Calling Malthus wrong may be slightly better than Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_L... I mean people love to extrapolate from the recent trend. Genes compete not on a time scale that individuals likely appreciate. Yes for us mere mortals we will all be dead in the long term so the outcome may be immaterial. But I wouldn't bet against math in the long term even if no one now alive will be around to collect the winnings.
Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
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Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#12> Ronald Barrett and colleagues from the Department of Anthropology at Emory University in Atlanta have gone as far as to suggest that the emergence and re-emergence of disease threats owing to globalization and antibiotic resistance is a sign that we’re entering a “third epidemiologic transition” comparable to the rise of infection at the dawn of civilization and its fall in the last century and a half.
That is an ominous prediction. This coupled with climate change makes the future look pretty bleak. No wonder Bill Gates works so hard on these problems.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#13As a complete layman, with no study in this area, his description of a reservoir made be think of oil. Our current technological progress is heavily dependant on oil - not just for cars, but more importantly cargo ships, trains and aircraft. At some point hundreds of years perhaps from now, it will run out. And that may change the equation somewhat.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#14As a complete layman, with no study in this area, his description of a reservoir made be think of oil. Our current technological progress is heavily dependant on oil - not just for cars, but more importantly cargo ships, trains and aircraft. At some point hundreds of years perhaps from now, it will run out. And that may change the equation somewhat.
We are currently running out of atmosphere to dump the CO2 from burning the oil into.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#15As a complete layman, with no study in this area, his description of a reservoir made be think of oil. Our current technological progress is heavily dependant on oil - not just for cars, but more importantly cargo ships, trains and aircraft. At some point hundreds of years perhaps from now, it will run out. And that may change the equation somewhat.
We are currently running out of atmosphere to dump the CO2 from burning the oil into.
That's an interesting way to phrase it. If the atmosphere were going to saturate in a way that would prevent combustion from even happening that would be a very interesting scenario.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#16> 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…
It's believed that an Icelandic volcanic eruption for 20 years caused the Bronze Age extinction of most European cities around 1200 BC. Almost everybody starved to death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse
The Bronze Age Collapse - Mediterranean Apocalypse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prlK8iY7blk
Around 1300 AD, there was a century with 10 bubonic plagues.
Byzantium - Last of the Romans (Part 1 of 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JHCfe86A8U
At the moment, China imports about 50% of its food, which is not sustainable.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#17> 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…
When people are chronically malnourished and undernourished, they succumb to one of the many diseases swirling around. Infectious diseases or deficiency diseases or parasites.
Periods labelled "famines" were not all that common, but much of the population was living in a sub-acute famine much the time, primarily for political reasons (power imbalances, unelightened decision-makers).
> how does that model explains why eastern Asian [rice-growing areas] ... where able to achieve and sustain far higher population density [than the Eurocentric examples in OP].
The average densities were higher, but until the 20th century, with Beijing* as the primary exception, big cities were in Western Asia, North Africa, and Europe.[1] Many infectious diseases probably need "point" (small area) population sizes greater than those of the villages prevalent in rice-growing areas to take hold.
Rice rulers could afford to burn a village to the ground if there were reports of spreading sickness in it. They'd only lose a small fraction of their tax base, which would soon be replaced. Rulers of large cities, not so much.
Why did rice-growing areas have villages while wheat areas developed cities? I don't know. Possibly something to do with wheat being being grown in drier areas so it could be stored for years without rotting, making large centralised granaries possible.
* And a few other North China cities. I know very little about Beijing, but I don't think the climate there is suitable for rice.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_through...
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#18As a complete layman, with no study in this area, his description of a reservoir made be think of oil. Our current technological progress is heavily dependant on oil - not just for cars, but more importantly cargo ships, trains and aircraft. At some point hundreds of years perhaps from now, it will run out. And that may change the equation somewhat.
We are currently running out of atmosphere to dump the CO2 from burning the oil into.
The CO2 content of the athmosphere is actually not that high, nor will it be at the end of the century even if we don't reduce global emissions. The problem is that it is quite enough already to cause climate change. Which would also not be such a big deal if not coupled with large-scale destruction of ecosystems and our dependence on non-renewable resources.
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are currently running out of atmosphere to dump the CO2 from burning the oil into.
That's an interesting way to phrase it. If the atmosphere were going to saturate in a way that would prevent combustion from even happening that would be a very interesting scenario.
if you are thinking along the lines of atmosphere saturation to a point of not being able to support combustion, then i guess "living" organisms who depend on oxygen would be long gone by then
Re: Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake
#20> 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.
Sure: https://acoup.blog/2020/09/04/collections-bread-how-did-they...
As usual with Bret Devereaux, this is quite a long read.