The World Is Doing Much Better Than We're Being Told...

You have any forward-looking views on where we're going? We'll debate, you know, this whole—I mean, what you've been going through for the last few years, every argument you've had. Do you have any sort of midterm to long-term view of where we're going, or if you don't, that's fine.

Yeah, well, we're going in many directions at once, you know, and the question is, is the fundamental trajectory downhill or uphill? And I would say that depends on you, Western society in particular.

What's that? Western society?

Yes, yes, no, and, and, and more globally. I mean, I worked on the UN Secretary General's report on sustainable development for about two years and read a very large number of texts on environmental problems and opportunities, and economic development. And what happened to me was that I got way more optimistic than I was before I started reading those books.

I mean, so many things have happened in the last 40 years that are so good, you just can't believe it. I mean, we've lifted more people out of abject poverty in the last 15 years than in the entire course of human history in terms of sheer numbers of people. You know, starvation, except for political reasons, is now pretty much absent across the world. There hasn't been any wars in the Western hemisphere for about a decade. That's really something, you know, and no major wars plague us at the moment. That's quite something, given that there are seven billion of us, and there's only going to be nine billion.

By all appearances, it's going to peak out at about nine billion, and my suspicions are, in 100 years, one of the biggest problems we'll face is that there's just not enough people. And you never hear that, but I really do believe it's likely to be the case. And we can certainly carry nine billion people without doing the planet undo environmental damage. And people who claim otherwise, I think, well, I think a lot of things about that, but one of the things I don't think is that that's an accurate viewpoint.

I mean, we're doing far better than we were 40 years ago feeding people, and we can certainly pack in another two billion. It turns out that if you want to control population—though I wouldn't really recommend that as an occupation—all you have to do is educate women, and that's the end of that problem. Then you also have educated women. And we know that's very annoying, but it seems to be, you know, it seems to be working out.

It's a great predictor of general economic development. It's actually, I think, the best predictor of a society's future economic development is the attitude that they hold towards the education of women. And luckily, it's in the positive direction, and so that's very cool.

And then it certainly seems to be the case that the fastest way out of a given environmental conundrum is to make absolutely poor people richer as fast as you possibly can. Because then they do things like, well, they don't burn wood anymore; maybe they burn coal. And I know coal is evil, but it's not as evil as wood. And I don't know if you know this, but 1.6 million children die every year because of the indoor pollution that wood burning causes.

It's like, if the nuclear industry had a record like that, that would be all over the newspapers. But they're just third world children, after all, so, you know. The planet has too many people on it anyways, and so there's all sorts of things I see that are so radically positive that it beggars description.

I mean, India and China alone have greened an area because of agricultural transformation the size of the Amazon, and partly as a consequence of increased carbon dioxide levels. A semi-arid area, it's either the size of the Amazon or Alaska—I don't remember which—has greened in the last 15 years. And so these are things you never hear; you have to ferret them out.

But as far as I can tell, if we got our act together and actually wanted it, instead of wanting to burn everything to the ground in an orgy of guilt-ridden self-destruction, we could set up a world in 15 years where absolutely everyone had plenty to eat, and where obesity would be the primary problem. It's a good problem, actually. It's like, "Oh no, you know, we have too much food, what are we going to do?" That's a good problem.

And where everyone was educated, because the cost of education is falling precipitously. And we could do that in a way that was actually beneficial to the environment, whatever that is. So, I would say fundamentally I'm optimistic, but if we want hell, we could certainly have that. And you might say, "Well, you don't want hell." It's like, "Yeah, really, eh?" You might want to ask your quest to yourself that question real seriously, because there's a party that would wreak vengeance on God for the catastrophic suffering of being; that's for sure, and that's Cain, right?

So, no, I'm optimistic because I also don't believe that our fundamental motivations are that of a corrupt will. I think that's wrong. I think it's wrong factually, and I think it's an appalling claim philosophically, and it's a radically destructive claim ethically—demoralizing, a terribly demoralizing claim—and demoralizing enough to really hurt people. And I've seen many, many people—maybe thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands of people—hurt by that claim, hurt to the deep recesses of their soul.

But I would say, like, it depends. It depends on what you choose to do, really; depends on what you choose to do. You know, I read once—I think this was in the Solzhenitsyn novel, although it might not have been, and it's certainly not his idea. It's an idea from one of the church fathers that God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. Nice mathematical model of God; I like it a lot. But there's something about it that's really true, you know.

We interact with one another as if there's a spark of the divine within us. And you say, "Well, no we don't." It's like, "Well, if you don't, then no one likes you," so, you know, that'll be its own punishment. Because we certainly do interact with the people we value when we're acting in a manner that we regard as appropriate, as if there is something about them of transcendent and, in some sense, eternal value.

And you might say, "Well, you don't believe that." It's like, "Well, do you believe in natural rights?" Because the notion of natural rights is predicated on that underlying presupposition or observation. And you don't believe in natural rights? Well, then again, where are you exactly, and who are you exactly? And those are questions very much worth posing.

And so I think that truth is more powerful than deceit by a large margin, and I think love is more powerful than hate by a large margin. I don't mean naive love, and I'm not naive about people. I don't mean that at all, but I think it is possible for us to rise above the resentment of our suffering and to wish the best for all things. And I think we can participate in that, and you do that well by extending your hand to your enemy to the degree you're capable of doing that. Because who needs enemies? Or maybe you do, but it'd be better not to have them.

I think, even if they're convenient targets to defeat—and then truth, well, that's the handmaiden of love, and that's something everyone can practice at every moment if they desire that. And that's an adventure, you know? If you're acting deceitfully, you already specify the outcomes of your actions and you pursue that. But the problem with that is it's predicated on the acceptance of your own authoritarian completeness. It's like, what the hell do you know about what you should have?

So what do you do instead? You just do your best to not lie and see what happens. And what happens are wonderful things, although perhaps not at the beginning when there's a lot of mystic claw through. So, sorry for the lengthy answer, but it was a complicated question.