WEBVTT 00:00:00.017 --> 00:00:05.117 It was a bet between a sick, twisted, malevolent entomologist masquerading as 00:00:05.117 --> 00:00:09.737 a demographic expert who called babies a disaster and was wrong about literally 00:00:09.737 --> 00:00:11.677 everything he ever predicted. 00:00:12.417 --> 00:00:17.317 And a pro-human, life-affirming economist who switched from team death to team 00:00:17.317 --> 00:00:21.937 life when he realized that the ultimate resource, that is, humanity's capacity 00:00:21.937 --> 00:00:23.657 for ingenuity and adaptation, 00:00:24.017 --> 00:00:27.197 was something to be celebrated, not something to be decried, 00:00:27.197 --> 00:00:29.837 as our would-be overlords bid us do. 00:00:30.317 --> 00:00:34.157 It was a bet, in other words, between good and evil. 00:00:34.657 --> 00:00:40.677 Paul Ehrlich bet against humanity. Julian Simon bet on humanity. 00:00:41.157 --> 00:00:47.297 Now, here's the awkward part for the psychopaths and twisted individuals in 00:00:47.297 --> 00:00:51.837 establishment media and academic circles who seek to curry favor with the would-be 00:00:51.837 --> 00:00:56.037 social engineers by being so against humanity. 00:00:56.677 --> 00:01:02.917 Julian Simon won the bet. And that's precisely why you've never heard about it. 00:01:03.337 --> 00:01:08.157 Let's fix that. Today on The Corbett Report, we're going to do a deep dive on 00:01:08.157 --> 00:01:10.737 the most important bet you've never heard of. 00:01:31.042 --> 00:01:33.522 So the first thing that should happen is that the president ought to say, 00:01:33.762 --> 00:01:39.402 from now, here on out, no intelligent, patriotic American family ought to have 00:01:39.402 --> 00:01:42.142 more than two children, preferably one, if you're starting a family now. 00:01:42.222 --> 00:01:45.362 Not any law, but just say this is what responsible people do. 00:01:45.722 --> 00:01:49.582 He ought to make the FCC see to it that large families are always treated in 00:01:49.582 --> 00:01:51.682 a negative light on television wherever they appear. 00:01:51.902 --> 00:01:55.282 There ought to be a tremendous amount of television time devoted to spot commercials, 00:01:55.402 --> 00:01:58.542 the sort we've had against smoking, but ones in the middle, say, 00:01:58.542 --> 00:02:01.402 in the middle of Beverly Hillbillies, you get a scene which shows Los Angeles 00:02:01.402 --> 00:02:03.602 in the smog, and it just says, this city has a fatal disease. 00:02:03.762 --> 00:02:05.922 It's called overpopulation, and so long. 00:02:06.962 --> 00:02:10.382 Now, that sort of campaign, you could have a census, a sample census, 00:02:10.422 --> 00:02:12.762 which would see whether that was having a desired effect. 00:02:13.062 --> 00:02:16.222 If that didn't, you could move to giving women bonuses for not having babies. 00:02:16.222 --> 00:02:17.662 That almost certainly would do the job. 00:02:17.962 --> 00:02:21.522 If that didn't have the effect, then you could move to changing the tax structure 00:02:21.522 --> 00:02:25.782 so that people who had the money and had the children paid for the children. 00:02:25.842 --> 00:02:28.682 In other words, you would increase taxes on people with children rather than 00:02:28.682 --> 00:02:31.322 decrease them, since when they have their children, they require more services. 00:02:31.582 --> 00:02:35.302 If that doesn't work, then you'll have the government legislating the size of the family. 00:02:35.482 --> 00:02:38.542 And people say, oh, that's impossible. Government can never intrude and tell 00:02:38.542 --> 00:02:41.182 you how many children to have. Well, I got news. You know, it intruded a long 00:02:41.182 --> 00:02:42.882 time ago and told you how many wives you can have. 00:02:43.322 --> 00:02:46.022 And there's not the slightest question that if we don't get the population under 00:02:46.022 --> 00:02:48.342 control with voluntary means, that in the not-too-distant future, 00:02:48.402 --> 00:02:50.422 the government will simply tell you how many children you can have and throw 00:02:50.422 --> 00:02:51.462 you in jail if you have too many. 00:02:52.962 --> 00:02:55.682 Welcome back, friends. Welcome back to another edition of The Corbett Report. 00:02:55.682 --> 00:02:59.582 I'm your host James Corbett of CorbettReport.com coming to you as always from 00:02:59.582 --> 00:03:05.402 the sunny climes of western Japan here in late March of 2026 with episode 496 00:03:05.402 --> 00:03:09.942 of the Corbett Report podcast the most important bet you've never heard of. 00:03:11.175 --> 00:03:16.735 Now, as I am sure that my well-informed listeners and viewers are well aware, 00:03:16.975 --> 00:03:20.855 that was a snippet of an interview conducted with Dr. 00:03:21.135 --> 00:03:27.675 Paul Ehrlich by WOITV of Ames, Iowa in April of 1970, a.k.a. 00:03:27.675 --> 00:03:32.795 That period of time, that strange and interesting period where this otherwise 00:03:32.795 --> 00:03:36.395 obscure entomologist, aka bug scientist, 00:03:36.415 --> 00:03:43.635 was rocketing to worldwide fame on the back of the success of his 1968 fear-mongering, 00:03:43.895 --> 00:03:49.255 hype-filled book of doomsaying called The Population Bomb, and his subsequent 00:03:49.255 --> 00:03:54.255 appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and other media outlets. 00:03:54.255 --> 00:03:58.975 Yes, in that strange time, late 1960s, early 1970s, 00:03:59.075 --> 00:04:06.395 Paul Ehrlich became the government-approved establishment media-sanctioned academic 00:04:06.395 --> 00:04:10.915 superstar who was allowed to pronounce on the fate of humanity. 00:04:11.435 --> 00:04:13.895 However wrong he was in those pronouncements. 00:04:13.975 --> 00:04:19.595 As I say, I'm sure that my well-informed audience is aware of Paul Ehrlich and 00:04:19.595 --> 00:04:25.175 his infamous career of predicting things that did not come to pass time and 00:04:25.175 --> 00:04:27.915 time and time and time again throughout the years. 00:04:28.055 --> 00:04:33.275 But if not, you can get caught up to speed not only with his recent death and 00:04:33.275 --> 00:04:37.395 our recent pronouncements on that in the recent edition of New World Next Week. 00:04:37.875 --> 00:04:42.855 Ehrlich contributes to the depopulation agenda with James Evan Pallotto of MediaMonarchy.com. 00:04:42.955 --> 00:04:48.435 But of course, you can also consult episode 339 of the Corbett Report podcast 00:04:48.435 --> 00:04:52.955 on Meet Paul Ehrlich, Pseudoscience Charlatan. 00:04:53.815 --> 00:04:57.835 Ehrlich was many things, but cautious and understated he was not. 00:04:58.155 --> 00:05:03.015 The population bomb opens with the lines, The battle to feed all of humanity is over. 00:05:03.255 --> 00:05:07.795 In the 1970s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of 00:05:07.795 --> 00:05:09.835 any crash programs embarked upon now. 00:05:11.085 --> 00:05:17.485 And it only got worse from there. As far as petroleum goes, you all know where 00:05:17.485 --> 00:05:19.365 the action is there. We're running out rapidly. 00:05:19.545 --> 00:05:21.945 Some estimates are it'll all be gone by the year 2000. 00:05:22.265 --> 00:05:25.165 And conflict over that is getting to be rather serious. 00:05:26.005 --> 00:05:28.665 You just got to remember this. There's no way out of the arithmetic. 00:05:28.825 --> 00:05:31.145 There will never be 7 billion people in the year 2000. 00:05:32.525 --> 00:05:35.585 Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come. And by the end, 00:05:35.585 --> 00:05:39.185 I mean an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity. 00:05:41.285 --> 00:05:45.785 Incredibly, these predictions of doomsday are no mere aberrations in the career 00:05:45.785 --> 00:05:48.445 of an otherwise careful and understated researcher. 00:05:49.005 --> 00:05:53.625 In fact, they barely scratch the surface of the catalogue of Ehrlich's ridiculous, 00:05:53.885 --> 00:05:57.165 and ridiculously wrong, chicken little pronouncements. 