My friend Jillian Horowitz sent me a link to Freakanomic’s podcast about the future of meat. There, you learn about Pat Brown’s Heme journey and Mike Seldan tackling the fish problem.
At the end of the interview, an interesting topic appeared. Somehow, the host was talking about wizards and prophets!
What was described is that the wizard is someone who can turn any problem into a solution, while the prophet is someone who tells everyone to cut back.
Being a huge fantasy nerd, I found this really cool and looked more into the topic. Apparently, there was a book that was published last year of the same discussion: The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World
So I downloaded it. The monster 17-hour audiobook that took me a month and 3 business trips to finish.
It quickly rose up to my top 3 favorite books.
What this book unveils are two hardcore philosophies about the world we live in. The wizard strives to use technology to solve the world’s problems and the prophet strives to cut back, to be within the natural biological limits. These two solutions are ever-present in the world and will become more prevalent as climate change becomes a more ever-present topic.
The Two Philosophies, based off of two scientists
Mann introduces us to two scientists: William Vogt and Dr. Norman Borlaug or in the book, the Prophet and the Wizard respectively.
Both scientists had two completely different upbringings and international opportunities which shifted their perspectives into what is now known as a philosophy.
Though Mann talks about these two people in full detail, here’s the cliff notes version.
Vogt grew up without a father, had a terrible crippling disease, and was contracted to investigate why guano was disappearing from Peru. He realized it was a man-made issue and spent the rest of his life telling everyone that what man was doing was ruining the world because the ecosystem became out of whack. He eventually published the book, Road to Survival.
Borlaug grew up in a rural farm town in the United States, stumbled into getting a doctorate in agriculture, and then he would be assigned to go to Mexico, where he would work on the impossible task of growing wheat for Mexico and succeeded in developing a wheat strain that would feed billions all over the world. Borlaug won the Nobel peace prize for this.
In essence, Vogt believed that man had to cut back for the ecosystem to be balanced and advocated for population control, non-GMO or organic food and had a great disdain on capitalism.
Borlaug started the green revolution and believed that the technology of improving the yield of wheat allowed him to feed 1 billion people. People who would otherwise would have starved to death.
I do not do justice by summarizing these two in this article. The bulk of the book by Mann does more than enough when talking about them.
But perhaps through these two philosophies and the ever-changing food landscape, you can see that there are different parties when it comes to innovating food.
It’s Complicated
If you were in Borlaug’s position or making the decision that you could either feed the world or not, would you? In the short term, you’re saving millions of lives. In the long term, you might have done long term damage to the whole planet,
If you were under a policy inspired by Vogt, would you be happy living below your means, reducing everything, from money, to travel, to even having kids for the sake of the planet?
Which is a better Philosophy? The Wizard or the Prophet?
Two case studies that Mann brought up reflect how both were initially good ideas, can end up being harmful to society and the planet.
The prophet’s philosophy leads to the population bomb, which is an omen that we need to stop producing people or the world’s resources run out. This hysterical event eventually sterilized millions of people. The 1 child policy from China is one example of the repercussions of the prophet’s ideology.
For the wizard, a huge issue is that because of Borlaug’s wheat success, people have to use more and more fertilizer to drain the soil and the problems amplify for the simple reason that we have to feed more people. What happens is a dangerous spiral of keeping up with adding fertilizer to feed an ever-growing world. The callback effect is now research into regenerative agriculture.
These of course, are case studies of how each philosophy can be dangerous.
I’m sure you know prophets and wizards in your network.
The wizard favors nuclear energy, electric cars, and geoforming.
The prophet favors biking, zero waste, birth control.
One of the underlying issues that Mann brings up is that though there are reports and reports about climate change doom, we might not have the right proof. Arguments about animal feed and how many oil barrels are in the Earth have statistics all over the place, with a new statistic popping up every big conference. Based off of the data, we are actually not sure if the world is in danger or not. Statistical modeling can be completely wrong because certain variables are not analyzed. This is actually the flaw of scientists. The scientist removes all unwanted variables and implements rational thought in modeling but the world is complicated and most of the times, the factors that they remove are the factors that make their logic not work in real life.
Another issue that is brought up in the book is that naturally, humans can’t think long term. It’s hard enough thinking about how to retire comfortably, now think about the sacrifices you have to make to make sure your grandkids live comfortably as well! For most people, the convenient way is the best way but that causes a lot of problems in the world we live in. The chances of a normal human being cutting back for environmental reasons is really low just because in terms of short-term livelihood, we can’t rationalize the sacrifice to help kids that don’t exist.
But What About Food?
But now since food is becoming a hot topic, a statement about how we want to feed the world, what side are we on? Mann’s book didn’t bring up food processing as much as I wanted.
Is the flexitarian diet a prophet philosophy? Is clean meat a wizard philosophy?
Is eating grass-fed beef a prophet philosophy or do you have to go further by being vegan or growing your own beans?
Well, all I can say is that it’s complicated
Just like many things in life, prophets and wizards lie on a spectrum. There are some who are extreme cases, and you’ve probably met them in your life. As more environmental issues happen, these philosophies will grow and grow.
However, some fundamentals reasoning, is that you need to treat these two philosophies as polar opposites. It is very hard for the two extremes to get along.
You can’t sell wizard products to prophets, it’s hard for prophet products to satisfy our current standard of living.
But now since food is becoming a hot topic, a statement, and an identity, it’s now more important than ever to understand that there are different philosophies in approaching the world’s problem
It’s all a Spectrum
You most likely embody the two philosophies in every choice you make. You probably have a wizard’s cellphone, a wizard’s driving app, a prophet’s diet, and a prophet’s waste system. Or follow the prophet’s philosophy on birth control and the wizard’s philosophy of traveling on an airplane. Or perhaps the other way around. In most situations, you are probably not doing these things for environmental causes.
Food will play a huge part of this as every item and every product follows either a prophet philosophy or a wizard’s philosophy. The main point out of all of this is to recognize that there are two philosophies in motion in the world today and to recognize it so that eventually you can make a rational, informed decision on what philosophy you want to join to save the world.
Mann does not give any solutions in this book, just compelling, yet nuanced case studies. We still don’t know the right answer to which philosophy has made the world better, and we might not know what it will be in the future, but recognizing that there are two possible, diverging paths will help you in your path to create what you think will benefit the Earth.
