Really interesting perspective. I always thought that with the growing population we would have issues with food, etc., but I think that is not the case, as you say.

I was first made aware of this when I listened to a Saifedean podcast with Gale Pooley: Superabundance. Here is a short summary:

• How resources on earth are not finite and the time is our real scarcity.
• Time prices. Time price is expressed in hours and minutes. Money price is expressed in dollars and cents. Calculate time price by dividing the price in dollars with the hourly income. When the population increases by 1%, these commodities fall in price by 1%. This is because of innovation. Innovation is what allows us to escape poverty. If you want more innovation, you need to have more ideas, which means a larger population.
• The Simon Abundance Index 2023
• Abundance doesn't end. It is political decisions that limit growth and freedom.
• Time prices
  • Go back in time and figure out what the time price was of goods and services and compare with today.
  • Inflation tells you how expensive things have gotten compared to other things. They don't tell you how affordable things have gotten. You have to look at hourly income to look at affordability.
  • Time is a universal standard, it's fixed and continuous
  • Move from thinking in income equality to time equality
  • Economics needs to be measured in time and knowledge not money.
  • Malthusian argument: we're going to run out of stuff.
  • Inflation leads people to believe there's scarcity, which there isn't. Compare it with time prices and you can see there isn't scarcity, but inflation.