00:05:58.125 --> 00:06:02.885 Speaking at the Institute of Biology in London in 1969, Ehrlich opined that, 00:06:03.005 --> 00:06:07.825 If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000. 00:06:09.305 --> 00:06:13.085 Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases 00:06:13.085 --> 00:06:18.185 in food supplies we make Ehrlich told Mademoiselle magazine in 1970 The death 00:06:18.185 --> 00:06:22.385 rate will increase until at least 100 to 200 million people per year will be 00:06:22.385 --> 00:06:24.525 starving to death during the next 10 years, 00:06:25.385 --> 00:06:27.345 And what of the decade after that? 00:06:27.825 --> 00:06:32.025 Writing about the Great Die-Off in the pages of The Progressive in April 1970 00:06:32.025 --> 00:06:38.345 Ehrlich warned that 4 billion people would starve to death in the 1980s including 65 million Americans. 00:06:39.705 --> 00:06:45.205 Most remarkable of all, decades of being spectacularly wrong have not stopped 00:06:45.205 --> 00:06:49.485 Ehrlich from continuing to spread his particularly distasteful brand of doom porn. 00:06:50.205 --> 00:06:54.445 He was back at it just this past March, assuring readers of The Guardian that 00:06:54.445 --> 00:06:56.485 overpopulation means that the collapse 00:06:56.485 --> 00:07:01.045 of civilization itself is a near certainty in the next few decades. 00:07:02.884 --> 00:07:07.724 If only Paul Ehrlich was an unsuccessful charlatan, barking his end-of-the-world 00:07:07.724 --> 00:07:13.004 predictions like a madman on a street corner, it may be possible to dismiss him as a harmless crank. 00:07:13.864 --> 00:07:18.624 But rather than being shunned as a charlatan, Ehrlich has been embraced by the 00:07:18.624 --> 00:07:20.464 respectable scientific community. 00:07:21.364 --> 00:07:25.564 He has been awarded the Kraftwerd Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 00:07:25.924 --> 00:07:30.604 the World Ecology Award from the University of Missouri, the Distinguished Scientist 00:07:30.604 --> 00:07:33.064 Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, 00:07:33.684 --> 00:07:38.264 as well as prizes and awards from the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund the 00:07:38.264 --> 00:07:40.684 United Nations and a slew of other organizations, 00:07:41.704 --> 00:07:45.544 He was awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship and became a Fellow of the Royal 00:07:45.544 --> 00:07:47.144 Society of London in 2012, 00:07:48.204 --> 00:07:52.184 He continues to deliver lectures around the world and is still sought after 00:07:52.184 --> 00:07:56.604 for comment on population and ecology issues by mainstream media outlets and 00:07:56.604 --> 00:08:00.124 he currently holds the position of being Professor of Population Studies of 00:08:00.124 --> 00:08:02.404 the Department of Biology at Stanford University. 00:08:03.324 --> 00:08:08.304 But none of this, not the consistently wrong predictions, not the fear-mongering, 00:08:08.624 --> 00:08:12.824 not the accolades in career success, is as concerning as Ehrlich's ultimate 00:08:12.824 --> 00:08:17.584 solution for the problem of overpopulation that he claims to detail. 00:08:19.538 --> 00:08:24.998 Hi. My question is for Paul Ehrlich. Do you have any regrets about urging developed 00:08:24.998 --> 00:08:30.538 countries to use their political power to coerce vulnerable countries into drastic 00:08:30.538 --> 00:08:32.418 population control programs, 00:08:32.698 --> 00:08:35.438 having heard of the atrocities in India and China? 00:08:36.138 --> 00:08:43.118 Yes, definitely. If Van and I were writing the population bomb again today, we'd write it. 00:08:45.178 --> 00:08:48.298 Differently. Sometimes you make mistakes. I think that was a mistake. 00:08:48.478 --> 00:08:52.118 I don't think the recent thing that the Chinese, are you going to have a question 00:08:52.118 --> 00:08:53.578 later on the Chinese policy change? 00:08:53.698 --> 00:08:56.318 No, please, you can go on. I'm not trying to censor what you're saying. 00:08:56.398 --> 00:08:56.818 No, no, no, that's all right. 00:08:56.958 --> 00:09:00.838 I think the main problem with the Chinese stopping, I think, 00:09:01.278 --> 00:09:05.098 their one-child family program is the moral hazard one. 00:09:05.198 --> 00:09:09.478 That is, the Chinese, it's not going to increase their family size very much. 00:09:09.838 --> 00:09:13.898 We know now that in the past, they probably would have gotten to the same place 00:09:13.898 --> 00:09:18.798 if they had not had the relatively coercive program. It's still much debated. 00:09:19.558 --> 00:09:24.338 But some of the things we did not recommend, we said these are the sorts of 00:09:24.338 --> 00:09:26.738 things that have been suggested or could be done. 00:09:26.898 --> 00:09:32.858 A good example is we said in one of our publications that it would be one of 00:09:32.858 --> 00:09:37.438 the things that might be good if you could do it safely and biologically safely 00:09:37.438 --> 00:09:39.958 would be to add something to the water supply. 00:09:40.198 --> 00:09:44.058 Excuse my laryngitis. Add something to the water supply, that would make you 00:09:44.058 --> 00:09:46.598 have to take an antidote before you could have a baby. 00:09:46.738 --> 00:09:49.058 And everybody said, that's just terrible. That's ghastly. 00:09:49.378 --> 00:09:53.038 Ghastly? It'd get rid of the whole abortion problem, get rid of the whole unwanted 00:09:53.038 --> 00:09:56.158 child problem, make people make rational decisions. 00:09:56.458 --> 00:10:00.418 It's certainly one of the things that every government must pay great attention 00:10:00.418 --> 00:10:03.238 to is the size and composition of its population. 00:10:03.378 --> 00:10:07.138 It's probably the number one thing that should be in government policy. 00:10:07.278 --> 00:10:09.238 It at least is discussed in Australia. 00:10:09.438 --> 00:10:12.378 In the United States, You can't even dare discuss it. 00:10:14.758 --> 00:10:19.858 Protestations aside, forced sterilization programs were indeed something that 00:10:19.858 --> 00:10:24.398 Ehrlich discussed frequently and in great detail in his early work on the population issue. 00:10:24.858 --> 00:10:29.638 That is, before the public fully realized the horrors of his ostensible solution 00:10:29.638 --> 00:10:31.518 to the population, crisis. 00:10:32.598 --> 00:10:37.518 In 1969, the New York Times reported how Ehrlich had told the United States 00:10:37.518 --> 00:10:41.298 Commission for UNESCO that the government might have to put sterility drugs 00:10:41.298 --> 00:10:45.198 in reservoirs and in food shipped to foreign countries to limit human multiplication. 00:10:46.058 --> 00:10:51.378 A 1972 article in the Boca Raton News noting this proposal decried Ehrlich as 00:10:51.378 --> 00:10:56.398 worse than Hitler and pointed out how he opposed efforts to lift the Chinese out of poverty. 00:10:57.078 --> 00:11:00.858 It also quoted him as suggesting that some form of world governance was going 00:11:00.858 --> 00:11:05.798 to be necessary to institute international policy planning to save the globe. 00:11:07.026 --> 00:11:12.606 But most damning of all is Ecoscience, a 1977 textbook co-authored by Paul Ehrlich, 00:11:12.886 --> 00:11:14.806 his wife Anne, and John P. 00:11:14.986 --> 00:11:17.986 Holdren, who would go on to become Obama's science czar. 00:11:18.666 --> 00:11:22.366 In this book, they not only double down on the idea of adding sterile ants to 00:11:22.366 --> 00:11:26.126 the water supply, noting that no such sterile ant exists today, 00:11:26.386 --> 00:11:30.726 and lamenting that it would have to clear a number of technical hurdles in order to be acceptable, 00:11:31.246 --> 00:11:35.506 but they actually go so far as to argue the constitutionality of population 00:11:35.506 --> 00:11:40.766 control and even forced abortions, concluding that such a practice could be 00:11:40.766 --> 00:11:42.986 sustained under the existing constitution. 