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My ancestors thought it was okay to have kids during times in which many scholars where certain the apocalypse was due in the next 25 years, during periods in w
by lqet 8y ago
My ancestors thought it was okay to have kids during times in which many scholars where certain the apocalypse was due in the next 25 years, during periods in which the plague killed more than half of the population, during the 30 years war and in a time when there was a realistic chance of nuclear annihilation in the next 10 years.
I am glad they did.
- Angostura 8y agoDid any of those groups they have a scientific basis for believing that having kids would speed up the advent of the apocalypse or worsen its effects? Let's not draw false parallels.
- f- 8y ago"The Population Bomb" was a pretty fashionable scientific prediction back in the 1960s which had a significant following in the academic and policymaker circles at the time. It extrapolated from data about population growth, farmland capacity, etc, to reach the irrefutable conclusion that there is going to be mass starvation and famine in the 1970s. It led to calls for China-style population controls, to articles about whether it's ethical to have children, etc. What happened instead is that population growth has slowed down quite a bit without government intervention, and that we've gotten a lot more efficient at growing food. This does not prove anything when it comes to climate change, but is an interesting anecdote.
- pinewurst 8y agoThanks for bringing this up! An excellent book on this is: The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earths Future by Paul Sabin
- candiodari 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism So: yes. Many times. In fact it would be accurate to say that a portion of the population has believed this, now for hundreds of years.
- fulafel 8y agoMalthus lived in the 1700s. The 1970s neo-malthusianism (Limits to Growth, Club of Rome etc) didn't predict apocalypse in 25, rather "Given business as usual, i.e., no changes to historical growth trends, the limits to growth on earth would become evident by 2072" [1]. But they did indeed think population growth was a major problem and they were right of course. The neomalthusian ideas didn't you should have no kids, but rather that you should not have a lot of kids. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth#Conclusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth#Conclusio...
- candiodari 8y agoWell, sure, but Malthusianism has had many famous dates. Wasn't the first one 1870 ?