# Five metals, ten years, 800 million more people. Dearer or cheaper?

- Series: [The Better Guess](https://miu.fm/thebetterguess.md)
- Published: 2026-10-19
- Page: https://miu.fm/thebetterguess/five-metals-ten-years-800-million-more-people-dearer-or

## Story

Five metals, ten years, 800 million more people. Dearer or cheaper?

In 1798 Thomas Malthus wrote that people multiply, 1, 2, 4, 8, while food only adds, 1, 2, 3, 4. In 1968 Paul Ehrlich warned of mass famine. The economist Julian Simon disagreed: if something really runs out, its price will rise. He offered a bet.

In 1980 Ehrlich and two colleagues picked chromium, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten: $200 of each, on paper, for ten years. The world gained more than 800 million people. After inflation, all five metals got cheaper, and tin lost more than half its price. In the autumn of 1990 Ehrlich mailed Simon a check for $576.07, with a sheet of calculations and no letter. High prices had sent people looking: new mines, better refining, aluminium cans instead of tin.

But economists later replayed the bet for every ten-year window from 1900 to 2008. Ehrlich would have won about six times in ten. Same data, different window, different winner: before you trust a forecast, ask which years it was tested on.

The block sizes, the check and the price line in the video are our drawings. The bet was on paper, and nothing here is investment advice.

So, which way did you pick?

Sources: Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798; John Tierney, "Betting on the Planet", New York Times Magazine, 2 December 1990; Paul Sabin, The Bet, 2013; Kiel, Matheson and Golembiewski, "Luck or skill? An examination of the Ehrlich-Simon bet", Ecological Economics 69, 2010.
Sounds: our own, made in code (earshot, CC0).

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