Thomas Malthus was not an evil Reptilian alien, but propaganda has turned him into one. This post was inspired by Joe Biden's disastrous performance at the recent presidential debate. It generated much sneering at poor Biden, showing, among many other things, how cruel our society can be—too much, really (*). But what impressed me most was how far from reality both debaters were. And how far from reality most of us are. Reality is fast becoming one of those “unknown unknowns” that Donald Rumsfeld mentioned, and you don’t have to suffer from senile dementia to lose track of what’s going on. So, let me discuss an example that appeared on my screen just a few days ago. One among many.
For those that love to criticize Malthus, they often also have the wholly untenable idea that infinite population growth is possible. They tend think this is optimistic somehow, while I find it fatuous and delusional. Lots of those same people are staunchly anti-immigration, they don't want a larger population overall, they just want a larger population of people that think like them and are the same skin color.
And I have no doubt the topic has been propagandized at some level by the powers that be, as population growth is the main source of fuel for increasing profit, and capitalism would collapse if the population decreases.
If you can link to someone criticizing Malthus and claiming that infinite population growth is possible, I'd like to read it. That seems like a strawman characterization of Malthus's critics, something that fits Ugo's reader's tastes and thus can be passed along without attribution knowing it won't be challenged.
It's inferred in their argument structure. I've had these conversations with people dozens of times. You ask, well when is the world overpopulated? And you get ridiculous techno-optimist answers back rife with myopia how tech will save us or we'll expand out to another planet, floating cities.... Whatever. I've heard a slew of unrealistic rationalizations defending the indefensible. Never have I heard one them admit there's a limit to any growth.
Most always tacitly endorsing endless pronatalism and forever growth capitalism, with rebuttals accusing dissent of being eugenicists if they don't think it's good form for every person to just have as many babies as they want without care what it does to the world around them, because it's their right they think it's ok to do.
I’m not interested in your overly vivid but unsubstantiated stereotypes. I don’t doubt that you engage in low-quality conversations with people making inflated claims. That doesn’t invalidate all possible criticisms of Malthus.
You’re doing exactly what Bardi is criticizing in this post. You assume that the people reading this Substack share your prejudices, so you can state those prejudices as if they were verifiable facts and the people here will agree with you and hold you in high esteem for articulating their prejudices for them.
“Any lie goes once it is printed, and it suits the taste of readers.”
You're saying that logical derivations of an argument they are clearly making aren't valid? Because if they can't define when the world is overpopulated by number or condition then they are either leaving the door open to never or their argument amounts to that Malthus was just wrong in a particular time and situation, and that's not what they are saying. The word Malthusian points to the idea that people that speak to overpopulation are alarmist in nature and leads to the notion that if Malthus was wrong once, than why not forever?
That's essentially what Steven Pinker is dogwhistling at over and over in his techno-optimistic nerd fantasy while conveniently ignoring we can't even sustain our population now and we're unstable as all hell socioeconomically. https://www.hoover.org/research/how-malthus-got-it-wrong
And I do apologize if I didn't address what every single dissenter of Malthus has said in making my point. Didn't mean to stereotype ya know.
Oh when you say I'm just speaking to get esteem, like I'm not allowed to agree with someone or share my experiences? C'mon man, that's silly. Talk about a manufactured unsubstantiated straw man.
A good reminder to thoroughly vet our sources. Note that the word "Malthusian" is used as a pejorative to characterize someone as being in favor of depopulation, advocating anything from limiting human reproduction, to active extermination of the asserted but unspecified "surplus." However, the term could more neutrally be applied to someone who simply believes that there are limits to the population size that the planet's resources are capable of supporting.
Yes. As often, if the message is not as palatable as we would like, better kill the messenger...
BTW, I'm very interested in Peter Turchin's work and his structural-demographic theory where the Malthusian component is taken into account without explaining the whole historical dynamic.
Strangely, no one is trolling J. B. Calhoun because its work was far more dark and pessimistic compared to Matthäus and predicting fare more pain, starvation, madness and general disorder....
