I do have another thought that I often have in mind when perusing various media. In recent decades what you could call Malthusian theory has fallen somewhat out of favor. I however have been watching for indicators its in play. First what it is of course. Thomas Malthus was a philosopher who lived several hundred years ago. He observed that when human population reached a certain level natural forces would take over and correct the overpopulation. Likewise if the population goes too low a boom occurs. His hypothesis stems from several ideas in application. First there is raw resources particularly food. Lack thereof was an issue in Europe during the religious wars particularly. Starvation. Then there is disease and in his day they wouldnt have conceptualized illness as we do say with heart disease. Its real but unseen. He was likely thinking along the lines of plague and The Black Death. Then theres war. Taken together these forces seemed to keep the human population in check. In the past century the production of goods of all types has catapulted higher including food production in particular. Folks began to speculate for a time whether the laws of nature could be bent. Malthus would look at the wars brewing in the world, the growing/ongoing political turmoil in several regions, the repeated episodes of attempted genocide and basically reach the conclusion that the mankind has gone from outstripping the feudal system to outstripping the planet. If so its a done deal. To the traditional Malthusian fray Id add and emphasize weather. War, disease, starvation. Those are the signs. If the weather shifts radically it will mean starvation in places. With that comes disease. Or it could come like The Black Death. It was at least a semi-global pandemic across Asia and Europe, The Middle East, etc. In Europe the records show it killed up to 50% in areas.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 16:34:34 +0000
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