4 ms·
Well, duh! We hardly know the population of any country more that a few hundred years ago. Even now, some numbers are guesswork - how many Russians have died in
by larsrc 3y ago
Well, duh! We hardly know the population of any country more that a few hundred years ago. Even now, some numbers are guesswork - how many Russians have died in the war in Ukraine? That's already an uncertainty of tens of thousands.
For older societies, who even counted as persons? Slaves? Babies? Prisoners of war? Outlaws living in the woods?
And that's even assuming there _is_ a census. The Domesday Book was quite exceptional a thousand years ago, and even that only gives us a population estimate between 1.2 and 1.6 million (see Wikipedia). Any place with a poorer census or written record (i.e most of the world at the time) would be even more of a guesswork.
- qsort 3y ago> For older societies, who even counted as persons? Even more importantly, who is writing. Julius Caesar defeating seven bajillion Gauls is not a figure that should be taken at face value if the source of that number is Julius Caesar.
- watwut 3y ago> For older societies, who even counted as persons? Slaves? Babies? Prisoners of war? Outlaws living in the woods? Is there any reason whatsoever to NOT count slaves and babies as persons? You can not count them as citizens or adults, but surely they are persons.
- tsimionescu 3y agoThe question is what those older societies included in their censuses. The reason for the census and the definition of a person can vary wildly. Remember that not that long ago at this scale, the USA considered slaves as 3/5 of a person when determining states' populations for representation and taxation purposes.
- bazoom42 3y agoHistorically, census was typically done for taxation purposes. Kids, homeless etc was just not that relevant since households were taxed. Slaves counted as property, not persons.
- PeterisP 3y agoBecause the traditional reason for census is taxation, voting, or military service, and in those cases you effectively only care about free adult males and count only those. For example, the original Roman census, from which we take word 'census', registered and counted adult male citizens. They did list their wife, children and slaves as part of extra information about their household, but those dependents weren't part of the census itself, just an "attachment" to the recorded citizen just as the notes about their land and other porperty. Other people like single women or orphans would get reported by their guardians, but they as well explicitly weren't included in the "count of heads", which counts only adult male citizens i.e. those who can run households and own property, be recruited to fight, pay taxes, and vote. In effect, the ancient world doesn't really consider persons or individuals, they care about households (represented by a single individual) and so register and count those.
- dang 3y agoSorry for the offtopicness but could you please email me at hn@ycombinator.com? There's an issue with your account (nothing you did wrong! but something you need to know about).