Playing the Innovation Numbers Game - or NOT
I came across a wonderfully written but sorely misguided blog posting on the NYTimes site today from Casey Mulligan, a University of Chicago Econ Prof. The More the Merrier: Population Growth Promotes Innovation.
I rarely find opinions so objectionable and have to believe that Casey wrote this as satire or to inspire contrary views. If so it’s wonderful and he accomplished both. But just to be sure this isn’t taken seriously I had to log my response - see it on the NYT web site above or below: Your thoughts?
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So let me get this right: If we have more victims of disease, more carbon emissions, and more people starving in underdeveloped countries, then we are more likely to find solutions to our increase in suffering. Right?
Come on Casey, you can’t really believe that there are no limits to population growth on this planet or that somehow subjecting more people to suffering justifies your roll of the innovation probability dice. One could as easily claim that larger populations are just as likely to produce more criminals, terrorists, and ruthless dictators.
The bottom line is that we can choose to take an active role in managing our impact on the planet, its people, and our childrens’ future or we can just sit back and hope for solutions from some brilliant yet to come savior whose genius will untangle the mess we’ve made. I for one chose to take control and believe that the genius already exists among us. - tk
