I think one of the first to notice that was Ibn Khaldun in the 1300s in his famous book Muqaddimah. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah https://en.m.wik

I think one of the first to notice that was Ibn Khaldun in the 1300s in his famous book Muqaddimah. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah Before the advent of industrialisation, when hunanity was still in the mathusian trap, the observation probably was true.