please help a welcome robin hanson. [applause] >> i'm going to give a short talk and we'll have lots of time for questions, and i know there will be lots of questions, so get them ready. now reading unless you beg me. this is all of history on one graph. on the x. axis is log rhythm of time, sometime in the near future for all fits. on the y. axis is the growth rate of the human economy and of other things before. notice it looks like a staircase. humans started 1 million years ago and double roughly every quarter million years at a steady rate and then there was a sudden transition. when the growth rate jumped up by a factor of more than 50, having farmers a double roughly every 1000 years. that happened about 10,000 years ago. been 200 years ago there was another transition from the industrial revolution. and then the growth rate again jumped up in less than a doubling time to be doubling every 15 years. that's what it's been doing for the last few centuries. if this trend were to continue then sometime in the next ce

john: the bureaucrats keep changing her mind 12 years ago they asked robin hanson to create a marketrtment of defense heard that these markets were interesting and doing powerful things and they said show us. we are going to. develop predict events in the middle east to people immediately started to bet but we never got that far. john: the idea of people betting on when there might be terrorism horrified politicians. >> i think this is unbelievably stupid. it needs to be stopped immediately. john: it was, the very next day. >> the secretary of defense declared the project at. john: the pentagon is to deprived of predictions that might save lives. >> ople are wary of what we bet on death. john: politicians protect us from truth. >> they are very adept at watching out for things that might worry voters. >> coming up next, the the robot car. this will save lives if this will save lives if government this will save lives if government i've spent my life planting a size-six, non-slip shoe into that door. on this side, i want my customers to relax and enjoy themselves. but these days it's

hello and welcome to robin hanson at the 18th annual fall for the book festival. we appreciate your attendance today. our festival runs through september 30 so for the most up-to-date information on the vessel including a calendar please visit also the.org. fall for the book touches on committees throughout the year two of the programming such as the rice and school program come the new leaves writers conference and the alumni run feminist literary press gazing grain just to name a few.