Collaboration and Comparative Advantage

Campbell, Margaret

Ridley, M. (2010). When ideas have sex. Proceedings of TED Global 2010. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLHh9E5ilZ4

Summary

After reading about the unwillingness of some teachers to spend time with librarians in order to design lessons that incorporate 21st Century learning standards, I realized that the problem is very similar to the different groups of chimpanzees described in Ridley's TED Talk. The problem with groups of chimpanzees keeping out of each other's way is that they cannot reap the collective benefits of comparative advantage. It seems that, in many areas, even modern humans have not yet come to realize the evolutionary leap that comparative advantage provides.

Evaluation

Ridley describes it like this: 
1) Exchange (of talents, expertise) creates a momentum that creates more development of talents and expertise, that in turn, creates a momentum for more exchange...if there is the investment in and valuation for exchange to begin with.
2) When we work for each other, we are able to draw upon the benefits of specialization.
3) Through sharing specializations, we have, as a society, created the ability to do things that we do not even understand... to go beyond individual capabilities.
4) Individual intelligence has little relevance...what is relevant is how well individuals collaborate... we are at a point where our contribution is as "nodes in the network" of a collective brain.