EconTalk | 31 August 2020 | 1h 11m | Listen Later 
| iTunes
Interview with Matt Ridley about his book How Innovation Works. Ridley argues that we give too much credit to inventors and not enough to innovators – those who refine and improve an invention to make it valuable to users. Along the way, he emphasizes the power of trial and error and the importance of permissionless innovation.
This is the fourth episode I’ve posted with Matt Ridley about How Innovation Works. It’s a fantastic book, by my favourite author, interviewed here by my favourite podcaster.
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Lord Ridley admits that he was too optimistic about the Internet, but maybe this story is too optimistic overall. When one learns about multiple simultaneous developments of the same thing (e.g., light bulbs), it seems that humanity is in the grip of an inescapable technological telos. Sure, it’s been mostly good so far, but how worried should we be about pulling out a “black ball”, as suggested by Prof. Bolstrom? https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1758-5899.12718
That should be Prof. Nick Bostrom, of course. I regret the error.