The Universe 25 experiment is quite interesting, you can read about it on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink) but is quite more interesting if dig the sources: he never expected that his finds are directly applicable to society but that can still be a source of study for similarities and a lot of discussions are about observations and conjectures never expressed in the author paperwork, overpopulation was never reached but technically could be happened only in the control group that had periodical culling (in subsequent experiments, https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1429/) and finally is interesting that resources was never considered as a trigger to aberrant behavior, but that was perceived density of the population (crowd can be maintained by sinking "used space" of the colony, not sure but some graph seems to suggest it).
For real "culling programs" we had seen them only when a population is looking for quick wealth gains, usually is a form of "barbaric invasion"...... We can clearly see that in the fall of Rome but also during a lot of European expansion phase and generally on any expansion, Rome first was quite barbaric during his expansion if we just consider that his "founding fathers" were proud of going to abduct other, more civilized, cultures women (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women).
Modern time give options for more spectacular events and a bit of efficiency thanks to technology, but paradoxically we got less destructive with time, the impact on population of war is constantly declining if we look at statistical relevance: a tribal skirmish that kill a couple of warriors is quite significant because a tribe is 20-40 (10%-5% of the population of the tribe) units but a "total war" like the 2 WW only in extreme cases did the same percentage of damage to a population!
Reality is far from us, we as human need some simplified version of it and we cling to that illusion of understanding that our internalized representation give us! Usually humans are quite willing to kill for making their illusion to stand against reality and also often willing to sacrifice themselves to it (voluntary soldiers during 2 WW....), religions usually try to give a representation that is tailored to reduce the worst of our more destructive instincts but almost always after the initial phase a religion become a propaganda machine used.
Politician sell dreams like writers, filmmakers and entertainers that are, if successful, some of the wealthiest professions and to successful sell dreams you must live in it, our society pays them to do so and a lot so we can argue that we collectively want to stay away to reality!
This reminds of an interesting set of experiments in the 60-70s by John Calhoun. Do you think they can be applied to the our realities especially East Asia? For example South Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world.
I had read the Corbet piece, too, and since Malthus and I aren't really close, it left me wondering if my impressions were all wrong.
I'm happy to read your rebuttal, strengthening my previous impression that Malthus was a wise and kind person who was simply ahead of his time… and that he couldn't have possibly predicted the powerful impact fossil fuel would have on population dynamics.
In short, humans have become detritivores, subsisting on 250,000,000 year-old dead things — which we are quickly running out of.
The “rationality” of the writer’s mind is what is lost in most postings on the internet— some people, figuratively speaking, print them out to make grand collages that totally cover their mind’s front window so the no longer have to look at the world and be presented with more challenges to their self-security. But the world and Universe are indifferent to our struggles to apprehend what we are experiencing. If we look out our window two mornings in a row, it appears that both we and the outside world is still there, but our rationally constructed achievements in physics will tell us that at more and more micro-scales of ‘observation’, nothing is the same, even the atoms in our own body.
“Collapses are the way the universe gets rid of the old to leave space for the new,” the Senaca effect, explains this pretty well!
Fact is that "the true" is what "everyone" believes, but in "reality" truth is that to be discovered with our rationality to unveil the false scheme that humans power try to indict to a doom society.
i could by wrong but did the limits to growth not show dates in there graphs first it was 2050 then 2040 and then 2030 and there is still debate between scientists when it will by 2030 or 2040 ?
"Limits to Growth" was purposely non-specific about dates.
Searching the original for "2050," for example yielded no "hard" claims about that date, only saying things like "By the year 2050, several more minerals may be exhausted if the current rate of consumption continues." (page 57)
Several follow-on studies have put dates to the curves, notably those by Graham Turner. Just last year, a "recalibration"† corrected some data that was close, but not directly on, the curves, finding this caused a steepening of the corresponding down-slope.
As Niehls Bohr said, "Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future." LtG said vague things about "mid century" without naming specific dates. But as we get closer, data are lining up nicely and the dates of the main phase reversal is becoming more clear.
But even these predictions are only confident about the magnitude, not the slope. We can say with some confidence that we'll run out of cheap oil in the next few years, but it's really difficult to say what happens when the curve changes direction!
† Nebel, A., Kling, A., Willamowski, R., & Schell, T. (2023). Recalibration of limits to growth: An update of the World3 model. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13442
For those that love to criticize Malthus, they often also have the wholly untenable idea that infinite population growth is possible. They tend think this is optimistic somehow, while I find it fatuous and delusional. Lots of those same people are staunchly anti-immigration, they don't want a larger population overall, they just want a larger population of people that think like them and are the same skin color.