00:11:43.846 --> 00:11:47.686 In this book, they also greatly elaborate on the type of world governmental 00:11:47.686 --> 00:11:52.286 body that would be required to enact a truly global population control program. 00:11:52.846 --> 00:11:57.706 Calling it a planetary regime, which they describe as sort of an international 00:11:57.706 --> 00:12:02.726 super agency for population, resources, and environment, they argue that it 00:12:02.726 --> 00:12:05.926 could control the development, administration, conservation, 00:12:06.506 --> 00:12:10.726 and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or non-renewable, 00:12:10.946 --> 00:12:15.206 at least insofar as international implications exist, including all international 00:12:15.206 --> 00:12:18.206 trade and all food on the international market. 00:12:19.323 --> 00:12:23.683 The planetary regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum 00:12:23.683 --> 00:12:27.983 population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' 00:12:28.183 --> 00:12:29.723 shares within their national limits. 00:12:30.163 --> 00:12:34.063 Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, 00:12:34.063 --> 00:12:37.523 but the regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits. 00:12:38.603 --> 00:12:42.983 As I say, I'm sure that my well-informed listeners and viewers already know 00:12:42.983 --> 00:12:47.443 at least a little bit about Paul Ehrlich and his incredible track record of 00:12:47.443 --> 00:12:50.443 getting everything he ever pronounced completely, 00:12:50.783 --> 00:12:56.363 100% demonstrably wrong, and yet being lauded in the establishment media as 00:12:56.363 --> 00:12:59.463 some sort of scientific hero for doing so. 00:12:59.763 --> 00:13:02.963 But if you aren't aware of that story, then yes, please, 00:13:03.183 --> 00:13:07.723 absolutely, you should check out episode 339 of the Corbett Report on Meet Paul Ehrlich, 00:13:07.823 --> 00:13:13.303 pseudoscience charlatan, because I go into that story in great depth and also 00:13:13.303 --> 00:13:19.763 introduce another character who is the other side of today's eponymous bet, 00:13:20.563 --> 00:13:25.543 namely Julian Simon, a professor of economics and business administration at 00:13:25.543 --> 00:13:31.043 the University of Illinois in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, as at the exact same time 00:13:31.043 --> 00:13:32.663 as Paul Ehrlich was operating, 00:13:33.083 --> 00:13:38.583 who, like Ehrlich, became very interested in the question of population and 00:13:38.583 --> 00:13:41.663 natural resources, and who, like Ehrlich, 00:13:41.963 --> 00:13:46.683 started from that Malthusian worldview that there are too many people and we 00:13:46.683 --> 00:13:48.743 must find a way to reduce that number, 00:13:49.163 --> 00:13:51.863 but ended up coming to a very different conclusion. 00:13:52.803 --> 00:13:54.583 I came here to Washington. 00:13:56.349 --> 00:14:03.329 To enlist the aid of the State Department's Agency for International Development, 00:14:03.609 --> 00:14:10.549 AID, in an experiment to pay people in India to have fewer children. 00:14:10.849 --> 00:14:15.689 Because I, as so many other people then, as almost everybody then, 00:14:15.909 --> 00:14:17.389 and as still most people now, 00:14:17.909 --> 00:14:22.829 thought that fewer people would be a good thing and that population growth was 00:14:22.829 --> 00:14:26.509 one of the great threats to humankind along with war. 00:14:27.109 --> 00:14:34.929 And as I was waiting for this appointment, I leaned over the balcony. 00:14:34.929 --> 00:14:40.489 It was a spring day, and I saw a sign pointing to the Iwo Jima Memorial. 00:14:41.209 --> 00:14:50.789 And I remembered reading about the Jewish chaplain giving a eulogy at Iwo Jima and saying, 00:14:51.289 --> 00:15:02.589 I wonder how many Mozart's and Einsteins and Leonardo da Vinci's we are burying here today. 00:15:03.449 --> 00:15:07.029 And it moved me when I read it, it moved me when I think about it now. 00:15:08.016 --> 00:15:13.316 And then I got to thinking, what am I doing in this business trying to have 00:15:13.316 --> 00:15:19.516 fewer human beings on the face of the earth, which may mean fewer Einsteins, 00:15:20.036 --> 00:15:22.796 fewer Leonardos, and so on. 00:15:22.796 --> 00:15:26.256 So that moment was a big shock to me. Yes, indeed. 00:15:26.636 --> 00:15:29.396 It happened about the same time that I first came across this, 00:15:29.536 --> 00:15:36.936 this evidence suggesting that more human beings, more rapid population growth 00:15:36.936 --> 00:15:38.636 did not mean poor economic development. 00:15:38.836 --> 00:15:40.916 So the two things went hand in hand. 00:15:42.196 --> 00:15:45.256 Now hopefully my audience is aware of 00:15:45.256 --> 00:15:47.956 julian simon and his work if only because i have 00:15:47.956 --> 00:15:50.916 had cause to mention it a number of times here on the corbett report 00:15:50.916 --> 00:15:54.056 not only for example in the aforementioned episode 00:15:54.056 --> 00:15:56.996 339 of this podcast but also in my important 00:15:56.996 --> 00:16:01.756 but often neglected questions for corbett on are there limits to growth so if 00:16:01.756 --> 00:16:05.636 you are interested if you do not remember that episode or if you didn't see 00:16:05.636 --> 00:16:10.476 it at the time please consult the transcript for today's episode at corbettreport.com 00:16:10.476 --> 00:16:14.336 slash thebet for a link directly to that episode. 00:16:14.656 --> 00:16:18.956 But long story short, yes, Julian Simon had a very, in fact, 00:16:19.416 --> 00:16:24.736 precisely contradictory view of human population growth as compared to Paul 00:16:24.736 --> 00:16:27.896 Ehrlich and the Ehrlichs of the world generally. 00:16:28.496 --> 00:16:32.816 But if you don't know about Julian Simon or his ideas, well, 00:16:33.016 --> 00:16:34.976 you're not to be blamed for that. 00:16:35.116 --> 00:16:42.936 I suppose it isn't hard to see why Ehrlich became a media superstar and Simon 00:16:42.936 --> 00:16:45.556 was shunted off into obscurity. 00:16:45.976 --> 00:16:50.396 And there are a couple of reasons for that. First and most easily understood 00:16:50.396 --> 00:16:53.796 is that Paul Ehrlich's idea, 00:16:54.176 --> 00:17:01.396 his argument, his fundamental argument for population growth bad is so simple 00:17:01.396 --> 00:17:05.536 that a five-year-old can understand it. I want candy. I want candy. 00:17:05.955 --> 00:17:13.095 That boy ate candy, now there's no candy, is a very simple argument, 00:17:13.095 --> 00:17:15.195 but it is also very simplistic. 00:17:16.075 --> 00:17:20.855 Julian Simon's counter to that, however, is not at all intuitive, 00:17:20.855 --> 00:17:25.035 but is actually demonstrably correct and much more insightful, 00:17:25.375 --> 00:17:32.495 namely the observation that as growing population puts greater demand on various resources, 00:17:32.835 --> 00:17:37.975 the human ingenuity that is used to devise solutions to that problem of growing 00:17:37.975 --> 00:17:43.315 demand, whether that be better methods for extracting or refining or using materials 00:17:43.315 --> 00:17:45.035 or finding alternative materials, 00:17:45.215 --> 00:17:51.835 etc., actually leaves humanity better off than it was before that problem arose. 00:17:51.935 --> 00:17:56.755 As I say, that is not at all intuitive, but it is not only insightful, 00:17:56.755 --> 00:17:58.855 It is demonstrably correct. 00:17:59.275 --> 00:18:06.135 Any resource that you can think of is orders of magnitude cheaper for us to 00:18:06.135 --> 00:18:12.375 procure today than it was for our ancestors a century or two centuries or a millennia ago. 00:18:13.475 --> 00:18:17.695 That's, again, not something that most people understand right away. 00:18:17.695 --> 00:18:19.755 It has to be explained to them. 00:18:20.135 --> 00:18:24.335 And undoubtedly, there are still those who need explanation about that, 00:18:24.455 --> 00:18:26.635 which is why you should see, are there limits to growth? 