The Evolution of Everything
How New Ideas Emerge
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Narrated by:
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Steven Crossley
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By:
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Matt Ridley
About this listen
The New York Times best-selling author of The Rational Optimist and Genome returns with a fascinating, brilliant argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world.
The Evolution of Everything is about bottom-up order and its enemy, the top-down twitch - the endless fascination human beings have with design rather than evolution, with direction rather than emergence. Drawing on anecdotes from science, economics, history, politics, and philosophy, Matt Ridley's wide-ranging, highly opinionated opus demolishes conventional assumptions that major scientific and social imperatives are dictated by those on high, whether in government, business, academia, or morality. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the bottom up. Patterns emerge, trends evolve. Just as skeins of geese form Vs in the sky without meaning to and termites build mud cathedrals without architects, so brains take shape without brain makers, learning can happen without teaching, and morality changes without a plan.
Although we neglect, defy, and ignore them, bottom-up trends shape the world. The growth of technology, the sanitation-driven health revolution, the quadrupling of farm yields so that more land can be released for nature - these were largely emergent phenomena, as were the Internet, the mobile phone revolution, and the rise of Asia. Ridley demolishes the arguments for design and effectively makes the case for evolution in the universe, morality, genes, the economy, culture, technology, the mind, personality, population, education, history, government, God, money, and the future.
As compelling as it is controversial, authoritative as it is ambitious, Ridley's stunning perspective will revolutionize the way we think about our world and how it works.
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- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author and world-renowned historian Niall Ferguson has won widespread acclaim for thought-provoking works such as Civilization and High Financier. The Great Degeneration tackles nothing less than the decline of Western civilization. Ferguson posits that slowing growth, outrageous debt, and antisocial behavior are contributing to the erosion of the West’s once rock-solid foundations. Ferguson excavates the causes and shows how heroic leadership and radical reform are needed to right the course.
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Superb as always!
- By Ivanhoe on 08-28-17
By: Niall Ferguson
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Capitalism
- The Unknown Ideal
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The foundations of capitalism are being battered by a flood of altruism, which is the cause of the modern world's collapse. This was the view of Ayn Rand, a view so radically opposed to prevailing attitudes that it constituted a major philosophic revolution. In this series of essays, she presented her stand on the persecution of big business, the causes of war, the default of conservatism, and the evils of altruism.
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Ashame this is not taught in our
- By Karen on 08-18-07
By: Ayn Rand
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Future Shock
- By: Alvin Toffler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Future Shock is about the present. Future Shock is about what is happening today to people and groups who are overwhelmed by change. Change affects our products, communities, organizations - even our patterns of friendship and love. Future Shock vividly describes the emerging global civilization: tomorrow's family life, the rise of new businesses, subcultures, lifestyles, and human relationships - all of them temporary. It illuminates the world of tomorrow by exploding countless cliches about today.
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So Accurate
- By Peter Gracia on 03-31-19
By: Alvin Toffler
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Breaking the Spell
- Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why - and how - it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion’s evolution from “wild” folk belief to “domesticated” dogma.
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Great Reader Actually Enhances A Great Book!
- By Don Caliente on 07-14-14
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Weapons of Mass Instruction
- A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling
- By: John Taylor Gatto
- Narrated by: Michael Puttonen
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of traditional education which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a byproduct of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, introduced the now-famous expression of the title into the common vernacular. Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling.
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I will never see school the same
- By Nicole on 05-21-15
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How Much is Enough?
- Money and the Good Life
- By: Edward Skidelsky
- Narrated by: Clay Teunis
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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What constitutes the good life? What is the true value of money? Why do we work such long hours merely to acquire greater wealth? These are some of the questions that many asked themselves when the financial system crashed in 2008. This book tackles such questions head-on.The authors begin with the great economist John Maynard Keynes. In 1930 Keynes predicted that, within a century, per capita income would steadily rise, people’s basic needs would be met, and no one would have to work more than fifteen hours a week.
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Not what I expected at all!
- By Chi on 05-22-23
By: Edward Skidelsky
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Millennium
- From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed over a Thousand Years
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In Millennium, best-selling historian Ian Mortimer takes the listener on a whirlwind tour of the last 10 centuries of Western history. It is a journey into a past vividly brought to life and bursting with ideas, that pits one century against another in his quest to measure which century saw the greatest change. We journey from a time when there was a fair chance of your village being burned to the ground by invaders - and dried human dung was a recommended cure for cancer - to a world in which explorers sailed into the unknown and civilizations came into conflict.
