Megan J. McArdle

Effectively, they'd have been reaching forward in time and taking almost everything we have in order to enrich themselves.

Now, obviously, that's not how they understood what they were doing, but it would have been true just the same.

So picture that, really picture it.

A spinner sells a few spools of thread, and suddenly you don't have a car.

A weaver sells a hand-loom cloak, and oops!

There go your refrigerator, your essential heating and your college education.

A whole suit of clothes, and thousands of kids just died of preventable disease.

So when you're tempted to halt the innovation that might compete for your job, you have to ask yourself, how much am I willing to steal from my grandkids?

I mean, from everyone's grandkids.

Now, I know some people in the audience are probably thinking, but that's different.

We already have it really good.

We've got airplanes and mRNA vaccines and HBO.

But of course, a Luddite would have thought the same thing.

They couldn't have imagined a future in which the average worker is literally leading a healthier and more comfortable life than 19th-century royalty.

Others might be asking quite reasonably, but what about global warming and endangered species?

I mean, is progress really all that great?

Well, I'd ask you to remember your last trip to the dentist and then reimagine it without the Novocaine.

Now, I know the obvious retort.

That's a libertarian canard.

You can want modern medicine without wanting us to have burned all that coal.