00:00Until recently, the vast majority of the world population worked on farms and the total production
00:06of the world's economy was mostly the total agricultural output.
00:11And this output was limited by the fixed size of the land.
00:15The total output of the economy did not change a lot year by year.
00:20The size of the pie was fixed.
00:23The world was a zero-sum game.
00:25In such a stagnating world, the only way to get better off is if someone else gets worse off.
00:32If you take a bigger piece of the pie, someone else's gets smaller.
00:36If you want more food, then conquering, plundering and stealing are great strategies.
00:42Your neighbor's loss is your gain.
00:45This was the state of things for thousands of years.
00:49Societies invaded each other constantly to get more pie.
00:52Economic inequality was extreme.
00:55Some had all the pie they wanted, while others had to live with the crumbs.
01:00Then the Industrial Revolution happened and everything changed.
01:05We developed machinery, better crops, better fertilizers.
01:09Agricultural output skyrocketed.
01:11But we didn't just produce more food, every industrial sector exploded in terms of productivity.
01:17From 1700 to 1870, the production of iron in Britain increased 137-fold.
01:25The Industrial Revolution led to a previously unimaginable increase in economic output.
01:31This altered the nature of our societies.
01:34Economic growth changed the world from a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game.
01:41We had found a way to create a bigger pie.
01:44But not only a bigger pie, but a pie that was growing bigger each year.
01:49More people could have more at the same time.
01:52This development is spreading and continuing today.
01:54Antibiotics kill bacteria, power plants deliver energy, cell phones connect us, planes let
02:00us travel cheaply, fridges store food.
02:03Continuous progress in all sectors of the economy seems normal to us today.
02:08But the change from stagnation to economic growth really was the most drastic shift in
02:13human history.
02:15How was this possible?
02:17At the very core of this massive transformation stand new ideas that lead to innovation.
02:23Innovation has many different definitions.
02:25But in the context of this video, we mean better solutions to existing problems and
02:30solutions to problems we didn't know we had.
02:34The more you innovate, the more complex and interesting problems you discover as your
02:39wishes and needs evolve.
02:41The average citizen in Norway 250 years ago might have wanted some really good shoes.
02:47150 years ago, maybe a bicycle.
02:5080 years ago, a car.
02:5230 years ago, cheap air travel.
02:55And so on.
02:56Once we get what we want, we don't stop.
02:59We can see how we can improve things even more and how to make things even better.
03:04The new positive-sum world has existed for 0.1% of human history, and we have yet to
03:09get used to it.
03:11It has a consequence that feels really unintuitive.
03:15In a positive-sum world, it's in your personal, selfish best interest that every human on
03:21planet Earth is well-off.
03:23It's good for you if people in obscure parts of countries you've never heard of are prospering.
03:30There is a genuine, selfish argument for making the world a better place.
03:36In a positive-sum world, the more people are well-off, the better your own life is.
03:42This is because of the nature of innovation.
03:45It is fundamentally driven by supply and demand.
03:49The supply increases when more people have the freedom and education to contribute.
03:53They become inventors, researchers, engineers, or thinkers that come up with new ideas.
04:00The demand for ideas increases as people get richer and can pay for new solutions.
04:05They increase the size of the market for innovations.
04:09Innovation follows incentives.
04:12So naturally, if many people want and can pay for something, it will get the innovator's
04:16attention and energy.
04:19Improving the lives of those who are worst off has a multiplying effect.
04:24It increases demand for ideas while at the same time making it easier for ideas to be
04:30produced.
04:31Let's take an example that interests all of us, a cure for cancer.
04:36If there are 1 billion people in the world that have the wealth to pay for cancer treatments,
04:40innovation will follow this demand.
04:42So hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in medical research.
04:46This had a huge effect, but we're still nowhere near to curing all forms of cancer.
04:51Today, every sixth person in the world dies of cancer, and you might be one of them.
04:56Now imagine if demand were higher.
04:59Then instead of 1 billion people being able to pay for a cure for cancer, there were 4
05:04billion, or 7 billion.
05:07Imagine how far medicine could have developed if we'd invested seven times as much in
05:11curing cancer.
05:13On top of that, there's so much human potential being wasted right now.
05:18The work of a poor farmer in a developing nation is not useful to you, but if he becomes
05:23better off, his children might spend their time in university developing things that
05:28are useful to you.
05:30Instead of having some hotspots of innovation in the developed world, we would have many
05:34hotspots all over the world.
05:37The research output of humanity would be many times what it is right now.
05:42Could we have cured cancer by now if that were the case?
05:45Well, maybe.
05:46If we spent seven times as much on research, had seven times as many people working on
05:51it, and a global network of medical research, things would certainly be further ahead than
05:56they are now.
05:57And this is the core of the argument.
05:59The more people want the same thing that you want, the more likely you are to get it.
06:05That is what it means to live in a positive-sum world.
06:09You don't gain more pie if poor places stay poor.
06:12Instead, you get more pie if poor places get richer, contribute ideas, and grow the global
06:18pie.
06:19Do you like space travel?
06:22Imagine there were billions of people in Africa and Asia with their own space programs, and
06:26demand for satellites and moon bases and cities on Mars.
06:31Do you like being alive?
06:32A few billion people paying for medical research could literally save your life.
06:37It's in your interest for people around the world to become better off.
06:42The faster we get to this version of the world, the better for you personally.
06:46No matter what your motivation is, working on a better world is a very good thing to
06:51do.
06:52For others, and for you.
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