BETTING AGAINST MALTHUS

Parier Contre Malthus

In a BLOCK opinion piece, SiGMA’s Content Research Lead Kyle Galea speaks about AI, Aging, how innovation can stop a crisis and how it already has in the past.

Dans cet article d'opinion de BLOCK, Kyle Galea (responsable de la recherche contenu pour SiGMA) nous parle de l'IA, du vieillissement, de comment l'innovation peut stopper une crise et de ce qu'elle a déjà permis dans le passé.

We Now Find Ourselves In A Novel Situation With No Historical Precedent

For most of human history, the ability to reach a venerable age was itself a form of success. In a more hostile world, making it to retirement was an accomplishment rather than an assumption. The more our technology evolved and adapted, the more we were able to create an environment where broader demographics were allowed to live safely and well into retirement.

While this has been a genuinely positive outcome, we now find ourselves in a novel situation with no historical precedent. As the demographic from the largest population boom in human history ages while fertility rates across the developed world drop precipitously, we may soon be facing what some have termed an “aging crisis.” While the term “crisis” may be polarizing, this demographic shift will have massive effects on the global economy, political system and even society due to a broad array of issues such as dropping productivity or increased strain on healthcare systems. While the scale of such a shift may be daunting, the human ability to adapt and innovate cannot be underestimated when it comes to threats of this scale. To realize this, all we have to do is to look to the very recent past.

Pendant la majeure partie de l'histoire de l’humanité, atteindre un âge vénérable était rare. Mais la technologie a évolué, nous permettant de créer un cadre dans lequel une démographie plus importante peut vivre en toute sécurité, et de manière confortable, jusqu'à la retraite.

Bien que cela ait été un progrès, nous nous trouvons maintenant dans une situation nouvelle sans précédent historique. La population issue du plus grand boom démographique de l'histoire de l'humanité vieillit alors que les taux de fécondité dans le monde développé sont en chute libre. Nous pourrions bientôt être confrontés à ce que certains appelent une « crise du vieillissement ». Bien que le terme “crise” puisse être polarisant, ce changement démographique aura sans aucun doute des effets massifs sur l'économie mondiale, le système politique et même la société en raison d'un large éventail de problèmes tels que la baisse de la productivité ou la pression accrue sur les systèmes de santé. Bien que l'ampleur d'un tel changement puisse être décourageante, notre capacité d'adaptation ne peut être sous-estimée. Pour réaliser l’étendue des possibles, il suffit de se reporter à un passé très récent.

The Five-metal wager:

In 1968, American Biologist and Professor Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. This text outlined the seeming inevitability that mankind as a whole was on the path to a demographic catastrophe. Citing Malthusian pressures, he indicated that the massive population spike where the global population doubled between the 1950s and 1987 would obviously outpace the species’ ability to sustain itself. Ehrlich argued that this would have devastating effects with conflict over resource scarcity and mass starvation sure to follow. While acting as an academic justification for this fear, it was also symbolic of a genuine panic during the 1960’s and 70’s that we had backed ourselves into a corner demographically with the media of this period, as seen in Soylent Green and Stand On Zanzibar, only giving voice to this concern.

This is where Business Professor Julian Simon comes in. Challenging Ehrlich on the grounds that human innovation and progress will find a way, the two settled on a bet. Selecting the prices of five metals: chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten, the two wagered on the inflation adjusted price of the metals by 1990. If their prices went up, this would prove that Ehrlich’s resource scarcity thesis was correct. If they went down, it would validate Simon’s argument that innovation would prevail.

Cue the Green Revolution. A combination of technological breakthroughs between the 1950’s and late 1960’s such as chemical fertilizer, mechanized irrigation and the use of high-yield crops would see an explosion in agricultural productivity. One of the key figures, agronomist Norman Borlaug, received the Nobel Peace Prize for saving an estimated 1 billion people from starvation. The revolution played a pivotal role in increasing nutrition, reducing poverty, causing a decline in infant mortality and even directly causing a decrease in carbon emissions and subsequent increase in land available for reforestation. Today, while having a larger population than the 1960’s, we are the best fed population in all of human history. In October of 1990, Simon received a letter from Ehrlich. In it, he found a check for $576 and 7 cents, settling the bet in Simon’s favour.