We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich from Stanford University wrote that “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” That year, food supply in 34 out of 152 countries surveyed amounted to less than 2,000 calories per person per day. That was true of only 2 out of 173 countries surveyed in 2013. Today famines have all but disappeared outside of war zones.

Marian Tupy

7 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • All of which just goes to show that economic liberalisation (i.e. not Communist idiocy) is the most powerful force ever created for lifting the starving billions out of poverty.

    Anyone who disagrees with this simple fact is either stupid or lying (probably both if Owen Jones is representative of his peers).

  • Sean

    I’m not sure if Norman Borlaug read Paul’s book – but I do know he almost single-handedly proved it wrong.

  • Eric

    Ehrlich is still around and still singing the same old song.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes indeed Eric – and Ehrlich is still treated as a great “intellectual” by the media and the education system – the schools and the universities.

    If a thinker is praised in modern school and university books – that person is almost certain to be a charlatan.

    It is not that the schools and universities just fail to teach the truth – they actively teach LIES.

  • Nicholas (Unlicenced Joker) Gray

    Paul, such prejudice! Why shouldn’t Unis be broadminded enough to spread lies!? The world is full of new facts or false facts, anyway! Trump that!

  • What with this list of five wrong environmentalist claims and this list of ten wrong ones just from Al Gore and this list of erroneous environmental predictions from 1895 to the present, it is clear that we face a crisis of ever-increasing hot air on this subject. Urgent action is needed – I demand I be put in charge at once of a large department, with a huge budget and special powers, to address this problem!

  • The Sanity Inspector

    No one loses credibility by making a career of doom-saying, unless of course it’s religious doom-saying.