For the first time. John the good new day. Thats our show, tonight. You worried about the future . Hard not to be if you watch the news. Its mostly negative, violence, disasters, danger and i suppose thats our job to tell you about problems. If a plane crashes, thats news. The fact that thousands of planes will land and take off safely during this tv program is a miracle, but its not news. So we soak in disasters and heed warnings about the next one. Global warming, pesticide residues. I covered hundreds of scares and finally wised up. In england, a journalist smarter than i quickly realized he was focusing on the wrong things that led to this book. The rational optimist. Matt ridley gives lectures around the world explaining why hes an optimist. Back in the 19, the future was bleak, the population explosion was unstoppable. Famine was inevitable. Bird flu is going to kill us, the ice age is coming back. All these, the desert was advancing. Y2k computer bug, all these things were going to go wrong. Thats what everybody said about the future. I was surprised when i grew up to find that things are getting much better for most people most of the time. John some people call this pessimism porn or fear porn, it sells in the media. People want to be scared. Sounds wiser to talk about what might go wrong than to talk about what might go right. It seems foolish to talk about what might go right. On the whole, there is much more market for bad news than good news. John you mentioned overpopulation, when i was in college, that was the scare that they were selling me, that the book, the population bomb was a bestseller. The author warned that the 1980s would bring mass starvation because population growth would have outrun the food supply, and the population did double. He said there would be mass starvation by the 80s. 80s came and went without a shortage of food. Some in the media continue to shriek about unsustainable population growth. There are 7 billion people on earth. At some point theres not going to be enough stuff for everybody. John really . Heres another wrinkle. Since Global Warming is the hyped scare of the moment. This mandatory population control be a part of the fight against Global Warming . John mandatory population control. A Government Official would come to your house, matt, and forcibly tie our tubes. Thats roughly what happened in china for the last 30 years. There has been mandatory population control, extraordinarily cruel and with a huge amount of suffering involved. Its unnecessary, population growth rates have been falling all around the world whether you have mandatory or voluntary control. All you have to do is give people a bit more prosperity, wealth, education, and turns out if the kids stop dying, they have fewer kids. The media are hyping crime and terrorism, and there is a reason to be fearful, almost 3,000 people did die on september 11th, and there have been Mass Shootings in schools. Head of the nra recently said this is why we need guns. There are terrorists, home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers. John he goes on and on, and those things have happened, and there are good reasons why people should be allowed to have guns, but it upsets me to see the head of the nra hyping this stuff. Crime is declining. Violence is declining all around the world to an extraordinary extent. The number of rapes, the number of murders, you know, going down steadily in countries like the United States, and the number of People Killed in warfare globally was the lowest in the last decade of any decade since records began. That may not feel like it tos you in the west because of iraq and afghanistan, but it was true globally that we are seeing much less violence around the world. John and yet, if you survey people and ask them if thats true, i would think most would not believe that. Because we were constantly being told about the violence happening and not told about the gradual trend towards less violence of all kinds. Finally, matt. Many people envy the life royalty once lived. To be a king in the good old days, and yet you made a video for your book points out today, most of us live better than kings once did. Though the kings had hundreds of servants. Consider louis the son king, he chose from 40 dishes taking 498 people to prepare each meal. Todays average person can go into a supermarket and buy a fresh, frozen, tin, smoked or prepared meal made with beef, chicken, lamb, beans carrots or choose to eat from scores of nearby restaurants, italian, chinese, japanese, indian, each has a team of skilled chefs waiting to serve at less than an hours notice. Add all this up and realize you have far more than 978 servants at your beck and call. We have thousands and thousands of people working for us. Thats what the system of commerce. Its a collaborative, cooperative system. John thank you, matt ridley. Heres another reason the good old days were not as good as today. Most everything is smaller, faster, lighter, denser cheaper, thats the title of robert bryces new book. What do you mean, smaller, faster, lighter and so on. John, look, i carry a cell phone in my pocket, a smartphone, it has 250,000 times more digital Storage Capacity than the computer that went to the moon. The other day i bought an ipod nanoholds as much music as 300 lps. 200 times more lighter and 6,000 times more efficient than an lp. John progress haters say we are overwhelmed with choice, doesnt make our lives better. Overwhelmed with choice . John i dont use most of the stuff on the cell phone, its too complicated. Fair enough. Lets look at smaller computers, faster communications, denser engines, denser agriculture, all of these things allowed increasing standards around the world. John is that a line from the book . All this may be true, some people arent happy unless they are scared or miserable. What do you mean . No politician ever got elected by saying everything is okay. The devil is at the door. You have to elect me, if you dont elect me, ruin nation will come. This is part of the media, if it bleeds, it leads, that is something we see all the time. And yet this continuing increase in Living Standards all over the world has been truly remarkable. John now, im old, and all my life ive heard, were going to run out of oil almost four years ago, my president told me we had to have an unpleasant talk about the Energy Crisis. This is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetime. The Energy Crisis is not yet overwhelming, but it will if we dont act quickly. We must balance our demand for energy with rapidly shrinking resources. John rapidly shrinks resources. Isnt that remarkable . You know, if you look back. John its logical, yeah. Were using stuff, so the resources must be shrinking. Sure, but whats happening . Better drill rigs, better drill bits, seismic technology, new technologies are allowing computer sensors at the edge of the drill bill. Lets look back at history. 