This is a bizarre article and is so deliberately perhaps. It would seem to stem from the base assumption that the Industrial Revolution is unsustainable and that there is some "natural state" where human beings stop improving the world and just... blank out. I am not sure if I am upset about the article, or just confused as to how the author could find it in himself to present the anti-industrial perspective as a necessary fate. The quote that comes to mind is one of Peikoff's (about axioms): "[H]e blanks out the fact that he has accepted it by uttering that sentence, that the only way to reject it is to shut one’s mouth, expound no theories and die." The thought that improving life somehow fatalistically produces its antithesis is quite contrary to every fundamental tenet of Objectivism and to common sense Aristotelianism as well. After all, A is A. And knowledge is contextual. We will not, having discovered science and industry, negate it - we can only modify the definition as new information becomes available. I am no economist, but I think it stands to argument that growth is necessary even for a static population to improve its lot. Thoughts?