The Best Time to Be Alive

YouTube ^ | August 21, 2023 | PregerU

[grundle]

Are you worried about your future? Turn on the TV or scroll through social media and it’s hard not to be. But is there a brighter side to the story? Marian Tupy, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and co-author of Superabundance, explains why it’s a great time to be alive.

[grundle]

The saber-toothed Smilodon was not actually a tiger. Other than that, this video is spot on. They should show this to every school student.

[Persevero]

Great video. I share his opinion. Not to be naive but are doing VERY well compared to most people in history.

Fear is the mind killer. Honestly assess all problems but don’t let them destroy you.

[Luke21]

Very enjoyable video.

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

And Paul Erhlic is still revered as the wise sage. Like AlGore, Erhlic will never openly debate his prognostications of doom and gloom.

[xp38]

Only one person had a choice of when to be alive.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Bkmrk

[DoodleBob]

My favorite Paul Ehrlich story is about The Bet.

Per Wiki, economist Julian Simon was highly skeptical of Ehrlich’s claims in his book, so proposed a wager, telling Ehrlich to select any raw material he wanted and select "any date more than a year away," and Simon would bet that the commodity's price on that date would be lower than what it was at the time of the wager.

Ehrlich and his colleagues picked five metals that they thought would undergo big price increases: chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Then, on paper, they bought $200 worth of each, for a total bet of $1,000, using the prices on September 29, 1980, as an index. They designated September 29, 1990, 10 years hence, as the payoff date. If the inflation-adjusted prices of the various metals rose in the interim, Simon would pay Ehrlich the combined difference. If the prices fell, Ehrlich et al. would pay Simon.

Between 1980 and 1990, the world's population grew by more than 800 million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by September 1990, the price of each of Ehrlich's selected metals had fallen. Chromium, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.88 a decade later.

As a result, in October 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed Julian Simon a check for $576.07 to settle the wager in Simon's favor.

Here is that check…please note, that Ehrlich is such a POS that he had HIS WIFE sign the check!

[Leaning Right]

Someone once said that a poor person in America today lives more comfortably than the King of England did 300 years ago. That well might be true. But the king sure did have fancier clothes.

[Fiji Hill]

I still call it the cat in question a sabertooth tiger, still call the other side of the moon the dark side of the moon, I still refer to the Pluto as a planet, and I call the nation’s highest summit Mount McKinley.

[Fiji Hill]

Indeed, when it comes to technology and medical science, we have clearly advanced. But when it comes to social mores, we have regressed.

I thank God that I experienced my childhood in the 1950s and early 1960s and not in the 21st century. When I was growing up, we would play outside unsupervised, ride our bikes around the neighborhood, use cap guns, teeter-totters, jungle gyms and metal slides, and dive from diving boards—all forbidden to children today, who spend their days in front of computer screens.

A centenarian was once asked what she considered the most profound development of her lifetime. To her, it was not the moon landing, jet air travel or the Internet; it was the fact that children are no longer seen outdoors.

[MV=PY]

Right.

But they must have stunk to high heaven!

[Salvey]

I thank God that I experienced my childhood in the 1950s and early 1960s

And I thank God that I experienced my childhood in the 40's.

[JZelle]

It’s all about context apparently.

[Guenevere]

G