2012Best year in
historyLess HungerLess Disease
More Prosperity
How does the media
make money?Sells you to advertisers
Fear gets attentionNo context
Julian Simon(1932-1998)
The Ultimate ResourceThe ultimate resource is people–especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty–who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit, and so inevitably they will benefit the rest of us as well.” — The State of Humanity (1995)
This is my long-run forecast in brief: the material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today’s Western living standards.“I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse.”
Theory
Life ExpectancyFact
Fact
Price of Raw ResourcesTheory
Think Utilitynot
Physical Quantity
Drill or Holes?
Do the 88 keys limit the number
of potential songs?
High Prices
Use LessInnovate a Substitute
Ideas make things valuable
Only humans have ideas
Therefore, only humans make things valuable