Throughout the Seventies, organizations like the Club of Rome and Zero

Population Growth had been raising the specter of Malthus: too many people, not enough food, land, or breathable air. And throughout that decade Mr. Simon had been arguing--as he does here, pugnaciously but with a wealth of detail--that the answer to Malthus is the human mind, human resourcefulness. As Mr. Buckley glosses it, "If you don't have copper for telephone lines, but you do have satellites that transmit messages, you're as well off as if you had an infinite supply of copper." JS: "I think that we should confine ourselves to that horizon over which our planning may make some important difference, and I think that thinking of what may happen two or three hundred years from now is far, far beyond that."