00:18:26.755 --> 00:18:34.135 But the other and perhaps even more obvious answer to why Ehrlich became the superstar, 00:18:34.515 --> 00:18:41.695 who won all the accolades and awards and was the scientist, the expert that we all had to listen to, 00:18:41.915 --> 00:18:47.415 whereas Simon is a footnote in the history of economics, is because Ehrlich 00:18:47.415 --> 00:18:51.135 was the mouthpiece for the psychopathic, 00:18:51.315 --> 00:18:57.075 malevolent, anti-human social engineers who want to engineer their hatred of 00:18:57.075 --> 00:19:02.475 humanity into us so that we begin to desire our own extinction. 00:19:03.195 --> 00:19:08.115 That is why Ehrlich became the media darling. And. 00:19:08.998 --> 00:19:12.918 I guess, again, there are many things to say about this, but one thing that 00:19:12.918 --> 00:19:17.718 needs to be clarified is that me calling Ehrlich wrong about everything, 00:19:17.938 --> 00:19:23.458 and Simon was the one who had it right, is not just a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact. 00:19:23.638 --> 00:19:28.438 And that revolves around the bet that this podcast is about. 00:19:28.798 --> 00:19:33.858 So what was that bet? How did it arise? And what was the wager? 00:19:34.718 --> 00:19:39.718 The celebrity environmentalist and the little-known skeptic collided directly 00:19:39.718 --> 00:19:45.018 at the end of the 1970s, ending the decade locked in a bet that would leave 00:19:45.018 --> 00:19:47.158 their legacies forever intertwined. 00:19:47.518 --> 00:19:54.558 In 1980, Simon challenged Ehrlich in Social Science Quarterly to a contest that 00:19:54.558 --> 00:19:57.238 directly tested their competing visions of the future, 00:19:57.658 --> 00:20:04.678 one apocalyptic and fearful of human excess, the other optimistic and bullish about human progress. 00:20:05.998 --> 00:20:10.198 Ehrlich agreed to bet Simon that the cost of chromium, copper, 00:20:10.498 --> 00:20:14.298 nickel, tin, and tungsten would increase in the next decade. 00:20:14.698 --> 00:20:17.618 It was a simple thousand dollar wager. 00:20:18.178 --> 00:20:22.878 Five industrial metals, ten years, prices up or down. 00:20:23.978 --> 00:20:26.898 At the same time, the bet stood for much more. 00:20:27.718 --> 00:20:31.938 Ehrlich thought rising metal prices would prove that population growth caused 00:20:31.938 --> 00:20:36.798 resource scarcity, bolstering his call for government-led population control 00:20:36.798 --> 00:20:39.058 and for limits on resource consumption. 00:20:39.718 --> 00:20:45.278 Ehrlich's conviction reflected a more general sense after the 1973 Arab oil 00:20:45.278 --> 00:20:51.138 embargo, that the world risked running out of vital resources and faced hard limits to growth. 00:20:52.058 --> 00:20:56.558 Simon argued that markets and new technologies would drive prices down, 00:20:57.038 --> 00:21:01.678 proving that society did not face resource constraints and that human welfare 00:21:01.678 --> 00:21:03.798 was on a path of steady improvement. 00:21:04.258 --> 00:21:09.318 The outcome of the bet would either provide ammunition for Ehrlich's campaign 00:21:09.318 --> 00:21:14.938 against population growth and environmental calamity, or promote Simon's optimism 00:21:14.938 --> 00:21:19.238 about human resourcefulness through new technologies and market forces. 00:21:21.138 --> 00:21:24.998 That was a short extract from The Bet, Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, 00:21:25.178 --> 00:21:30.358 and Our Gamble Over Earth's Future by Paul Sabine, which is one of the few, if not the only, 00:21:30.978 --> 00:21:36.438 full-length manuscript-level study of The Bet between Simon and Ehrlich. 00:21:36.598 --> 00:21:39.778 And I bring it to your attention because it is one of the very, 00:21:39.918 --> 00:21:42.858 very few mainstream, and at 00:21:42.858 --> 00:21:48.238 least known, studies of what actually happened between Simon and Ehrlich. 00:21:48.896 --> 00:21:54.256 But that is not an unreserved recommendation. And there are some quibbles that 00:21:54.256 --> 00:21:57.196 one might have with this book and its fundamental bias. 00:21:57.436 --> 00:22:02.956 So on that note, I'll send you to Pierre Desrochers of masterresource.org and 00:22:02.956 --> 00:22:08.456 his recent re-review of that book, a re-look at the bet, Simon Ehrlich and Paul Sabin. 00:22:09.176 --> 00:22:12.656 Definitely worth checking out. Anyway, this is one of the very, 00:22:12.796 --> 00:22:14.896 very few times that the bet has been covered in detail. 00:22:14.896 --> 00:22:20.496 But as DeRocher mentions, probably still the standard for this bet and coverage 00:22:20.496 --> 00:22:25.376 of it was set of all places in the New York Times magazine in December of 1990 00:22:25.376 --> 00:22:28.516 by John Tierney, who wrote Betting on the Planet. 00:22:28.516 --> 00:22:34.116 And the reason that this managed to get any coverage whatsoever in the establishment 00:22:34.116 --> 00:22:39.676 press and then and only then only in the New York Times magazine was because 00:22:39.676 --> 00:22:45.636 John Tierney was a standard establishment media repeater who, 00:22:45.836 --> 00:22:50.576 like all of the people in his class reporting for the Epstein class and the 00:22:50.576 --> 00:22:52.736 paymasters of the New York Times magazine, 00:22:52.936 --> 00:22:56.436 had the same worldview, the same malevolent, Malthusian, 00:22:56.636 --> 00:23:02.376 anti-human worldview as all of his colleagues, and was in 1985 preparing a report 00:23:02.376 --> 00:23:06.896 for some mainstream publication or other Rolling Stone or Newsweek or Atlantic 00:23:06.896 --> 00:23:12.316 Monthly or any of the other periodicals he was reporting for at the time on 00:23:12.316 --> 00:23:13.876 population growth in Kenya. 00:23:13.996 --> 00:23:18.796 And he reached out to an economist for a quote about population growth, 00:23:18.996 --> 00:23:21.436 expecting the standard quote that everyone would expect. 00:23:21.596 --> 00:23:24.396 The economist lecturing, oh, there are too many people and we're going to have 00:23:24.396 --> 00:23:25.996 to do something to reduce the population. 00:23:26.416 --> 00:23:30.016 Instead, he got Julian Simon on the other end of the line, who surprised him 00:23:30.016 --> 00:23:34.656 by saying, isn't it a wonderful thing that so many people can be alive in that country today? 00:23:35.051 --> 00:23:38.771 And that struck John Tierney like a lightning bolt. 00:23:38.931 --> 00:23:44.251 And from that point on, he very much changed his tune and began reporting against 00:23:44.251 --> 00:23:48.511 the interests of the Epstein class on things like the bet. 00:23:48.651 --> 00:23:53.551 And so he was the only reporter to give any coverage of the bet and what happened 00:23:53.551 --> 00:23:57.351 with it there in December 1990 as the bet finally concluded. 00:23:57.531 --> 00:24:03.371 So his way of framing this in this article was Simon offered to let anyone pick 00:24:03.371 --> 00:24:07.751 any natural resource, grain, oil, coal, timber, metals, and any future date. 00:24:08.091 --> 00:24:12.211 If the resource really were to become scarcer as the world's population grew, 00:24:12.451 --> 00:24:13.871 then its price should rise. 00:24:14.431 --> 00:24:18.731 Simon wanted to bet that the price would instead decline by the appointed date. 00:24:19.251 --> 00:24:23.471 Ehrlich derisively announced that he would accept Simon's astonishing offer 00:24:23.471 --> 00:24:25.191 before other greedy people jump in. 00:24:25.411 --> 00:24:28.371 He then formed a consortium with John Hart and John P. 00:24:28.651 --> 00:24:31.671 Holdren, that's a name that should ring a bell to my regular audience. 00:24:31.871 --> 00:24:35.831 Colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley specializing in energy 00:24:35.831 --> 00:24:37.071 and resource questions. 00:24:37.311 --> 00:24:43.271 In October 1980, the Ehrlich Group bet $1,000 on five metals that they themselves 00:24:43.271 --> 00:24:49.291 chose, chrome, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten, in quantities that each cost 00:24:49.291 --> 00:24:51.431 $200 in the current market. 00:24:51.591 --> 00:24:55.271 A futures contract was drawn up obligating Simon to sell Ehrlich, 00:24:55.271 --> 00:25:00.711 Hart, and Holdren these same quantities of the metals 10 years later, but at 1980 prices. 00:25:01.231 --> 00:25:05.391 If the 1990 combined prices turned out to be higher than $1,000. 00:25:06.211 --> 00:25:08.191 Simon would pay them the difference in cash. 00:25:08.351 --> 00:25:10.651 If prices fell, they would pay him. 00:25:10.851 --> 00:25:16.091 The contract was signed and Ehrlich and Simon went on attacking each other throughout the 1980s. 00:25:16.191 --> 00:25:19.131 And so just on one economic note about what this, 00:25:19.603 --> 00:25:24.003 bet was and how it was structured. Please note that Simon was really putting 00:25:24.003 --> 00:25:28.223 himself on the line for absolutely any price rise to any level. 00:25:28.423 --> 00:25:32.423 So if prices rose to the point where it was a million dollars to buy those five 00:25:32.423 --> 00:25:40.083 metals, well, he'd have to pay the difference as in the $999,000 difference to Ehrlich. 00:25:40.603 --> 00:25:44.663 But on the other side, Ehrlich could only be on the hook for $1,000. 00:25:44.663 --> 00:25:49.803 So if somehow the resources dropped to $0 by 1990, he would have to pay $1,000. 00:25:50.143 --> 00:25:55.443 So Simon was unlimited liability and Ehrlich had $1,000 liability. 00:25:55.623 --> 00:26:00.083 So it was a very, very fair and safe bet that Ehrlich, how could he lose? 00:26:00.223 --> 00:26:03.843 Because he knows that, I mean, hell, millions of people are, 00:26:04.183 --> 00:26:07.023 tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death 00:26:07.023 --> 00:26:10.743 by 1990, let alone the price of commodities. 00:26:10.743 --> 00:26:14.243 Oh yeah, you're going to try to buy commodities in 1990. Let me tell you, 00:26:14.443 --> 00:26:16.863 that's not going to work. Well, what actually happened? 00:26:17.123 --> 00:26:23.023 So after a lengthy and very voluminous detailed study here, we get to the punchline. 00:26:23.474 --> 00:26:26.974 The bet was settled this fall without ceremony. This fall, of course, 00:26:27.094 --> 00:26:29.494 indicating 1990 when this article was written. 00:26:30.094 --> 00:26:34.294 Ehrlich did not even bother to write a letter. He simply mailed Simon a sheet 00:26:34.294 --> 00:26:39.434 of calculations about metal prices, along with a check for $576.07. 00:26:40.234 --> 00:26:43.834 Simon wrote back a thank you note, adding that he would be willing to raise 00:26:43.834 --> 00:26:50.094 the wager to as much as $20,000 pinned to any other resource and to any other year in the future. 00:26:50.774 --> 00:26:54.694 Each of the five metals chosen by Ehrlich's group when adjusted for inflation 00:26:54.694 --> 00:26:57.454 since 1980 had declined in price. 00:26:57.674 --> 00:27:02.674 The drop was so sharp, in fact, that Simon would have come out slightly ahead 00:27:02.674 --> 00:27:06.594 overall, even without the inflation adjustment called for in the bet. 00:27:06.874 --> 00:27:10.994 Prices fell for the same cornucopian reasons they had fallen in previous decades. 00:27:11.714 --> 00:27:15.634 Entrepreneurship and continuing technological improvements. Prospectors found 00:27:15.634 --> 00:27:19.414 new loads, such as the nickel mines around the market that ended a Canadian 00:27:19.414 --> 00:27:21.354 company's near monopoly of the market. 00:27:21.754 --> 00:27:26.114 Around the world, that ended a Canadian company's near monopoly of the market. 00:27:26.294 --> 00:27:29.194 Thanks to computers, new machines, and new chemical processes, 00:27:29.194 --> 00:27:33.674 there were more efficient ways to extract and refine the ores for chrome in the other metals. 00:27:33.814 --> 00:27:37.274 For many uses, the metals were replaced by cheaper materials, 00:27:37.654 --> 00:27:41.314 notably plastics, which became less expensive as the price of oil declined. 00:27:41.654 --> 00:27:46.394 Even during this year's crisis in the Persian Gulf, the real cost of oil remained lower than in 1980. 00:27:47.014 --> 00:27:51.214 Telephone calls went through satellites and fiber optic lines instead of copper wires. 00:27:51.654 --> 00:27:55.874 Ceramics replaced tungsten and cutting tools. Cans were made of aluminum instead of tin. 00:27:56.054 --> 00:28:00.574 And Vogt's fears about America going to war over tin remained unrealized. 00:28:00.714 --> 00:28:04.554 The most newsworthy event in the 1980s concerning that metal was the collapse 00:28:04.554 --> 00:28:08.774 of the international tin cartel, which gave up trying to set prices in 1985 00:28:08.774 --> 00:28:12.194 when the market became inundated with excess supplies. 00:28:13.134 --> 00:28:14.774 Is there a lesson here for the future? 00:28:15.616 --> 00:28:20.196 Absolutely not, said Ehrlich in an interview. Nevertheless, he has no plans 00:28:20.196 --> 00:28:21.596 to take up Simon's new offer. 00:28:22.056 --> 00:28:26.056 The bet doesn't mean anything. Julian Simon is like the guy who jumps off the 00:28:26.056 --> 00:28:30.976 Empire State Building and says how great things are going so far as he passes the 10th floor. 00:28:31.196 --> 00:28:33.936 I still think the price of those metals will go up eventually, 00:28:33.936 --> 00:28:35.116 but that's a minor point. 00:28:35.276 --> 00:28:39.136 The resource that worries me the most is that declining capacity of our planet 00:28:39.136 --> 00:28:41.056 to buffer itself against human impacts. 00:28:41.216 --> 00:28:44.676 Look at the new problems that have come up. the ozone hole, acid rain, 00:28:44.816 --> 00:28:47.736 global warming. It's true that we've kept up food production. 00:28:47.896 --> 00:28:52.956 I underestimated how badly we'd keep on depleting our topsoil and groundwater. 00:28:53.516 --> 00:28:57.196 But I have no doubt that sometime in the next century, food will be scarce enough, 00:28:57.376 --> 00:29:00.296 that prices are really going to be high, even in the United States. 00:29:00.376 --> 00:29:05.256 If we get climate change and let the ecological systems keep running downhill, 00:29:05.496 --> 00:29:07.916 we could have a gigantic population crash. 00:29:09.096 --> 00:29:13.036 Simon was not surprised to hear about Ehrlich's reaction. Paul Ehrlich has never 00:29:13.036 --> 00:29:16.816 been able to learn from past experience, he said, then launched into the cornucopian 00:29:16.816 --> 00:29:18.096 line on the greenhouse crisis. 00:29:18.256 --> 00:29:22.116 How even in the unlikely event the doomsayers are right about global warming, 00:29:22.296 --> 00:29:26.236 which they're not, humanity will find some way to avert climate change or adapt 00:29:26.236 --> 00:29:27.836 and everyone will emerge the better for it. 00:29:27.976 --> 00:29:31.376 But Simon did not get far into his argument before another cheery thought occurred 00:29:31.376 --> 00:29:32.756 to him. He stopped and smiled. 00:29:33.503 --> 00:29:37.763 So Ehrlich is talking about a population crash, he said. That sounds like an 00:29:37.763 --> 00:29:40.923 even better way to make money. I'll give him heavy odds on that one. 00:29:42.163 --> 00:29:49.923 All right. So there you have it. This is the actual result of this infamous decade-long bet. 00:29:50.063 --> 00:29:52.783 And there is no doubt Simon was the winner. 00:29:52.983 --> 00:29:56.943 And Ehrlich did not even have the courtesy to so much as supply a note along 00:29:56.943 --> 00:30:01.423 with the check. He just mailed a check and had done with it and never engaged 00:30:01.423 --> 00:30:04.523 Simon again because he knew he would be made a fool of again. 00:30:05.763 --> 00:30:09.403 If you're so sure of your convictions, I don't know, $20,000, 00:30:10.003 --> 00:30:14.283 any resource that you pick over any period of time, Paul Ehrlich, 00:30:14.443 --> 00:30:17.383 put your money where your mouth is. No, that doesn't mean anything. 00:30:17.983 --> 00:30:22.583 All right, so what does this bet really mean? What does it really prove? 00:30:22.723 --> 00:30:26.543 Does it prove anything at all? Or is it just economic hocus pocus? 00:30:26.843 --> 00:30:30.823 Well, there are arguments to be made that this is certainly not a definitive 00:30:30.823 --> 00:30:37.123 death blow to the Malthusians because they still exist, although they are one 00:30:37.123 --> 00:30:40.363 fewer in rank as of today in March of 2026. 00:30:40.603 --> 00:30:44.283 But anyway, yes, they still exist. They're still around. They're still making 00:30:44.283 --> 00:30:46.723 their arguments. How so when they lost the bet? 00:30:46.883 --> 00:30:50.223 Well, there are a number of arguments that could be made, but it is important 00:30:50.223 --> 00:30:53.843 to note that there are things that really did happen in the 1980s that really 00:30:53.843 --> 00:31:00.503 did prove the point that Simon was making and that was the underlying basis of the bet itself. 00:31:00.843 --> 00:31:05.003 For example, one can drill down on, say, tin. 00:31:05.203 --> 00:31:09.823 What did happen in the tin markets in the 1980s and what does that show us? 00:31:11.303 --> 00:31:16.403 The everyday market forces that Simon, Robert Solo, and other economists had 00:31:16.403 --> 00:31:21.383 cited in response to the limits to growth, technological innovation and substitution, 00:31:21.903 --> 00:31:27.723 price-driven competition and new sources of supply also helped lower commodity prices. 00:31:28.471 --> 00:31:34.331 Each mineral had a slightly different story. Tin was used in the late 1970s 00:31:34.331 --> 00:31:38.391 and 1980s, largely to coat the interiors of steel containers, 00:31:38.691 --> 00:31:41.231 as well as for soldering electronic components. 00:31:42.031 --> 00:31:47.091 International tin prices depended heavily on agreements that tin-producing countries 00:31:47.091 --> 00:31:50.611 had made to limit production and sustain higher prices. 00:31:51.311 --> 00:31:57.691 During the late 1970s, tin prices rose sharply. Many observers anticipated shortages. 00:31:58.431 --> 00:32:05.111 Malaysian producers sought to corner the tin market to force prices even higher in 1981 and 1982. 00:32:05.851 --> 00:32:09.391 New high-quality tin deposits discovered in the Brazilian Amazon, 00:32:09.591 --> 00:32:12.471 however, undermined this market-cornering effort. 00:32:13.111 --> 00:32:17.971 By the end of the 1980s, Brazil, a previously marginal producer, 00:32:18.491 --> 00:32:23.031 produced roughly one quarter of the world's tin supply. At the higher prices 00:32:23.031 --> 00:32:26.911 of the late 1970s, demand for tin also started to fall. 00:32:27.871 --> 00:32:31.471 Manufacturers substituted aluminum and plastic for tin in packaging. 00:32:32.111 --> 00:32:36.951 Trying in vain to stabilize prices, the International Tin Agreement held a quarter 00:32:36.951 --> 00:32:39.451 of the world's annual tin production off the market. 00:32:39.991 --> 00:32:43.471 The International Tin Council soon ran out of money, however, 00:32:43.751 --> 00:32:45.351 and the agreement collapsed. 00:32:46.251 --> 00:32:52.591 Tin prices went into freefall, dropping more than 50% from $5.50 per pound in 00:32:52.591 --> 00:32:57.991 October 1985 to $2.50 per pound in March 1986. 00:32:58.771 --> 00:33:04.551 Overall, between 1980 and 1990, the gyrations of the tin market supported the 00:33:04.551 --> 00:33:06.631 arguments of Simon and the economists. 00:33:07.211 --> 00:33:11.631 New sources of supply, production substitution, and, above all, 00:33:11.951 --> 00:33:16.111 the breaking of the tin cartel had a far greater impact than population growth 00:33:16.111 --> 00:33:20.791 on tin prices, ultimately driving them down almost 75%. 00:33:22.484 --> 00:33:29.744 So the price of tin in the 1980s exactly reflects Simon's overall argument that, 00:33:29.984 --> 00:33:34.284 in fact, not only did it not go up because, oh, my God, we're running out of tin. 00:33:34.284 --> 00:33:39.684 But in fact, the price fell dramatically because other methods were found, 00:33:39.884 --> 00:33:44.764 other resources were found for various production needs for tin at the same 00:33:44.764 --> 00:33:49.544 time that the market cartel of trying to keep prices up through artificially 00:33:49.544 --> 00:33:55.464 limiting the supply fell apart because, oh my God, we discovered tin over here. 00:33:55.604 --> 00:33:59.344 And now a producer that was completely marginal in the world economy is now 00:33:59.344 --> 00:34:02.644 a major producer of tin. So we can't keep the price down like we used to. 00:34:03.244 --> 00:34:07.244 Hmm. I wonder if that applies to other resources on the planet today. 00:34:07.444 --> 00:34:08.624 Like, oh, I don't know, oil. 00:34:09.104 --> 00:34:12.584 Yes, it does. And that is exactly the point. 00:34:12.724 --> 00:34:18.044 Yes, cartels can function through various means of duplicity and government 00:34:18.044 --> 00:34:21.984 intervention to try to keep prices artificially up. And certainly that does happen. 00:34:22.104 --> 00:34:29.004 But the point is that, yes, as the prices rise, human ingenuity will lead to 00:34:29.004 --> 00:34:30.644 ways to make that irrelevant. 00:34:31.284 --> 00:34:35.904 And again, this is not, again, not an intuitive point for people to understand. 00:34:35.984 --> 00:34:39.444 So I tried to frame it in a way that maybe people can grasp it. 00:34:39.704 --> 00:34:45.064 I call it, oh my God, we're running out of whale blubber argument. 00:34:46.444 --> 00:34:49.864 I don't know if you'll show this image, but, you know, there is obviously a 00:34:49.864 --> 00:34:51.584 finite amount of petroleum on earth. 00:34:51.684 --> 00:34:58.344 We don't know how much, but we first begin drilling for the most easily available resources. 00:34:58.544 --> 00:35:01.584 And then we expand over time with new technologies. 00:35:01.944 --> 00:35:06.364 But the mistake that people like Ehrlich make is to think that, 00:35:06.664 --> 00:35:08.924 well, of course, we skim the best deposits first. 00:35:09.124 --> 00:35:13.044 And as a result, the price of extracting the resource will increase over time. 00:35:13.044 --> 00:35:16.944 Whereas Simon and people of his mindset will point out, well, 00:35:17.024 --> 00:35:18.344 no, look at the historical data. 00:35:18.544 --> 00:35:23.244 The price is not only not going up, it's often going down. And that's because 00:35:23.244 --> 00:35:26.504 on the one hand, you've got the type of deposits that you have access to. 00:35:26.724 --> 00:35:31.104 On the other, you've got the new technologies to access those deposits. 00:35:31.624 --> 00:35:35.924 And what human history teaches us, even in the world of non-renewable resources, 00:35:36.144 --> 00:35:40.684 is that the human brain or capacity to come up with new ideas always more than 00:35:40.684 --> 00:35:45.344 make up for the fact that we're tapping into, increasingly less interesting deposits. 00:35:45.624 --> 00:35:49.344 And so with new technologies, you can actually extract petroleum, 00:35:49.384 --> 00:35:53.904 which might seem more difficult to reach than previous deposits. 00:35:53.904 --> 00:35:57.184 You can access it more easily and extract it more profitably, 00:35:57.204 --> 00:35:58.704 or at least at a lower cost 00:35:59.106 --> 00:36:03.486 than before. And so you must always look at the kind of physical stuff that is around you, 00:36:03.566 --> 00:36:07.806 but you must never forget the capacity of the human brain to develop technologies 00:36:07.806 --> 00:36:12.626 to tap into those resources ever more efficiently, which is why Simon referred 00:36:12.626 --> 00:36:14.866 to the human brain as the ultimate resource. 