There is a widespread belief that the present standard of living of the advanced countries is not sustainable and not extendable to the present backward countries. We don't agree. This exposition mainly concerns scientific and technological bases for optimism rather than the historical and economic arguments advanced by Julian Simon. John makes a lot in his pages, about being open to other people's comments, but as friends have experienced he goes very quite when his argument fails. John's definition of 'Progress' is little like a self-fulfilling prophecy, settle on your answer before defining your term.
People often get into arguments about what constitutes progress.
Some say that what others regard as progress is not progress at all. We bypass these arguments by considering a country or a section of a country to have progressed if people who have a choice move to it and adopt its ways - revealed preference, the economists call it. We give short shrift to arguments that people didn't know what they were doing when they made their choices. According to revealed preference, America is the most progressive country. So far as I know there is no other country that has more immigrants from America than America has immigrants from that country.