The comment you were responding to wasn't referring to the 1970s, it was referring to the repeated cries of Malthusian catastrophes dating back to Malthus himse

The comment you were responding to wasn't referring to the 1970s, it was referring to the repeated cries of Malthusian catastrophes dating back to Malthus himself. The unexpected technology mentioned was a 50-fold increase in agricultural productivity per person working in agriculture. Several times in the last several hundred years, similar patterns were pointed out. All of them were solved with technology they had no way of knowing about.