You should detract from the author's point, because it only works if you are largely ignorant of how things like this actually happens. It is essentially always not generics, but specifics. Specific people doing specific things in specific places with specific technology and culture. Without knowing much of the "extreme climbing community" I would bet that it is a rather specific group of people and largely non-existent outside of that.

The author is largely trying to sell exceptionalism. That everything will be fine with generic improvements. Yet, of course that isn't true. Both state of technology and the economy is probably better than ever yet deliver less and less value. Chances are people like Alex Honnold did it despite of the policies of this economist.

> And now, the technology of the internet. Each new idea in rock climbing is accessible quickly all over the world. Without that large group of interested people, this communal knowledge would not have advanced so far. [The Article]

> After a year, he dropped out of Berkeley and spent time living at home and driving around California to go climbing. "I'd wound up with my mom's old minivan, and that was my base," he said. "I'd use it to drive to Joshua Tree to climb or I'd drive to LA to see my girlfriend. My orbit was tiny and really cheap. I destroyed that van fairly quickly; it died on me one day, and for the next year I lived just on my bicycle and in a tent." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold