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The Un-Easy Case For Technological Optimism, James E. Krier, Clayton P. Gillette

Articles

"Technological optimism" is a term of art, an article of faith, and a theory of politics. It is a view that pervades modem attitudes, yet gets little explicit attention. For a brief period the situation was otherwise. In the early 1970s, the optimistic outlook figured prominently in an important debate about nothing less than the future of the world. Technological optimism won. The outcome was unsurprising, given the nature of the argument. On one side of the debate was a group of self-proclaimed Malthusians who foresaw an impending period of stark scarcity unless relatively drastic remedial steps were quickly taken; …