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You're making a tortured semantic argument. We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions. Malthus b

by slibhb 6y ago

You're making a tortured semantic argument. We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions. Malthus being "correct up until the 17th century" is beside the point. You've also made bizarre arguments elsewhere in this thread. Apparently Malthus can't be proven wrong because the Earth can't support an infinite number of people. That's true, of course, but it's not a model. It's the statement of an obvious fact.

xyzzyz 6y ago
> We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions. We can, and we do, just not for human population in future. Again, Malthusian models are completely standard way to model past human populations, and also animal populations. > Apparently Malthus can't be proven wrong because the Earth can't support an infinite number of people. That's true, of course, but it's not a model. It's the statement of an obvious fact. Yes, that's why Malthusian model is so popular: because it is obviously correct, and because its assumptions cover very wide range of observed past and future conditions. We live in pretty unique circumstances when they don't: we both had the technology grow carrying capacity faster than the population had grown, and also we had population growth slow down a lot, and then go down to shrinking regime. I expect these trends to continue in my lifetime, and probably in the lifetime of my children -- but not forever. Instead, I believe that in around 200-300 years we will return to high-fertility regime, that will require governmental measures to curb, if we want to preserve the quality of life. However, I have much less confidence in this prediction than I do in the validity of Malthusian model.
- slibhb 6y ago
  > Yes, that's why Malthusian model is so popular: because it is obviously correct It's not correct right now, for humans, which is what we were talking about. > and because its assumptions cover very wide range of observed past and future conditions Ah yes, those magical "observed future conditions". > We live in pretty unique circumstances when they don't There are no grounds for insisting that we "live in unique circumstances". That statement is either a tautology (like your interpretation of Malthus) or it's meaningless. > I believe that in around 200-300 years we will return to high-fertility regime, that will require governmental measures to curb, if we want to preserve the quality of life. I like science fiction as much as the next person but that's all this is.

by slibhb 6y ago

xyzzyz 6y ago

> We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions. We can, and we do, just not for human population in future. Again, Malthusian models are completely standard way to model past human populations, and also animal populations. > Apparently Malthus can't be proven wrong because the Earth can't support an infinite number of people. That's true, of course, but it's not a model. It's the statement of an obvious fact. Yes, that's why Malthusian model is so popular: because it is obviously correct, and because its assumptions cover very wide range of observed past and future conditions. We live in pretty unique circumstances when they don't: we both had the technology grow carrying capacity faster than the population had grown, and also we had population growth slow down a lot, and then go down to shrinking regime. I expect these trends to continue in my lifetime, and probably in the lifetime of my children -- but not forever. Instead, I believe that in around 200-300 years we will return to high-fertility regime, that will require governmental measures to curb, if we want to preserve the quality of life. However, I have much less confidence in this prediction than I do in the validity of Malthusian model.

slibhb 6y ago
> Yes, that's why Malthusian model is so popular: because it is obviously correct It's not correct right now, for humans, which is what we were talking about. > and because its assumptions cover very wide range of observed past and future conditions Ah yes, those magical "observed future conditions". > We live in pretty unique circumstances when they don't There are no grounds for insisting that we "live in unique circumstances". That statement is either a tautology (like your interpretation of Malthus) or it's meaningless. > I believe that in around 200-300 years we will return to high-fertility regime, that will require governmental measures to curb, if we want to preserve the quality of life. I like science fiction as much as the next person but that's all this is.