00:36:15.226 --> 00:36:20.326 Ultimately, what is around us is not what matters. There was coal for long before 00:36:20.326 --> 00:36:22.346 human beings came along, natural gas, 00:36:22.546 --> 00:36:27.446 iron ore, but this physical stuff only became a resource through the development 00:36:27.446 --> 00:36:32.646 of human technologies that allowed our ancestors to turn otherwise worthless 00:36:32.646 --> 00:36:37.426 stuff into things that are valuable and to do it increasingly efficiently over time. 00:36:38.146 --> 00:36:42.706 And in the context of a market economy, Simon and others will tell you, 00:36:43.106 --> 00:36:44.646 you've got a few things happening. 00:36:44.906 --> 00:36:48.546 You've got a feedback mechanism, which is the price system, which tells you 00:36:48.546 --> 00:36:52.206 that when the price of a resource temporarily goes up, there might be a war, 00:36:52.206 --> 00:36:56.866 there might be a shortage, there might be a new demand for a particular resource. 00:36:57.246 --> 00:37:02.326 Well, this tells people to look for more of this stuff, to use it ever more 00:37:02.326 --> 00:37:04.266 efficiently, and to develop substitutes. 00:37:04.786 --> 00:37:08.986 And through the combination of these three forces triggered by the price mechanism, 00:37:09.306 --> 00:37:12.406 humanity has been able to expand its resource base. 00:37:12.606 --> 00:37:18.046 And after almost two centuries of industrialization, we've never not only run 00:37:18.046 --> 00:37:24.246 out of theoretically depletable resources, we've got more resources than ever before. 00:37:25.694 --> 00:37:30.734 I like to think of the Ehrlich of the 19th century screaming from the rooftops, 00:37:30.774 --> 00:37:32.574 Oh no, we're running out of whale blubber! 00:37:33.554 --> 00:37:38.434 How will we heat our homes? How will we have light? Oh no, we're all going to hell! 00:37:38.934 --> 00:37:42.294 And the Simons of the 19th century pointing out, well, you know that sticky 00:37:42.294 --> 00:37:46.574 stuff that keeps bubbling up out of the ground? That might be important in the future. 00:37:46.814 --> 00:37:52.494 And if I may just point out a little thing about that, what many Americans don't 00:37:52.494 --> 00:37:55.874 realize, and if your listeners have not picked up on my accent, I'm French-Canadian. 00:37:56.054 --> 00:37:59.394 It was actually a Canadian that first developed kerosene out of bitumen, 00:37:59.574 --> 00:38:00.914 a fellow named Abraham Gessner. 00:38:01.154 --> 00:38:05.134 He eventually moved to New York City, but I just want to point out that Canadians 00:38:05.134 --> 00:38:08.354 actually played a significant role in saving the oils. And like a true Canadian, 00:38:08.514 --> 00:38:09.374 you had to point that out. 00:38:09.534 --> 00:38:11.694 So as a fellow Canadian, I understand the urge. 00:38:12.474 --> 00:38:14.834 Although I didn't know that about kerosene. Interesting. All right. 00:38:14.934 --> 00:38:19.554 Well, of course, the point is that our lack of imagination can be a severe impediment 00:38:19.554 --> 00:38:22.294 to our ability to understand how the world is unfolding. 00:38:22.294 --> 00:38:25.094 And that's the point that I think Simon is pointing out and it's 00:38:25.094 --> 00:38:28.334 a non-intuitive point it's not immediately understandable in 00:38:28.334 --> 00:38:31.034 the way that someone like an Ehrlich getting up and saying look we're running out 00:38:31.034 --> 00:38:34.594 of this therefore we're doomed is immediately understandable and 00:38:34.594 --> 00:38:37.814 immediately appeals to people but I think it's important to get to the underlying 00:38:37.814 --> 00:38:43.174 philosophy of Ehrlich which as I think you mentioned goes back to Thomas Malthus 00:38:43.174 --> 00:38:47.294 or even before it's just that in the English speaking world Malthus is the best 00:38:47.294 --> 00:38:52.154 noun but the first modern Malthusian was actually an Italian Jesuit so the current 00:38:52.294 --> 00:38:55.694 Pope is a Jesuit, so the apple didn't fall too far from the tree for that. 00:38:56.194 --> 00:39:00.754 But yes, the point is that the problem with Malthus, and the name of the previous 00:39:00.754 --> 00:39:05.914 fellow was Botero, but the point is that they view the world and they view resources as a finite pie. 00:39:06.494 --> 00:39:09.834 And so, you know, how do you deal with a finite pie? 00:39:10.154 --> 00:39:13.494 Well, the less people you have, the bigger the share for each individual, 00:39:13.654 --> 00:39:14.914 right? Or at least that's their thinking. 00:39:15.394 --> 00:39:20.434 The problem, and of course, someone like Simon will view the resources rather 00:39:20.434 --> 00:39:23.414 like a garden. And, you know, it's not only that you can expand your, 00:39:23.514 --> 00:39:27.734 you can plant more stuff, but you can expand your garden over time and grow ever more things. 00:39:28.742 --> 00:39:33.022 That was Pierre Desrochers of MasterResource.org. 00:39:33.162 --> 00:39:37.562 I hope people are familiar with him because I interviewed him over a decade 00:39:37.562 --> 00:39:40.282 ago about the Simon Ehrlich bet, 00:39:40.502 --> 00:39:44.322 but also hopefully you know of his work and his writings, which you can find 00:39:44.322 --> 00:39:49.642 again linked in the transcript for today's episode at CorbettReport.com slash TheBet. 00:39:50.302 --> 00:39:54.522 But I hope that you are starting to understand the bigger picture, 00:39:54.662 --> 00:39:57.122 the real point that is being made here. 00:39:57.242 --> 00:40:02.622 There is much more to discuss about these points and the objections that people 00:40:02.622 --> 00:40:05.662 might have economically to the points that are being raised. 00:40:05.802 --> 00:40:10.602 For example, talking about fluctuations in markets not being relevant over, 00:40:10.682 --> 00:40:12.362 say, a 10 year period, etc. 00:40:12.622 --> 00:40:16.502 Yes, of course. And that's a point that Julian Simon himself made. 00:40:16.502 --> 00:40:20.442 For example, if you watch the full video, we watched a short clip of Julian 00:40:20.442 --> 00:40:21.822 Simon earlier in today's episode. 00:40:21.962 --> 00:40:26.002 If you go to the transcript at CorbettReport.com slash the bet and watch the 00:40:26.002 --> 00:40:29.082 full video, you will see that he makes that precise point. 00:40:29.282 --> 00:40:33.262 People concentrating on a two year economic trend or a five year price trend 00:40:33.262 --> 00:40:35.382 or a 10 year trend are missing the point. 00:40:35.382 --> 00:40:41.362 No, this is about the intergenerational centuries long span where it is demonstrable 00:40:41.362 --> 00:40:46.542 that any key resource that you look at today is orders of magnitude cheaper 00:40:46.542 --> 00:40:52.042 for us than it was for our forebears hundreds of years ago or thousands of years 00:40:52.042 --> 00:40:54.202 ago. And that is the point. 00:40:54.382 --> 00:40:59.362 And I hope people can understand the deeper point that is being made here. 00:40:59.422 --> 00:41:03.762 It is not an economic point. This is not about the price of metals. 00:41:03.762 --> 00:41:09.662 It's not about monetary prices. It's about what that indicates about the availability 00:41:09.662 --> 00:41:15.342 of various resources in a growing population, in a world of a demonstrably growing 00:41:15.342 --> 00:41:17.582 human population, and yet things aren't 00:41:17.832 --> 00:41:21.372 easier to get than they were before. How can that possibly be? 00:41:21.452 --> 00:41:25.472 We are on a finite fixed pie, and if you take a slice of pie, 00:41:25.592 --> 00:41:28.732 that's one less slice for everyone else, and we're going to run out. 00:41:29.192 --> 00:41:33.672 But that is not the case, and that is so hard to understand. 