This feed from Marginal Revolution is by far the most uneven of any I read. Sometimes I feel like I’m reading the thoughts of an educated person, a deep thinker. Then other posts are nothing more than puerile jibbering.
What caused the Agricultural Revolution?:
For instance we are told that if the entire world lived like the United States, fossil fuels would run out within seven year’s time, or maybe ten. What a horror such a world would be. There is no talk of how much higher the rate of invention would be, or how much we would save by having better institutions.
Perhaps this was tossed off after lunch or at some other time when professors are not at their best, but rather than claim “the article was terrible” (is he comparing a piece in a general audience magazine to a refereed journal piece?), why not point to a better one or an argument against the points that were argued.
Instead we’re told the piece was terrible and that some pie in the sky solution would emerge under the constraints of everyone living like an American. This discounts the possibility of how much resource wealth would have been squandered in the meantime, etc.
But this is from a guy who claims driving a car is pleasurable and that living in the country or exurbs is the ideal. [my comments here]