Technology: More With Less
Innovation isn't just good economics. It's good stewardship.
by Rod D. Martin
July 19, 2015
The infographic below (thank you Cato Institute) is a shocking testament to how technology is making our lives cheaper, better and cleaner by "dematerializing" them.
Lots of folks think technology is destroying us, polluting the world and improving our lives marginally if at all. But take a look at this chart. The cost of the many items replaced -- all by just one device -- is far, far higher, meaning that now vastly more people can have the functionality them all.
Less money for the same (or better) stuff = more disposable income = more wealth and a better standard of living for everyone. And likewise, all the physical, manufactured things we used to need meant more pollution: now we have far more, using far less, resulting in a much cleaner environment despite billions more people than when I was born.
Innovation is good, nay great, stewardship. It is also the ever-advancing creation of universal abundance (or what Christians might call "pushing back the Cu…