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Bad ending - literally
- By John Gordon on 12-14-16
By: Ian Mortimer
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Progress
- Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future
- By: Johan Norberg
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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It's on the television, in the papers, and in our minds. Every day we're bludgeoned by news of how bad everything is - financial collapse, unemployment, growing poverty, environmental disasters, disease, hunger, war. But the rarely acknowledged reality is that our progress over the past few decades has been unprecedented. By almost any index you care to identify, things are markedly better now than they have ever been for almost everyone alive.
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Global Uptrends That May Surprise You
- By Alexandra Hopkins on 09-22-17
By: Johan Norberg
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How Soon Is Now
- From Personal Initiation to Global Transformation
- By: Daniel Pinchbeck
- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The world needs to change. We have unleashed an ecological mega-crisis which is threatening the future of life on Earth. The actions we take over the next decade are critical. They will determine the destiny of our descendants and the fate of our world. How Soon Is Now presents a compelling manifesto for personal and planetary change. It proposes a revolutionary new narrative for a unified social movement. Through global cooperation, we can face this collective threat ecologically, socially, politically and spiritually.
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Relevant!!!!
- By Anonymous User on 12-11-23
By: Daniel Pinchbeck
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The Voice of Reason
- Essays in Objectivist Thought
- By: Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In the years between her first public lecture in 1961 and her last in 1981, Ayn Rand spoke and wrote about topics as different as education, medicine, Vietnam, and the death of Marilyn Monroe. In The Voice of Reason, these pieces are gathered together in book form for the first time. Written in the last decades of Rand's life, they reflect a life lived on principle, a probing mind, and a passionate intensity. With them are five essays by Leonard Peikoff, Rand's longtime associate and literary executor.
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Explains Everything Of Today
- By L. Nicholson on 11-20-15
By: Ayn Rand, and others
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What listeners say about The Evolution of Everything
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- Anonymous User
- 06-27-19
Sometimes uses a broad brush
Liked the new interpretation of cause and effect. It stirred new ideas and drove me to imagine an alternate narrative. One has to be careful however to adopt a new world view based on a fast and loose explanation of much of recorded human history (i.e. religious history). Overall, this author’s identification of evolving human concepts and natural systems is fascinating.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Winter
- 05-31-17
Everyone should read this
The concepts explored in this book are challenges to our persistently flawed "conventional wisdom." I found it refreshing and empowering.
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- Pavel Kada
- 11-16-18
Eye opening experience
Even though I don't agree with everything, it's still very influential reading. I'm not sure whether I wasn't doing better with more blurred vision of the world and life :-)
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- W. McConnell
- 12-22-21
Worth every minute.
Thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and excellently read. Though one might think the topic a dry one, the content and pace of presentation will keep your attention throughout. The theme is well stated and supported by citations, so Ridley's conclusions are reasonable. Great book.
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- Ann Victory
- 05-21-20
Changed how I see the world
There is no such thing as a static system. If something has an ability to change, it will. Biological systems, organizational systems, language, and relationships all evolve. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it and it is everywhere.
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- Anonymous User
- 12-27-15
Good book but a little disappointing on depth
I just finished The Evolution of Everything and it was hard to stop listening at times. I will re-listen to it. There were many good spots that I found educational and thought provoking. However, there were also several chapters that became more political commentary on current issues rather than an indepth exploration of the "evolution" of the subject. It could have been that Mr. Ridley did not want to lose his audience in the weeds of history, which I understand. Still, I would have preferred more historical perspective. Overall I found the book quite useful and informative.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Scott
- 06-08-18
Truly enlightening!
One the best, most fascinating and enlightening books I’ve ever been through! I will probably read it again! And again! And again!
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- Lech
- 07-01-16
must read
Loved it! For everyone believing in the power of central planning, creationism and top down approach to big project or problem
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- Anonymous User
- 06-10-22
Worth the read
At its best moments the book is an optimistic and insightful thought experiment into how systems grow and evolve with time. At its worst moments it is an unabashed sales pitch for the free market, decentralization, and all other forms of libertarianism. I enjoyed many of the thoughts and insights, but there is definitely some heavy handwaving to counterpoints. However, I enjoyed the book even while disagreeing with much of it. I recommend this book but also recommend listening to The Fifth Risk immediately after.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Hope N.
- 02-22-16
Bland, dry, lengthy
For a book that's topic is highly provoking and refreshingly intellectual, the author is too detailed in getting to the point. Spending verbously amounts of time laboring through his supporting evidence and arguments. I wish I could say that I read the whole book, but after chapter 3, skipped ahead to the topics that most interested me and then quit. Also, the narrator has a voice that easily put me to sleep, so maybe not the best read for driving.
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