Thanos, Fertility, and the Gift of Life

"For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare"

Imagine a world where more people meant more suffering. For centuries the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus and his followers believed this was inevitable. But what if they were wrong? What if more people meant more abundance?

Seven years before Joseph Smith was born, Malthus anonymously published An Essay on the Principle of Population. At the time there were around a billion people on the planet. He predicted a growing “Scarcity Gap” between population and food resources. “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.”

Fast forward 170 years to 1968. Global population had grown to over 3.5 billion people, and Stanford biology professor Paul Ehrlich updated the Malthus theory with his international bestseller The Population Bomb, exclaiming, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

By 2018 global population had grown to 7.6 billion. Avengers: Infinity War was the highest-grossing movie that year, starring the arch-villain Thanos. He tells his adopted daughter, “It’s a simple calculus. This universe is finite, its resources finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needs correcting.” Like Malthus, Thanos frames his argument as a mathematical inevitability—implying that unchecked population growth leads inexorably to catastrophe.

Today with the global population now exceeding 8.2 billion, one might ask: What would Malthus or Ehrlich, or even Thanos, think of the divine commandment to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth? Each of these figures predicted catastrophe from population growth—fearing that more people would mean fewer resources, more suffering, and inevitable collapse. But the facts tell a much different story.

In the 1970s an obscure economist named Julian Simon read Ehrlich’s book and decided he should check the historical facts on the prices of nonrenewable resources as far back as he could find data. Quantities are interesting to economists, but prices are much more important, because prices reveal relative scarcity. What Simon discovered surprised him. As population increased, the inflation-adjusted prices of nonrenewable resources actually went down. They were becoming more abundant, not less. Simon observed a growing “Abundance Gap.” He documented his findings and published them in the journal Science. When Ehrlich read Simon’s article, he was furious. The dispute quickly became personal. Eventually, Simon challenged Ehrlich to a bet about the future. He let Ehrlich choose any nonrenewable commodity and any time frame, as long as it was over a year. In September 1980, Ehrlich selected five metals—copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten—and set the term for 10 years. The base amount of the bet was $1,000. If the inflation-adjusted prices went up, Simon would owe Ehrlich the difference. If they went down, Ehrlich would owe Simon the difference.

In early October of 1990, Simon went out to his mailbox and found an envelope with no return address. He opens it up and discovers a check for $576.07 signed by Paul Ehrlich’s wife. The inflation-adjusted prices of these five metals had fallen by 36 percent. It’s critical to note that the decade of the 1980s recorded the highest growth in human population. We added 850 million people to the planet. That was a 19 percent increase in one decade. According to Malthus, Thanos, and Ehrlich, this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Simon Abundance Index

In 2018, a study inspired by the Simon–Ehrlich bet analyzed the time prices of 50 basic commodities from 1980 to 2017. A time price measures the amount of time a person must work to earn enough money to buy a product or service. The study found that, on average, these time prices fell by 64.7 percent over the 38-year period. In other words, the time it took to buy one unit in 1980 could buy 2.83 units in 2017. According to Julian Simon, this increase in abundance occurs not despite population growth, but because of it. During the same timeframe, the world’s population grew by 69.3 percent, from 4.46 billion to 7.55 billion. When combining this population growth with increased personal abundance, the study calculated that global resource abundance rose by 379.6 percent. Every one percent increase in population corresponded with a 5.47 percent increase in global resource abundance. Simon also assumed that many people would remain oblivious to the positive changes around them. As he noted in an interview a year before he died, “This is my long-run forecast in brief: The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely . . . . I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse.”

Poor Until 1820

In 1999 the Wall Street Journal asked the distinguished British economist Angus Maddison to write an article about economics and the new millennium. Maddison was recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the measurement and analysis of economic growth and development. The title of his article was “Poor Until 1820.” He notes that for thousands of years, the average human life condition was one of grinding poverty. No matter where you lived—China, Europe, Africa, or the Americas—your standard of living barely budged from one generation to the next. Then, around 1820, something extraordinary happened. With the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the engines of sustained economic growth roared to life—first in Western Europe, then gradually across the globe. Incomes rose. Life expectancy increased. Education spread. Humanity began to break free from the historical trap of subsistence living. Maddison’s core insight is both sobering and inspiring: nearly all the progress we enjoy today—modern medicine, abundant food, mass communication, and widespread prosperity—is the product of just the last 200 years.

The world didn’t slowly climb out of poverty—it catapulted out, once growth began. Economists call these kinds of charts hockey sticks. Horizontal for a long time and then almost vertical.

Our World in Data has produced a number of charts conveniently starting in 1820:

Why did this happen? Julian Simon argues that once the global population hit the threshold of one billion, progress went exponential. We experienced “Sudden Modern Progress”—dramatic improvements in life expectancy, literacy, and living standards—driven primarily by population growth and technological advancements. He sees larger populations as a blessing, providing more minds to innovate and solve problems, leading to breakthroughs that benefit all.

Not only has the population increased, life expectancy has also increased. In 1800 it was estimated at 28.5 years; today it is closer to 73.2 years.

You can combine these two factors into “life-years.” We went from 28.5 billion in 1800 to 600 billion in 2024, giving us 21 times more life-years than 1800.

Wealth is Knowledge

The economist George Gilder argues that wealth is knowledge—not gold, not oil, and not even money. It is knowledge that drives growth, creates value, and transforms atoms into resources. Without knowledge, atoms have no economic value. Gilder notes that the difference between our age and the Stone Age isn’t the materials available to us—we have the same atoms today that Adam and Eve had. The difference lies entirely in the knowledge we now possess and can apply to those atoms.

To illustrate the difference between atoms and knowledge, let’s try a quick two-question quiz:

Question 1: How many keys are on a piano? If you said 88, congratulations—you get an A.

Question 2: How many songs are in a piano? If you asked Thanos, he would say, “There are 88 keys, so there must be 88 songs.” This is actually a trick question—there are no songs in a piano. Songs don’t exist in the instrument itself. They exist in the minds of human beings. And the number of possible songs approaches infinity. The keys are atoms; the songs are knowledge. A piano without songs has no value—just as raw materials without human creativity and innovation remain inactive potential. It’s the organization or arrangement of atoms that makes them valuable. Since resources are the product of knowledge, and there are no limits to the amount of undiscovered knowledge, resources can be infinite.

Light Burst Forth in Astonishing Abundance

“I saw a pillar of light” - Joseph Smith

Nobel prize-winning economist William Nordhaus reported that earning the money to buy one hour of light in 1830 required around three hours of labor. Today with advanced LED technology one hour of light costs less than 1/13th of a second of work time. For the time it took to earn the money to buy one hour of light in 1830, you get over 146,980 hours today. Since 1830, every one percent increase in population corresponded to a 22,474 percent increase in light abundance. Compared to the abundant light of our world today, all of our ancestors really did live in the dark ages.

The Agency to Innovate

Deirdre McCloskey, in her Bourgeois Trilogy, argues that the “Great Enrichment” came not from accumulating capital or designing better institutions, but from something more cultural: a newfound respect for the common innovator. Societies began to honor merchants, entrepreneurs, and tinkerers—those who created value for others. In her view, prosperity flourished when dignity and liberty were extended to those who used their minds and hands to improve life. While these insights are valuable, modern revelation offers a deeper explanation—one that reaches beyond economics and into the eternal, and adds a divine perspective.

In 1834, with just over one billion people on the planet, the average person lived on around $2 a day in today’s dollars. That year the Lord declared through the Prophet Joseph Smith: “For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves” (Doctrine and Covenants 104:17). This sacred verse reframes the question of abundance. The earth’s resources are not the limiting factor—human agency is.

The Savior affirmed this truth when he said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Interestingly, the word “scarcity” is never found in the scriptures—yet “abundance” appears 78 times. Both spiritual and temporal abundance are gifts extended through Christ—but they require our active participation. Through agency, we choose to seek, learn, and create. It is this divine capacity to act—not just to be acted upon—that unlocks innovation and transforms scarcity into abundance. Without agency, there is no innovation—and without innovation, there is no sustained prosperity.

This principle is eternally significant. In the premortal council in heaven, Satan rebelled against God and sought to destroy the agency of man. For that rebellion, he and his followers were cast out. Agency was worth the war in heaven because agency is essential to becoming like our Heavenly Father. Where agency is honored, abundance follows.

We can define innovation as the discovery and sharing of valuable new knowledge. The last 200 years have really been the Age of Innovation. It’s as if knowledge is being poured out on the earth.

We’re All Billionaires

Knowledge products such as our smartphones have made us all billionaires. When someone spends a billion dollars to create a product that millions can use at once, what does that make us? As economist Paul Romer observed, knowledge is non-rivalrous—unlike a Snickers bar, we can all consume knowledge at the same time without it being diminished.

This principle is deeply aligned with gospel truth. God’s creations are abundant, not scarce. Many modern innovations—like software, music, or medical breakthroughs—require enormous effort to create but can be shared freely once developed. The more people there are, the more minds and hands are available to create and share these blessings. It’s because of our growing population and our increasing specialization that we enjoy more variety, lower costs, and higher quality of life than ever before.

As Latter-day Saints, we believe in eternal progression and the divine nature of human potential. When we multiply and replenish the earth—not just with people, but with knowledge and goodness—we participate in God’s great work of creation and joy.

Not Enough People

Returning to our original question about the relationship between resources and population: All of the evidence suggests that for every one percent increase in population, we see a three to four percent increase in personal resource abundance. In other words, we’re discovering knowledge and innovating faster than we’re adding people.

So what about our rate of adding people? For human civilization to sustain itself, the average woman must have at least 2.1 children. Today, the global fertility rate stands at 2.25—but in developed countries, it’s well below replacement. The U.S. rate is 1.62, Mexico is 1.9 and Canada is just 1.4. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region with growing population momentum—Nigeria, for example, is at 4.48.

What about Utah? While Utah’s fertility rate is higher than the national average, it’s still below replacement at 1.8. At this rate, Utah’s population would shrink by half within four generations.

This is a real problem—but it’s one we can solve by once again placing family at the top of our cultural value hierarchy.

As Pope Francis urged in 2024, “The birth rate is the first indicator of the hope of a people . . . . In the past, there was no lack of studies and theories warning about the number of inhabitants on earth, because the birth of too many children would have created economic imbalances, a lack of resources, and pollution. I was always struck by how these theses, now long outdated, spoke of human beings as if they were problems. But human life is not a problem, it is a gift.”

This essay is an edited version of an article that previously appeared in Alive and Intelligent.

Gale Pooley is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and co-author of Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet.

Art by George Bellows (1882–1925).