Books in progress

Extracts from KELSEY'S LAWS OF PROGRESS (copyright © 2002):

"People solve problems. Humans, when left to their own devices, will prevail (will choose preservation, and will choose their best interests over expediency)."

"On average, each generation will create a bit more than it consumes."

"Progress and growth are inevitable."

"Progress is a process composed of innovation, ingenuity, and improvement. It is not a destination or a product."

"Population growth generates its own solutions. Progress is the result of human intellect so increasing population size is necessary for sustained conditions of human progress. More population means more intellect thanks to advances in education and technology. That begets more solutions to questions. More people = more problems in the short run = more search for solutions = finding solutions that leave us better off than before we had begun. Population growth and increase of income expand demand, forcing up prices of natural resources. The increased prices present opportunity and trigger the search for new solutions by socially-minded inventors and profit-minded entrepreneurs. Eventually new solutions, sources and substitutes are found. These new discoveries leave humanity better off than if the shortages had not occurred."

"The only real restraint on progress is a government that represses the human spirit. If there are no restrictions on risk-taking, experimentation, innovation, exploration, inventive enterprise, and inquiring minds then human progress will continue. The barrier to positive growth and progress is always socialism; the solution is always capitalism."

"The better things get, the more attention will be paid to the ever-shrinking list of humanity's lesser problems while the doomsayers touting imminent disaster will become more shrill and desperate."

"Most great advances in humanity will be privately developed."

"The biggest issue of the future, an issue that will determine the success of human progress, is not whether one cares about nature, but whether one cares about people. We have a right to use the earth to make our lives better." (I realize this is heresay to certain tree-hugging leftists, but the proof has been increased stewardship as living standards rise—i.e. as progress happens.)

"Humanity will be better off in the future. I expect humanity to continue to be successful. The standard of living will rise with the size of the world's population—as it has since the beginning of humanity. And with increases in income and population have come less severe shortages, lower costs, and an increased availability of resources, including a cleaner environment and greater access to natural recreation areas. There is no convincing economic reason why these trends toward a better life, and toward lower prices of raw materials (including food and energy) should not continue indefinitely. Contrary to common rhetoric, there are no meaningful limits to the continuation of this process. There is no data that supports the doomster notion that the world is headed toward starvation and famine as many so-called experts preach."

"Population schooled in the accumulated human knowledge and protected by freedom governs the speed of progress. The gains in human knowledge are irreversible."

"Progress does not serve only the rich. When poor grow richer, it is not at the expense of the rich."

"The solution to human progress is known: All efforts should be for the empowerment of the individual. The human being must be allowed to develop its potentialities, its surprises, its varieties, its new solutions for difficult problems, its diverse points of view."

"The progress of technology will be successful only if they offer real or imagined benefits over the current way of doing things at a reasonable price."

"Progress is preferred. Life and intelligence will prevail. Try calculating the future without life and intelligence."

"Humanity will be better off in the future."

"Economic freedom and freedom from government repression are necessary ingregients for human progress."

"PROGRESS IS THE EXTENSION OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT OF HUMAN LIVES BY OFFERING MORE: MORE CONTROL; MORE KNOWLEDGE; MORE OPPORTUNITY; MORE OPTIONS; MORE COMFORT; IN OTHER WORDS, MORE LIFE."