Course: Overpopulation: Resource Depletion and Human Innovation

The fear that Malthus, and many of his later followers had, was that of the ‘Malthusian Trap’, which is a catastrophic outcome at the end of unchecked population growth. When …

The history of flour prices, GDP per Capita, and population growth in England from 1700 to 1798 provides some specific evidence to evaluate some of the claims of Malthus. Population …

To honor the brilliant thinking and courage of Julian Simon we call our work the Simon Abundance Index, or SAI. In this video, Dr. Gale Pooley introduces the SAI. The …

We extend our analysis of resource abundance to the global level by adding population as a factor. In this video, Dr. Gale Pooley uses the analogy of a pizza to …

The growth of knowledge can be measured with time. In this video, Dr. Gale Pooley introduces the Tupy-Pooley Framework which provides a way to measure the growth of knowledge with …

Malthus’s argument is not a harmless academic exercise. It has wreaked havoc on our planet, psychologically, socially, morally, and economically. In this video, Dr. Gale Pooley discusses the ‘ideology of …

We buy things with money, but we really pay for them with our time. In this video, Dr. Gale Pooley clarifies that the true price of something is the time …

In earlier weeks, we established that growth in knowledge is the source of progress. How do we measure it? We can do so through a ‘time-prices’. Professor Gale Pooley and …

How many keys are there in a piano? Eighty-eight. How many songs are in a piano? Trick question: There are no songs “in” a piano. Songs are created in the …

Julian Simon had challenged Paul Ehrlich to a wager over a 10-year period, to judge who was right about resource availability. In 1981, he challenged Ehrlich to a bet about …

Strikingly similar to the claims of Thomas Malthus centuries ago were the warnings of Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich in the 20th century. He was the author of a controversial 1968 …

Thomas Malthus, was a famous economist, demographer and theorist from England born in 1766 and who died in 1834. He is best known for his theory that population growth will …

Malthus underestimated human ingenuity. It produced new solutions to feed the growing population. The Green Revolution is the prime manifestation. The 1960s to 1980s saw a period of rapid advancement …

Innovation brings about new technologies, which alleviate the strain on resources. Our technological advancements have empowered us in searching for new resource deposits and identifying new methods to harvest more …

Free market prices are a precious source of information for firms as they reflect the relative scarcity of resources. Without any top-down command or control, prices of resources spontaneously inflate …