5 ms·

"Malthus" is taught in high school. The idea comes up all over intellectual history and has yet to pan out. One of these days.

• ben_w 3y ago
  What's taught in high school is generally simplified to the point of falsehood. What Malthus wrote about was basically the lived experiences of those around him for basically all of what he knew of to be recorded history: improved farming meant more people, not happier people. Now, I'm not qualified to even judge if Jared Diamond's even fair let alone correct, but he wrote in Collapse (2005) that the Rwandan Genocide was brought about in part due to excessive population pressures, that it "illustrates a case where Malthus's worst-case scenario does seem to have been right." On the other hand, it also seems plausible to me that widespread access to contraceptives may break the assumptions behind Malthus.
  • CorrectHorseBat 3y ago
    May? All developed countries have subreplacement fertility [1] (and falling) the world population is predicted to peak before the end of the century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility
    • ben_w 3y ago
      For now, yes; there is also a distinct possibility that the sub-populations who have more kids do so because of some genetic tendency (singular or plural) which would, if it actually exists and isn't mere hypothetical, rapidly reverse this.