175931d0ec656c049329d8fc Dear Cryonetters: I have been following the thread regarding progress/no progress idea with interest. To be fair, it is more of a "rapid progress, less rapid progress" distinction and discussion. Mark Plus is doing a fine job as a skeptic and curmudgeon...altho, Mark, I am not sure you are old enough to be a real curmudgeon. But parts of your skepticism about "where's my flying car, dude?" may be understandable. Here is my contribution to this discussion. I had heard from several respected quarters good things about Matt Ridey's "The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, " was a great read. So, along with the 24 other mostly fabulous books in my iphone 4, I went to Audible.com and invested a credit...15 bucks a month...great value....into downloading "The Rational Optimist." Wow...what a book! As I mentioned on my review on Audible.com, this is the book I would like to have written. Ridley explains that by most ANY metric one uses, life is better for most people on the planet than it has ever been. By a significant degree. In empirical, quantifiable, virtually unarguable terms. I won't be doing a full review here, other than to say, THIS is worthwhile listening/ reading. Ridley has a pretty good TED talk you can google for...and it captures some of the flavor of the book...but not all of it. I especially liked the rather counterintuitive sections on "Green" energy and lifestyle. And why "organic" farming, and "local sourcing", two buzzwords of the green movement, are astoundingly BAD for the environment and create a larger ecological footprint. The basic premise of the book, which most thinking people will agree with, is that prosperity evolves DRAMATICALLY with the advent of specialization and trade. While this may seem obvious, the implications of the thought, which Ridley cannily explores, include the conclusion that independence is poverty...interdependence and specialization are what generates the win/win transactions that make our lives orders of magnitude better than our ancestors. Nobody on the planet knows how to make a keyboard I am typing these words on. That is, no one could singlehandedly drill the oil that makes the plastic, design the wireless keyboard I am writing this / these words on, engineer and manufacture the piece of technology that I can buy for about what amounts to about 8 minutes of my work. Folks. Including Mark Plus. Can we not take a moment to acknowledge that our lifestyles...for most of us, certainly not all...are something like what has been DREAMED about by our ancestors? As I write these words, I am being served by literally thousands of human beings. They have diligently worked to provide a stable office chair and desk for me, they work to enable me to communicate via the internet to folks spread around the globe effortlessly. Electricity, transmitted via power lines from all over the continent, is being magically encoded into symbols on a screen made in Taiwan by specialists. So, I won't try to restate or sell you on Ridley's thesis. I won't even tell you that you aren't allowed an informed opinion on the matter if you don't read the book...although this may be true! Since I have about as good an idea of the demographics and orientation of the folks who are interested in cryonics as anyone on the planet, based on the fact that I LOVE to talks with you people, I just know most of you would and will really dig this book. Wife Dawn and I have about 88 people scheduled to come to our Halloween party tomorrow...should be quite an event. We are still getting things set up for it...have about 48 Halloween icon "airblown" figures in our front yard, the entire house decorated inside and out for the season...and we aren't done yet. So, I will close for now. Check out Matt Ridley...you'll feel better about your life. Warm regards to all remarkably foresightful and deep thinking readers of Cryonet... For Centuries, Rudi -- Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU ChFC World's Leading Cryonics Insuror rudihoffman.com Former Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.com Board Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation alcor.org, Member Cryonics Institute cryonics.org Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards Member World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org/ Securities offered through Broker Dealer Financial Services Corp. Member FINRA and SIPC. --0015175931d0ec656c049329d8fc Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32971