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The anxiety of choice versus the tyranny of others choosing for us
Matt Ridley
Andrew Mayne on social biases in studies of the psychology of choice Guest post by Andrew Mayne “Too much choice can be a bad thing-not just for the individual, but for society.” Pop quiz, was the above statement made by? A. Vladimir Lenin B. Scientists in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science Before I tell […]
Matt Ridley
Tim Worstall riffs on William Baumol to fascinating effect: One way of putting which is that increasing labour productivity in services is more difficult than improving it in manufacturing. Canonically, we cannot get a symphony orchestra to be more productive by playing at twice the speed. So, ally this with wages being determined by average […]
Matt Ridley
As a general rule, if George Monbiot agrees with you, start worrying you may be wrong. The Fukushima nuclear crisis has made Monbiot a fan of nuclear power, at just the time when my doubts have been growing. You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. […]
Matt Ridley
My latest Wall Street Journal article is on Nick Humphrey’s theory of consciousness, as set out in his fine new book Soul Dust In ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” published in 1759, Adam Smith boldly recast the question of virtue in terms of what we now call empathy (but which he called sympathy). Smith argued that we […]
Matt Ridley
Time for a re-boot to find a cheaper design? I have written two articles in the past few days on the implications of the Fukushima nuclear crisis (accident?, incident? drama? — not sure what the right word is). This was for The Times on 16th March: The uranium price fell sharply this week. After […]
Matt Ridley
James Delingpole is on fine form: So wind farms don’t just despoil countryside, frighten horses, chop up birds, spontaneously combust, drive down property prices, madden those who live nearby with their subsonic humming, drive up electricity prices, promote rentseeking, make rich landowners richer (and everyone else poorer), ruin views, buy more electric sports cars for […]
Wealth and technology make the death toll smaller, not larger
Matt Ridley
The biggest natural killers of the last decade — Haiti’s earthquake, Burma’s cyclone and Sumatra’s tsunami — were all far, far more lethal because they struck poor countries. Robert Hardman in the Daily Mail writes: Of course, the modern world is better equipped than the ancients to survive these cataclysmic disasters. We have stronger buildings, better […]
A martyred and plagiarized heretic
Matt Ridley
Let’s give credit to a great founder of the English language, and not a committee This is a draft of a piece that I wrote for The Times last week. The published version was slightly different. I strongly recommend Brian Moynahan’s wonderful book on Tyndale: This month, the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the […]
Matt Ridley
Did the ancestors of modern humans beings spend a lot of time by the seaside? Latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal: Photo: Jon Erlandson Last week archaeologists working on the Channel Islands of California announced that they had found delicate stone tools of remarkable antiquity-possibly as old as 13,000 years. […]
Is a mobile signal now a necessity rather than a luxury?
Matt Ridley
The Times ran this column by me last week: When burglars broke into Vodafone’s Basingstoke exchange early on Monday morning, they plunged half of southern England into the dark ages. Desolate and desperate figures shuffled through the drizzle wearing sack-cloth and mortifying their flesh in expiation of the sins that had brought this calamity upon […]
