Malthusians?

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

How many of you are Malthusians? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about people who believe in the teachings and philosophies of people like Thomas Malthus and his “Essay on Principle of Population”. Are people like this really welcome here?

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

“It is an evident truth that, whatever may be the rate of increase in the means of subsistence, the increase in population must be limited by it, at least after the food has been divided into the smallest shares that will support life. All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons. … To act consistently, therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavouring to impede, the operation of nature in producing this mortality, and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use.

Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases: and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. If by these and similar means the annual mortality were increased … we might probably every one of us marry at the age of puberty and yet few be absolutely starved.” – Thomas Malthus

[RoyDalParticipant]

Malthus was correct in this: All populations of animals that increase their numbers exponentially suffer a catastrophic population decline.
The human species is on the upside of the exponential increase of its population (that’s us, men). The catastrophic decline will come. There is no way out of this.

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[Jan SobieskiParticipant 28791]

I’m not too deep into it but he was basically right about eating, s~~~ting, and f~~~ing ourselves into destruction. He forgot about technology. That gave us an extra 300 years.

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[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

Malthus has been wrong, so far — technology has outpaced population growth and we’ve been able to feed everyone. Much depends on productivity/yield per acre of farmland. Furthermore, technology has afforded birth control. If you look at countries in Western Europe, they are barely at replacement levels with some in decline. China’s population growth is also slowing. Richer countries tend to have lower reproduction rates — so, the rise of the ‘rest’ (Asia, South America) economically, may mean decreased population growth.

Overall, population growth RATE has been in decline for almost 50 years — it’s nearly HALVED. So, while it is true world population has doubled in my lifetime, its rate of growth has slowed significantly. Problem is, we don’t know if it’s going to continue to drop, stay the same, or increase. If the current trend continues, world population will actually *decline* some time after it peaks. See https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/World-Population-1800-2100.svg

[HitmanParticipant]

Veniversum wrote:

Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations

that’s some harsh stuff .what about better birth control ? limits to family sizes etc ..sounds better than a slow death in filth and disease ..

[Elric GreenstoneParticipant 1637]

The population is declining in every civilized country on Earth.

One side effect of feminism is a quickly decreasing population. For a population to remain stable, couples must exist and produce 2.1 children each, more or less.

It’s unclear how far below this replacement rate the West and civilized world has fallen, but it’s a lot. Countries have also taken to lying about these statistics to the extent that they can, so as to hide the structural weaknesses in their various pension schemes. Official statistics are incompetently gathered and dishonestly reported, so, really, who knows.

I’ve heard that Spain is actually at .9, and Japan is at .7. I have no idea if this is true or not, but I’d believe it. Assuming 30% of Japan is herbivore, and most Japanese have one child . . . it’s possible.

Earth’s population keeps increasing largely because of Africa, India, and South America. The Muslim world has already started its decline from its peak.

Note there may still be an increase before a decline because of generational lag (ex: China).

Depressed societies stop making babies. Life in Europe has sucked for some time; it was likewise in the Soviet Union. Any society that starts giving bonuses out to make babies has problems (Bachelor Tax in Ancient Rome, etc.).

That said, Africa is a train wreck. Much of South America is awful. Hell, Detroit is a ruin. So anything is possible. We live in a declining civilization whose old systems are broken . . . which is why we’re all on this web zone, so to speak.

*shrug* Dunno.

"You can either love women, or understand women. You can't do both. Because once you understand women, you realize that there is really nothing to love."

[TheroniusParticipant 975]

I think Malthus was too simplistic and too dismissive of man’s ability to adapt and make progress, especially where people of color were concerned. The huge famines have not come, just the usual localized politics-driven ones, Food riots have been hard to find.
With the advent of reliable birth control The world average fertility rate is half what it was in ’60, and falling. It is still above replacement level, but falling, The countries with the highest birth rates are the poorest countries. If they get their s~~~ together world population will probably start shrinking pretty soon. Of course, something may come along to kill a whole bunch of people anyway, a nice plague maybe or a massive religious war,.
In 100 years almost all of the people alive today will be dead. What the population will be by then… who knows.

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[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

Elric Greenstone wrote:

The population is declining in every civilized country on Earth.

Population continues to rise in many ‘civilized’ countries. In my lifetime, population has grown every year in the US; even though fertility rate here is about 1.9, well below the 2.1 required for a stable population. That is due to immigration.

I’d call countries such as India (replacement rate 2.5) civilized.

I’d say it’s pretty clear where every nation lies on fertility rate, though numbers are probably less reliable for less developed countries.

China is already below replacement. You are correct in that age distribution impacts growth; this is referred to as the population pyramid; in developing countries, it’s shaped like a triangle, with lots of young at the base and few older citizens at the pinnacle. In the developed world, it’s steep; the average age is higher.

I would argue decreased fertility rates are due to increased access to birth control, changes in cultural norms, and declining economic opportunities for the young. Decreases in infant mortality rates have also played a role in less developed countries.

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