Friday, September 10, 2010

Matt Ridley

Watched TED talk by Matt Ridley.
It is funny, informative, and persuasive talk.

What I get from this talk is that collaborations and exchanges of ideas are an essence of human, and these are why we are so successful making tools and advancing technologies at accelerating rates.

• How many hours do you have to work to earn an hour of reading light? In the old days, it was very long hours. In 1800 we had to work 6 hours, but now only half a second!

• Louis XlV had 498 people preparing for his dinner every night, but now we all have people working for us preparing meals, and probably higher quality.

• Trading is way older than farming.

• The spread of tools means there were trades not migrations.

• The famous essay called "I, Pencil". People don't even know how to make a pencil.

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