Johan Norberg on problems vs. progress

Johan Norberg has just given a fantastic lecture in Australia called The Wealth of Generations:

Capitalism and the Belief in the Future . It really is fascinating reading about how people tend to ignore all the progress the world is making while searching for imaginary problems. Read the whole thing. This little snippet is great as it is very true for Denmark and the US:

Progress also always creates some new challenge, and problem-solvers think more about the challenges than the progress. We live longer than ever. Isn’t that fantastic? No, because it results in higher costs for pensions and health care. At last poor countries make economic progress. Isn’t that wonderful? No, because we are now afraid that Polish plumbers and Indian programmers will take our jobs. There is always something to be scared about. In the 1970s, when temperatures were declining, we worried about a new ice age. Now they are increasing and we worry about global warming. We used to worry about everybody who was depressed, now new anti-depressant drugs have reduced suicide in rich countries by a fifth. And so we worry about so many people taking pills.