0:04 I am always uh intrigued by when people
0:06 make cases for things that go against
0:09 what is like common knowledge especially
0:11 when you recognize in yourself that you
0:13 have like absorbed through osmosis of
0:15 the culture or something like some
0:16 beliefs that you've never critically
0:18 examined and so one of those really
0:20 common beliefs that like if you just ask
0:22 people on the street 90 of people will
0:24 tell you if you ask them well what do
0:25 you think about the population people
0:27 just say oh well the Earth is
0:28 overpopulated like this is just like a
0:30 really popular belief that like there's
0:32 oh there's all sorts of variations of
0:34 this there's too many people we need
0:37 less people uh and like this is
0:38 something that I used to believe too
0:39 it's just something that like you kind
0:41 of absorb going through life I don't
0:43 know when it's told it's everybody or
0:44 when it just kind of happens naturally
0:47 yeah K through 12 is probably you know
0:48 Earth day when we got our little trees
0:51 and the population was mentioned sure uh
0:55 and one I I read uh the work of an
0:57 economist who's who's now passed away uh
1:00 Julian Simon he made he he had this
1:02 massive book called The Ultimate
1:03 resource where he went through every
1:05 possible objection and he pointed out
1:08 all the data indicates that the world is
1:10 environmentally and resource-wise better
1:13 than it's ever been not uh just in spite
1:15 of a larger population but in part
1:17 because of higher population Simon's
1:20 argument is that people's minds are a
1:22 resource that have increased the
1:24 abundance of everything around us more
1:26 than anything else on the planet and so
1:28 part of what I look at is uh kind of
1:30 researching along that line looking at
1:32 how the human mind especially through
1:34 things like entrepreneurship can
1:36 actually make things more abundant than
1:38 they are in the economy now and another
1:41 track I take too related to this is uh I
1:43 I'm bothered by the fact that especially
1:45 in the 20th century but even up to today
1:48 there was a lot of resources energies uh
1:50 whatever you want to call it invested in
1:53 lowering the population because of this
1:55 kind of Academia Ivory Tower belief that
1:57 the world was overpopulated spring out
1:59 of like a lot of ecology departments and
2:02 stuff like that and so both within the
2:04 U.S and in other countries a lot of
2:05 money was spent trying to decrease
2:08 populations and when you take the Julian
2:10 Simon argument seriously when you uh
2:11 look at the data and see people are
2:13 actually good for the environment this
2:15 is like the worst possible policy not
2:18 only are you uh pretty significantly
2:20 harming human rights but you're also
2:22 making things worse environmentally and
2:24 economically when you do it [Music]
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