Matt Ridley
Matt Ridley
Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley DL FRSL FMedSci, known commonly as Matt Ridley, is a British journalist who has written several popular science books. He is also a businessman and a Conservative member of the House of Lords...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth7 February 1958
evolution ancient products
Society works not because we have consciously invented it, but because it is an ancient product of our evolved predispositions. It is literally in our nature.
ends
Futurology always ends up telling you more about your own time than about the future.
sex ideas brain
You need to understand how human beings bring together their brains and enable their ideas to combine and recombine, to meet and, indeed, to mate. In other words, you need to understand how ideas have sex.
running clever agency
Because it is a monopoly, government brings inefficiency and stagnation to most things it runs; government agencies pursue the inflation of their budgets rather than the service of their customers; pressure groups form an unholy alliance with agencies to extract more money from taxpayers for their members. Yet despite all this, most clever people still call for government to run more things and assume that if it did so, it would somehow be more perfect, more selfless, next time.
devoted eat food growing land organic pat pay perfectly quite
I'm perfectly happy to eat organic food, but if I choose to pay more for it, I don't pat myself on the back ethically. Quite the reverse. I think I'm actually being quite greedy, because what I'm doing is essentially saying, 'I want more land to be devoted to growing my food.'
sex years ideas
This idea holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead-because ideas are having sex with each other as never before.