Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
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Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
1–10 of 32 posts
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#2> Something clearly operated to keep human population in check before its explosion over the last couple of centuries. But it was generally not starvation. The real problem is that population growth begets population density, and population density, in the absence of sanitation, antiobiotics, and other checks on infection, begets disease and death
That's an interesting opinion, but how does that model explains why eastern Asian countries (where rice was available) where able to achieve and sustain far higher population density than areas fed by wheat?
Also, pre-modern cities like Rome or Baghdad where much more densely populated than the average and have seen such population level for centuries, which means than population density in the rural world was far lower than some hypothetical limit level.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#3Here I was hoping that this would be about Verhulst's improvements to Malthus' work. Verhulst's logistic equation still gets used today.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#4London was pretty dense when the black death reduced the population. Disease had not prevented it from reaching that density.
A problem of more land under cultivation is food transport.
Another mechanism of population control is warfare. A predisposition for war, and conquest of land, avoided food shortages in the first place - for the victors. In short: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse maintained carrying capacity. Another, rarely practiced, was infanticide.
This is increasingly being solved with contraceptives. Note that TV, internet, video games, wealth and education have contraceptive effect.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#5Here I was hoping that this would be about Verhulst's improvements to Malthus' work. Verhulst's logistic equation still gets used today.
If you were to state what Verhulst’s insights were, you might start a conversation about this.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#6Here I was hoping that this would be about Verhulst's improvements to Malthus' work. Verhulst's logistic equation still gets used today.
If you were to state what Verhulst’s insights were, you might start a conversation about this.
Apparently they are these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function#In_ecology:_...
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#7> Something clearly operated to keep human population in check before its explosion over the last couple of centuries. But it was generally not starvation. The real problem is that population growth begets population density, and population density, in the absence of sanitation, antiobiotics, and other checks on infection, begets disease and death That's an interesting opinion, but how does that model explains why ea…
The article does say that Rome required some level of constant migration into the city to maintain it's population.
I can't speak to how true that is but it might explain the population numbers.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#8> Something clearly operated to keep human population in check before its explosion over the last couple of centuries. But it was generally not starvation. The real problem is that population growth begets population density, and population density, in the absence of sanitation, antiobiotics, and other checks on infection, begets disease and death That's an interesting opinion, but how does that model explains why ea…
And let's not forget that malnutrition causes disease.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#9London was pretty dense when the black death reduced the population. Disease had not prevented it from reaching that density. A problem of more land under cultivation is food transport. Another mechanism of population control is warfare. A predisposition for war, and conquest of land, avoided food shortages in the first place - for the victors. In short: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse maintained carrying capacit…
> Another, rarely practiced, was infanticide.
Rarely practiced? Infanticide was extremely common in all premodern societies.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#10> Something clearly operated to keep human population in check before its explosion over the last couple of centuries. But it was generally not starvation. The real problem is that population growth begets population density, and population density, in the absence of sanitation, antiobiotics, and other checks on infection, begets disease and death That's an interesting opinion, but how does that model explains why ea…
> Asian countries (where rice was available) where able to achieve and sustain far higher population density than areas fed by wheat
Do you have any sources/data for that point? I’m curious why rice would impact population density differently than wheat.