> Ehrlich could have won if the bet had been for a different ten-year period.[5][6][7] Ehrlich wrote that the five metals in question had increased in price between the years 1950 and 1975.[3] Asset manager Jeremy Grantham wrote that if the Simon–Ehrlich wager had been for a longer period (from 1980 to 2011), then Simon would have lost on four of the five metals. He also noted that if the wager had been expanded to "all of the most important commodities," instead of just five metals, over that longer period of 1980 to 2011, then Simon would have lost "by a lot."[7]
Doesn't sound like a great bet to base anything on.
The idea behind the bet is stronger than the statistics of year shopping: the price of critical ingredients is subject to many changes, what was at stake was their availability expressed as price: Ehrlich argued for scarcity because of a flawed belief in exhaustion and limits to growth. Simon argued for supply chain dynamics, and had a strong sense the relative abundance of primary inputs was not the limiting factor.
Sure, the specific bet could be lost and won in different windows. But the actual underlying point remains: were not facing exhaustion of resources as a limit to economic growth and development as much as exhaustion of willingness to invest in exploration and development of sources.
"Oh God, there isn't enough cobalt or lithium for all the EV to be sold in the next 5 years" or "there isn't enough lithium for every car to be converted to EV" which are both variants of counterfactuals to actual rate of deployment, replacement of cars in the real world, the replacement of battery technology, new forms of battery chemistry, you name it PLUS extraction of new sources and discovery of new ore beds.
> Sure, the specific bet could be lost and won in different windows. But the actual underlying point remains:
You are free to argue that but that is not why this bet turned out the way it did according to the quotes from the linked wiki. It sounds way more like a coin toss than any rule of the market
Not the point. Ehlich was free to choose the metals, so the fact that this particular choice wasn't in his favor doesn't make him look good. These were presumably the best bet he thought he could make.
Every prediction in “The Population Bomb” turned out to be wildly incorrect. Simon was consistently right that the human standard of living would increase even as population increased.
The arguments Erlichman made were like: not everyone can have a telephone because there is not enough copper in the Earth’s crust.
You’re just completely wrong about whether we heeded the warnings in the Population Bomb. We are billions of people over the mark he set for total systemic collapse, and living standards are higher than ever.
This isn’t like the ozone hole, where we identified a problem and fixed it. He was just wrong.
I still think the Ehlrichs are moral cripples, and that they should not have made policy prescriptions. Like the '20s era Progressives (and others), early leftist environmentalists advocated terrible policies for "those people" while minimizing their own inconvenience. Eugenics, notably.
However, I was not aware of the zeitgeist about "overpopulation" at the time, nor how that meme came to support the reactionary project. For instance, morphing into today's rabid anti-Muslim organizations.
So my updated position is, on the balance, The Population Bomb did far more wrong and probably very little good.
My issue is that anti-Malthusian rhetoric, just like anti-anti-racism, often serves to concern troll and minimize actual pressing problems. "Ya, ya, ya. Climate crisis. Big deal. Y'all were wrong about overpopulation too. Calm down."
But two wrongs don't make a right. So I now agree with you wrt this book.
Why were the Ehrlichs wrong? Now that's an interesting question. (a la "All models are wrong. Some are useful.")
Per Hans Rosling, didn't take into account innovation, obviously. But also ignored sociology; eg urbanization and the resulting steep decline in birthrate.
With the climate crisis as context, Ehrlichs' biggest mistakes were:
- too soon.
- too combative, negative.
- making any kind of policy prescriptions. which were also utterly morally bankrupt.
The end result is the Ehrlichs (and others) poisoned the well for constructive discourse. But, hey, that was the dominate rhetorical style until very recently.
Not if the argument is the market will always lower the cost of goods like metals over time. If that bet went 20 years instead of the 10 the price would have been higher. Would that have proved the other guy correct?
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager