Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think

by Peter H. Diamandis

We can no more stomp it out than we could shut off our instinct to survive. As Matt Ridley concludes in the final pages of The Rational Optimist, “It will be hard to snuff out the flame of innovation, because it is such an evolutionary, bottom-up phenomenon in such a networked world. So long as human exchange and specialization are allowed to thrive somewhere, then culture evolves where leaders help it or hinder it, and the result is that prosperity spreads, technology progresses, poverty declines, disease retreats, fecundity falls, happiness increases, violence atrophies, freedom grows, knowledge flourishes, the environment improves, and wilderness expands.” Sure, there are always going to be a few holdouts (again, the Amish), but the vast majority of us are here for the ride. And, as should be clear by now, it’s going to be quite a ride.