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Who would have won the Simon-Ehrlich bet over different decades?
In the 1980s, economist Julian Simon won his bet with biologist Paul Ehrlich on mineral prices. But what does the long-term data tell us about supply and demand for resources?
5 This bet has come to represent a clash of worldviews: are we exhausting the planet of its resources, or can humans effectively respond to scarcity to ensure we don’t run out? Simon, in particular, was very specific about this in his initial claim for the wager: “to stake US$10,000... on my belief that the cost of non-government-controlled raw materials (including grain and oil) will not rise in the long run”. Acknowledgments Many thanks to Max Roser, Simon van Teutem, Saloni Dattani, and Edouard Mathieu for their comments and feedback on this article.
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