Jane, Elon, And The Numbers

Who is right: Jane Goodall or Elon Musk?

Two questions for Jane:

One: If you had magic power, why not increase the resources on the planet?

Two: How do you reduce human populations without causing any pain or suffering?

We do in fact have a magic power. It's called the freedom to innovate. We've been using it for 200 years now. We transform our world of atoms into resources by creating and discovering and sharing valuable new knowledge. From 1800 to today, global population increased from one to eight billion people. During this same period we have discovered how to extend life expectancy from under 30 years to over 72. We have also lifted billions out of poverty with astonishing new knowledge. Our ability to create new resources is infinite because knowledge is infinite. As Elon Musk has noted, our problem is not too many people but not enough.

Please do what Elon has suggested: Look at the numbers. Look at what has happened to the abundance of basic resources since 1850 for blue-collar workers. On the average, for the time it took to earn one unit of these basic commodities in 1850, you would get 58.62 in 2018.

Jane has devoted her life to the study of chimpanzee populations. Thank you. But human beings are innovators, chimpanzees are not.

If we can treat one another with greater dignity and respect, all of our abundances will accelerate. Elon is a Exhibit A in the case for granting each other the freedom to innovate. We’re fortunate that the United States has been entrepreneur friendly and attracts talent from all over the planet, where they can manifest their creativity for the benefit of all the rest of us.

You can learn more about our growing abundance and how to measure our standard of living with time prices in our new book, Superabundance, available at Amazon. George Will calls times prices a marvelous historical economic measure.

Gale Pooley is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and a board member at Human Progress.