#121 – The Not So Good Old Days

Feb 04, 2024

“[T]he sage gave him the history of man in a single line; it was this: he was born, he suffered, and he died. […] Life was insignificant and death without consequence.”
— W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Contrary to what climate alarmists might have you believe, we are better off in virtually every way today than we were a few centuries ago and all the centuries before that. Life before industrialization was not a utopia. Indeed, there was some equality; almost everyone was equally poor, lived equally short, miserable lives, and had equally limited opportunities. People didn’t have to worry about running out of resources because they scarcely had any resources to begin with.

As Thomas Sowell has written, “Most of what are natural resources for us today were not natural resources for the cave man, who had not yet acquired the knowledge of how these things could be used for his own purposes.”

Nor did our prehistoric ancestors have the luxury of enjoying an “untainted” natural world. They were too busy with survival in an often harsh and unforgiving environment. For most of human history, nothing ever improved significantly; people were born, they suffered, and they died. It was indeed a tragedy.

Intellectuals have squandered far too much time trying to understand the causes of poverty. In fact, poverty is humanity’s default condition. It is wealth and prosperity that need explanation.

The idea of a simple life where humans produce nothing and exist in perfect harmony with an untainted natural world is undeniably appealing to many. However, it is totally unrealistic. Far from alienating us from the natural world, technology enhances our ability to appreciate and interact with it. For instance, without technology, we wouldn’t be able to reach the peaks of the highest mountains, explore the ocean’s depths, or walk on the surface of the Moon.

The “good old days” are a myth. In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021, this had more than doubled to 71 years. As recently as two centuries ago, half of the children ever born died before their 15th birthday. Now, only 4% of kids die before the age of 15. One cannot measure the pain of so many parents having to see their children die.

Even though people think of capitalism as exploitative, we are working less than ever before. As people get richer, they tend to work fewer hours. Today, there are significantly fewer deaths due to natural disasters because we started utilizing our unique ability to master the climate. As Barack Obama said, “If you had to choose any moment in history in which to be born, […] you’d choose right now.”

Progress is neither automatic nor inevitable, however. We are not entitled to anything. Everything worthwhile has been achieved by creating the necessary knowledge to get there. The future is open. The fate of the universe is up to people like us and what we choose to do.

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