00:41:33.672 --> 00:41:38.772 I recognize that that is not an intuitive point, but it is a demonstrable, very, 00:41:38.972 --> 00:41:44.812 very important insight, and one that flies directly in the face of the favorite 00:41:44.812 --> 00:41:48.652 worldview of the master manipulators of humanity, 00:41:48.812 --> 00:41:53.952 the social engineers who make Paul Ehrlich a star for telling you that babies 00:41:53.952 --> 00:41:58.512 are a disaster, that humans are a cancer on this earth, 00:41:58.672 --> 00:42:01.452 that we need to limit the human population, 00:42:01.672 --> 00:42:07.312 that we need presidents coming in and telling the FCC that they must share, 00:42:07.612 --> 00:42:09.592 show programming, programming, 00:42:10.132 --> 00:42:14.712 which tells you that big families are bad and only stupid people have big families. 00:42:14.852 --> 00:42:16.912 We don't want that. We want fewer children. 00:42:17.172 --> 00:42:21.632 Well, guess what, guys? Mission accomplished. Birth rates absolutely plummeting 00:42:21.632 --> 00:42:23.412 across the entire planet. 00:42:23.712 --> 00:42:27.272 Demographic winter is upon us. The human population is shrinking. 00:42:27.452 --> 00:42:32.412 And I know that many people, even in my own audience, are cheering it on. Yay! 00:42:33.132 --> 00:42:38.192 Wonderful! We need fewer people. I have decided that I don't like all these 00:42:38.192 --> 00:42:43.212 people running around living their lives on my planet, taking my share of the pie. 00:42:43.472 --> 00:42:48.032 Therefore, I have decided it's a good thing that the human population is declining. 00:42:48.572 --> 00:42:52.632 Not only is that demonstrably wrong for all of the reasons we said today, 00:42:52.752 --> 00:42:54.592 it's demonstrably wrong for other reasons. 00:42:54.712 --> 00:42:57.472 For example, I've talked about the recent book, After the Spike, 00:42:57.672 --> 00:42:59.752 a few times in recent months. 00:42:59.752 --> 00:43:04.612 And I would, again, commend that to your attention, in which the authors make 00:43:04.612 --> 00:43:09.712 the very important point that there is absolutely no precedent in all of human 00:43:09.712 --> 00:43:14.652 history for a sustained, declined, plummeting birth rate going below replacement rate. 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:20.000 And then returning to some replacement rates so that we can achieve some optimal 00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:22.060 balance in the human population. 00:43:22.320 --> 00:43:26.660 I see people, even someone in my own comment section quite recently opining 00:43:26.660 --> 00:43:30.340 that he feels that the right number of people on the earth is 500 million. 00:43:30.540 --> 00:43:33.240 Why do we need any more than that? He asks. 00:43:33.460 --> 00:43:37.900 And no doubt those types of people cheer on the plummeting birth rates, 00:43:38.060 --> 00:43:39.520 the declining human population, 00:43:39.760 --> 00:43:43.640 thinking that we're going to just magically level out at whatever they have 00:43:43.640 --> 00:43:48.880 decided 1 billion, 2 billion, 500 million people, however many people they think there should be, 00:43:49.140 --> 00:43:53.820 will just magically materialize a sudden return to replacement birth rate and 00:43:53.820 --> 00:43:55.380 everything will be fine after that. 00:43:55.740 --> 00:43:59.740 No, after the spike makes the point that once you plummet through a certain 00:43:59.740 --> 00:44:04.720 minimum population for civilizational capacity, bye-bye civilization. 00:44:04.860 --> 00:44:11.600 And we end up going back to hunter-gatherer times and nobody's fixing that with 00:44:11.600 --> 00:44:17.320 some magical, oh, we'll just level out, and have today's exact standards of human population. 00:44:17.780 --> 00:44:20.580 But at one-tenth of the level today. 00:44:20.860 --> 00:44:23.680 500 million. I wonder why people are so interested in that number. 00:44:23.780 --> 00:44:28.100 It couldn't possibly be because that's what the Georgia Guidestones is predictably programmed into them. 00:44:28.460 --> 00:44:32.960 The Epstein class, literally card-carrying eugenicists behind the Georgia Guidestones. 00:44:33.080 --> 00:44:34.120 Oh, you don't know that story? 00:44:34.400 --> 00:44:37.360 Well, I've talked about that in the past, so I'll put that link in the transcript 00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:40.740 as well so that you can go and find out who was behind the Georgia Guidestones 00:44:40.740 --> 00:44:46.820 and why they might be interested in getting you to desire their agenda of human depopulation. 00:44:47.080 --> 00:44:52.700 That is what this is about. And that is the sick, twisted, malevolent, psychopathic, 00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:57.420 human-hating mentality that has been drilled into so much of the population 00:44:57.420 --> 00:45:01.720 that even the population that prides themselves on, I'm not manipulated, 00:45:01.720 --> 00:45:05.500 I see through the propaganda, have adopted the Ehrlich, 00:45:06.060 --> 00:45:09.820 Epstein-class view of humanity. Babies are a disaster. 00:45:10.100 --> 00:45:12.220 We need fewer people on this planet. 00:45:12.989 --> 00:45:18.169 Meanwhile, the people who have been naysaying that doomsaying and being on Team 00:45:18.169 --> 00:45:23.849 Humanity, Team Life, have been consistently denigrated to the extent that they've 00:45:23.849 --> 00:45:26.189 received any coverage whatsoever. 00:45:28.509 --> 00:45:33.849 Well, you have two choices. Choose death or choose life. I choose life. 00:45:34.709 --> 00:45:39.349 So on that note, I think I'm going to leave the final words today to Julie and Simon. 00:45:39.869 --> 00:45:44.609 Thank you for enjoying and investing your time in this exploration today. 00:45:44.909 --> 00:45:48.049 As I say, all of the transcript, the transcript, 00:45:48.229 --> 00:45:51.229 the complete hyperlink transcript with links to absolutely everything that I've 00:45:51.229 --> 00:45:54.429 talked about today is at corbettreport.com/thebet, 00:45:54.589 --> 00:45:59.269 which is also the place for Corbett report members to go log in and leave 00:45:59.269 --> 00:46:02.469 your comments on today's episode. I'm looking forward to reading them. 00:46:02.789 --> 00:46:06.609 On that note, I think I'll leave this today. But I am James Corbett of Corbett 00:46:06.609 --> 00:46:10.029 report dot com. Looking forward to talking to you again. in the near future? 00:46:13.329 --> 00:46:21.149 I think the attribute that distresses me most, aside from the usual ugly things 00:46:21.149 --> 00:46:25.909 of people who are bullies or exploiters, 00:46:26.549 --> 00:46:32.409 but among ordinary good people, the attribute that causes me most trouble is 00:46:32.409 --> 00:46:41.049 lack of imagination and the inability to imagine the good things that can be 00:46:41.049 --> 00:46:42.169 created by other people. 00:46:43.169 --> 00:46:50.689 This feeds into people's fear about population growth and about their fear that 00:46:50.689 --> 00:46:53.169 we are going to be running out of copper and of oil. 00:46:53.429 --> 00:46:59.349 They can't imagine so many people simply are unable to conceive how other people 00:46:59.349 --> 00:47:04.349 can respond to problems with new ideas and with imagination and with solutions 00:47:04.349 --> 00:47:07.609 which will leave us better off than if the problems had never arisen. 00:47:11.963 --> 00:47:19.083 Oil. The 19th century was transformed by it, the 20th century was shaped by 00:47:19.083 --> 00:47:22.263 it, and the 21st century is moving beyond it. 00:47:22.903 --> 00:47:27.783 But who gave birth to the oil industry? And what are they planning to do with 00:47:27.783 --> 00:47:30.043 that power in a post-carbon world? 00:47:31.023 --> 00:47:35.883 The Rockefeller family has announced it will begin divesting from fossil fuel 00:47:35.883 --> 00:47:39.243 companies. There is a price to carbon in their future. 00:47:39.463 --> 00:47:44.483 The negative impact of population growth. That is important not only for the 00:47:44.483 --> 00:47:48.123 planet, it is important for the business. What do you see as the biggest challenges in, 00:47:54.480 --> 00:47:59.820 oil conquered the world. Watch the documentary for free at CorbettReport.com 00:47:59.820 --> 00:48:03.160 or purchase a DVD copy at NewWorldNextWeek.com.