And I have no doubt the topic has been propagandized at some level by the powers that be, as population growth is the main source of fuel for increasing profit, and capitalism would collapse if the population decreases.
If you can link to someone criticizing Malthus and claiming that infinite population growth is possible, I'd like to read it. That seems like a strawman characterization of Malthus's critics, something that fits Ugo's reader's tastes and thus can be passed along without attribution knowing it won't be challenged.
It's inferred in their argument structure. I've had these conversations with people dozens of times. You ask, well when is the world overpopulated? And you get ridiculous techno-optimist answers back rife with myopia how tech will save us or we'll expand out to another planet, floating cities.... Whatever. I've heard a slew of unrealistic rationalizations defending the indefensible. Never have I heard one them admit there's a limit to any growth.
Most always tacitly endorsing endless pronatalism and forever growth capitalism, with rebuttals accusing dissent of being eugenicists if they don't think it's good form for every person to just have as many babies as they want without care what it does to the world around them, because it's their right they think it's ok to do.
I’m not interested in your overly vivid but unsubstantiated stereotypes. I don’t doubt that you engage in low-quality conversations with people making inflated claims. That doesn’t invalidate all possible criticisms of Malthus.
You’re doing exactly what Bardi is criticizing in this post. You assume that the people reading this Substack share your prejudices, so you can state those prejudices as if they were verifiable facts and the people here will agree with you and hold you in high esteem for articulating their prejudices for them.
“Any lie goes once it is printed, and it suits the taste of readers.”
So when is the world overpopulated?
You're saying that logical derivations of an argument they are clearly making aren't valid? Because if they can't define when the world is overpopulated by number or condition then they are either leaving the door open to never or their argument amounts to that Malthus was just wrong in a particular time and situation, and that's not what they are saying. The word Malthusian points to the idea that people that speak to overpopulation are alarmist in nature and leads to the notion that if Malthus was wrong once, than why not forever?
That's essentially what Steven Pinker is dogwhistling at over and over in his techno-optimistic nerd fantasy while conveniently ignoring we can't even sustain our population now and we're unstable as all hell socioeconomically. https://www.hoover.org/research/how-malthus-got-it-wrong
And I do apologize if I didn't address what every single dissenter of Malthus has said in making my point. Didn't mean to stereotype ya know.
Oh when you say I'm just speaking to get esteem, like I'm not allowed to agree with someone or share my experiences? C'mon man, that's silly. Talk about a manufactured unsubstantiated straw man.
A good reminder to thoroughly vet our sources. Note that the word "Malthusian" is used as a pejorative to characterize someone as being in favor of depopulation, advocating anything from limiting human reproduction, to active extermination of the asserted but unspecified "surplus." However, the term could more neutrally be applied to someone who simply believes that there are limits to the population size that the planet's resources are capable of supporting.
I'll proudly wear that label!
Generally, when people create an unfair negative association with something, it means you're getting under their skin. That's "a good thing."
Yes. As often, if the message is not as palatable as we would like, better kill the messenger...
BTW, I'm very interested in Peter Turchin's work and his structural-demographic theory where the Malthusian component is taken into account without explaining the whole historical dynamic.
I plead guilty to flip-flopping between Turchin and Tainter, depending on which is closer to the point I am trying to make.
In reality, there's not a lot of difference between "an over-production of elites" and "an excess of complexity," no?
Yes. I guess this is more or less the same phenomenon. Or at least, it goes hand in hand.
Strangely, no one is trolling J. B. Calhoun because its work was far more dark and pessimistic compared to Matthäus and predicting fare more pain, starvation, madness and general disorder....
The Universe 25 experiment is quite interesting, you can read about it on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink) but is quite more interesting if dig the sources: he never expected that his finds are directly applicable to society but that can still be a source of study for similarities and a lot of discussions are about observations and conjectures never expressed in the author paperwork, overpopulation was never reached but technically could be happened only in the control group that had periodical culling (in subsequent experiments, https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1429/) and finally is interesting that resources was never considered as a trigger to aberrant behavior, but that was perceived density of the population (crowd can be maintained by sinking "used space" of the colony, not sure but some graph seems to suggest it).
For real "culling programs" we had seen them only when a population is looking for quick wealth gains, usually is a form of "barbaric invasion"...... We can clearly see that in the fall of Rome but also during a lot of European expansion phase and generally on any expansion, Rome first was quite barbaric during his expansion if we just consider that his "founding fathers" were proud of going to abduct other, more civilized, cultures women (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women).
Modern time give options for more spectacular events and a bit of efficiency thanks to technology, but paradoxically we got less destructive with time, the impact on population of war is constantly declining if we look at statistical relevance: a tribal skirmish that kill a couple of warriors is quite significant because a tribe is 20-40 (10%-5% of the population of the tribe) units but a "total war" like the 2 WW only in extreme cases did the same percentage of damage to a population!
Reality is far from us, we as human need some simplified version of it and we cling to that illusion of understanding that our internalized representation give us! Usually humans are quite willing to kill for making their illusion to stand against reality and also often willing to sacrifice themselves to it (voluntary soldiers during 2 WW....), religions usually try to give a representation that is tailored to reduce the worst of our more destructive instincts but almost always after the initial phase a religion become a propaganda machine used.
Politician sell dreams like writers, filmmakers and entertainers that are, if successful, some of the wealthiest professions and to successful sell dreams you must live in it, our society pays them to do so and a lot so we can argue that we collectively want to stay away to reality!
This reminds of an interesting set of experiments in the 60-70s by John Calhoun. Do you think they can be applied to the our realities especially East Asia? For example South Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world.
https://youtu.be/ampmkFrD33Q?si=9T8d9kUc3pWL5tzE
Thanks Ugo.
People feed their memes junk food these days.
Junk food causes great harm.
;-(
Thank you for this, Ugo!
I had read the Corbet piece, too, and since Malthus and I aren't really close, it left me wondering if my impressions were all wrong.
I'm happy to read your rebuttal, strengthening my previous impression that Malthus was a wise and kind person who was simply ahead of his time… and that he couldn't have possibly predicted the powerful impact fossil fuel would have on population dynamics.
In short, humans have become detritivores, subsisting on 250,000,000 year-old dead things — which we are quickly running out of.
Malthus will be vindicated.
A rational world?
The “rationality” of the writer’s mind is what is lost in most postings on the internet— some people, figuratively speaking, print them out to make grand collages that totally cover their mind’s front window so the no longer have to look at the world and be presented with more challenges to their self-security. But the world and Universe are indifferent to our struggles to apprehend what we are experiencing. If we look out our window two mornings in a row, it appears that both we and the outside world is still there, but our rationally constructed achievements in physics will tell us that at more and more micro-scales of ‘observation’, nothing is the same, even the atoms in our own body.
“Collapses are the way the universe gets rid of the old to leave space for the new,” the Senaca effect, explains this pretty well!
Thanks for the introduction to Ugo Bardi!
Maybe in a very poor thought!
Fact is that "the true" is what "everyone" believes, but in "reality" truth is that to be discovered with our rationality to unveil the false scheme that humans power try to indict to a doom society.
i could by wrong but did the limits to growth not show dates in there graphs first it was 2050 then 2040 and then 2030 and there is still debate between scientists when it will by 2030 or 2040 ?
"Limits to Growth" was purposely non-specific about dates.
Searching the original for "2050," for example yielded no "hard" claims about that date, only saying things like "By the year 2050, several more minerals may be exhausted if the current rate of consumption continues." (page 57)
(You can download it and look it over yourself! http://www.donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Limits-to-Growth-digital-scan-version.pdf)
Several follow-on studies have put dates to the curves, notably those by Graham Turner. Just last year, a "recalibration"† corrected some data that was close, but not directly on, the curves, finding this caused a steepening of the corresponding down-slope.
As Niehls Bohr said, "Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future." LtG said vague things about "mid century" without naming specific dates. But as we get closer, data are lining up nicely and the dates of the main phase reversal is becoming more clear.
But even these predictions are only confident about the magnitude, not the slope. We can say with some confidence that we'll run out of cheap oil in the next few years, but it's really difficult to say what happens when the curve changes direction!
† Nebel, A., Kling, A., Willamowski, R., & Schell, T. (2023). Recalibration of limits to growth: An update of the World3 model. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13442