2005, the chairman of exxon mobil said mass production has peaked in north america. Mass production is 41 higher than 2005 and the u. S. Is producing so much natural gas were looking at exporting natural gas. John on page 180 of the book, the 1914, u. S. Bureau of mines said oil supplies would be depleted within ten years. Sure. So in 20 years we have oil. Department of interior says theyll be gone in 13 years, in 1946, maybe we have 20 years left says the state department. E department of interior again in 1951, depleted, they like the 13 year number. Of course. And yet whats happened, january of this year, 2014, the u. S. Exported, exported an average of 4 Million Barrels of oil a day. Almost all of it in the form of gasoline and refined products. John you are cherry picking oil and gas, were going to run out of other stuff, maybe food. John boies, an economist at the university of calgary looked as prices of industrial commodities over more than 100 years and found that the overwhelming majority they fell in price. John if it falls in price, that means theres more of it. The combination of price and innovation is remarkably powerful combination, thats what weve seen. Effort towards smaller lighter denser faster cheaper is happening all around us, given that weve seen it, why cant we see it . Wow. Thats a good question. I think part of it is that again, there is a tendency to want to be pessimistic as we look forward. We have 3d printing and ever faster communications, ever cheaper computers. All of these things cheap or Free Education now thanks to online courses. John and information thats free all over the world. And cheaper energy, the foundation of modern society. You add all of these things together, were poised in the u. S. For another American Century because we have all of these things in spades that other countries lack. John we will get more into that during the snow. Thank you, robert bryce, you keep the conversation going at facebook or twitter, use the hashtag. Good news let people know what you think. Murder, war, miserable poverty. It does persist and yet ill tell you why these are the good new days . 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This chart shows the percentage of People Living on less than a dollar a day, now 5 of the world. When i graduated college, it was 25 . Millions have listed themselves out of poverty. And its great to read on the website think progress. Articles like five reasons why 2013 was the best year in Human History . Fewer people are dying. Dying young. And more live longer. Fewer people suffer from extreme poverty, and the worlds getting happier. But wait a second, think progress is this lefty website. Government liberals who are generally clueless about economic progress who wrote the sensible articles . Who wrote it . Well, actually zack beauchamp, and not only do you realize life got better, but you say its largely because of free markets. Yeah, markets are a big part of the story. The reason they are is they spark innovation. Way back in the 17th century people started ideas about science and reason and research and led to the medicines and sciences about the great remedies for diseases that killed millions and millions of people young earlier. Markets are one important way we distributed the diseases and got the benefits of the diseases to a large number of people around the world. John so many wanted to make a profit curing people . In part, markets and people worked in tandem. Poorer people and wealthier people alike. John so its so obvious to me, and you got it, why didnt your colleagues at think progress get it . They do. Modern liberals and conservatives agree that markets are good and should have market systems. Wait, im looking, you left think progress, but on the site, nine reasons why 2013 was not the best year in history. School closing, shutting the doors on black and hispanic students. College grads cant buy houses. The gender wage gap. Women are being murdered at work. This is a different world view. There are lots of things that are still bad. Fact that the world has gotten much better is not a reason to be complacent about things that are terrible. Global Climate Change is catastrophic and dangerous. Set that aside, celebrate the progress weve made, its the greatest accomplishment in the past 200 years of Human History. John and shouldnt attack the free markets that brought us. Regulating free markets in the way that we deal with the problems we have, including environmental ones. Regulating them, we dont have enough of that or too much of that . No, i dont think so. The benefits of growth and the way they used to be arent distributed appropriately. People arent getting welfare lessons. Were talking about people getting richer. Nd the world could be doing much better than they are. Theyre doing much better than they used to be. Governments can help with the process. John so how is that working now the cuba and former soviet union . You know there is space between cuba and sweden. John okay, so sweden worked it out. And countries do the best in the world. John they rate themselves as happy, but thats because theyre swedes. You ask them in the surveys, they are happy. This is a point you wont like. The wealthier countries get per capita, the happier they are, too. They tend to be happier as time goes. John but they dont invent anything. The inventions are part of the global market. John yeah, we invent. They invent some things. Skype. John astonia is a free market country. Whats sweden done since volvo . Lots of things that have made peoples lives better in the country. Why the hostility to market . Not hostility to the markets, its hostility towards underregulated markets. John piles and piles of regulations . Yeah, because theyre not giving enough to the people who need things. There are people who are suffering and theres a great deal of discrimination against women and minorities. John and more regulation wont kill the golden goose . No, it wont. Global Life Expectancy was 47 in 1950, since then its gone up to 70. John not because of regulation. Yeah, in part it has. Take innovation, id say, thank you, zack, coming up, something that poisons your Drinking Water and the air we breathe and causes Global Warming. Thats what i hear, but i look at same thing and see mostly good news. Thats next. Wondering what that is . That, my friends, is everything. And with the quicksilver card from capital one, you earn unlimited 1. 5 cash back on everything you purchase. Not just everything at the hardware store. Not everything, until you hit your cash back limit. Quicksilver can earn you unlimited 1. 5 cash back on everything you could possibly imagine. Say it with me everything. One more time, everything and with that in mind. Whats in your wallet . And with that in mind. Whon a certified preownedan unlimitedmercedesbenz . Nty what does it mean to drive as far as you want. 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