With all the trouble in the world, optimism is a hard sell these days — so let me remind you of Simon’s paradox.
I’m referring, of course, to Julian Simon (1932–1998), the grand old man of development optimism. In the 1970s, he became hugely controversial for challenging the environmentalist belief in impending apocalypse. While many predicted overpopulation, Simon argued that in the long run, we might actually face underpopulation. Where others saw malnutrition, he believed markets could create abundance. He didn’t deny environmental problems — far from it — but he believed that human curiosity and innovation could solve them, so long as humanity remained free.
Simon’s conviction stemmed from a fundamental insight into human nature. “Adding more people causes problems,” he admitted, “but people are also the means to solve these problems. The main fuel to speed our progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brake is our lack of imagination. The ultimate resource is people — skilled, spirited, and hopeful people who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit — and inevitably they will benefit not only themselves but the rest of us as well.”
According to Simon, we will always encounter problems — both because of the unintended consequences of our actions and because nature is full of surprises. Yet it is precisely these challenges that compel us to increase our efforts, expand our knowledge, and invent new solutions. This growing body of knowledge and innovation doesn’t just help us address immediate problems; it also improves our standard of living and broadens our opportunities in the long term.
Simon arrived at this perspective by studying scarcity. As a resource begins to dwindle, its price rises. This signals an opportunity — prompting investors and entrepreneurs to find alternative ways to meet demand. A few succeed, discovering substitutes or inventing entirely new methods that bypass the resource altogether. This is how we moved from whale oil to petroleum, from guano to artificial fertilizer, and from low-yield crops to genetically improved varieties. Because these innovations are often better and cheaper, Simon concluded that “the final result is that we end up better off than if the original shortage problems had never arisen.”
Simon’s paradox offers a powerful reason for optimism, even in times of crisis. Optimism doesn’t mean denying problems; it means recognizing that, as long as humanity remains free to experiment, adapt, and innovate, some of us will discover remarkable solutions to the inevitable challenges we face. In fact, those challenges might even make us better off in the end. What doesn’t kill us may truly make us stronger — not in a macho, Nietzschean way, but in a more nerdy, lab-coated, Silicon Valley kind of way.
Just look at the pandemic. It was horrible — millions of lives lost, precious liberties suspended. But I dare to suggest that one of its long-term outcomes will be a medical revolution that benefits humanity long after the memory of the pandemic fades. A revolution that might one day save more lives each year than COVID-19 claimed in total.
This revolution is grounded in mRNA technology — a field that, until recently, wasn’t considered especially promising. Drug companies largely ignored it, regulators considered it too risky, and research funding was scarce. One of the pioneers in the field, Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó, lost a senior position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995 because she couldn’t secure research grants. She had to accept a pay cut and continue in a junior position. Eventually, she left to join an obscure German biotech startup as Senior Vice President. “When I told the university that I was leaving, they laughed at me and said, ‘BioNTech doesn’t even have a website,’” she later recalled.
Of course, BioNTech went on to partner with Pfizer to develop the first effective COVID-19 vaccine — a breakthrough that likely saved millions of lives. The urgency of the pandemic opened regulatory doors that might have otherwise remained closed for years. Without that crisis, how long would it have taken for mRNA vaccines to reach the public?
But this brings us back to Simon’s Paradox. In the long run, the most important outcome is not just the problems we solve, but the knowledge we gain and the technologies we learn to master in the process. Viruses are so effective because they hijack our cells, turning them into tiny virus factories. What’s so extraordinary about mRNA technology is that it flips the script — it uses the same mechanism to our advantage, sending genetic instructions to our bodies so that our own cells begin producing proteins that fight viruses and other diseases.
The potential is enormous. In 2021 alone, nearly four million people died of COVID-19. But each year, a similar number die from other respiratory infections that mRNA-based treatments might one day prevent. And that’s just the beginning. With new mRNA instructions, we may be able to target bacterial infections, autoimmune disorders, cancer, and rare genetic diseases. The only real limits are imagination, financing, and regulatory support — and the last two have been jolted into action by the pandemic. The success of the COVID vaccine means Karikó will never again struggle to fund her research. The field is now experiencing a gold rush, with pharmaceutical companies competing fiercely for talent and lab space.
“It is a revolution in terms of the medicines you can imagine — and also produce and test very quickly,” says molecular biologist Pieter Cullis. There’s still a long way to go. This is only the beginning. But early results from animal studies are promising, and numerous clinical trials are already underway, targeting everything from cancer to yellow fever, Zika, and HIV. As Scientific American wrote, “it is no exaggeration to say that this could change everything.”
This is Simon’s Paradox in action: even amid immense suffering and global crisis, human curiosity and innovation can prevail — and offer real hope for a better future. Julian Simon once said, “we need our problems,” though he was quick to add that this didn’t mean we should go looking for more. Life provides plenty as it is.
