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A finite number can be so large that, in practical terms it's unlimited.
1. The drastic reduction of existing banking centers (e.g. the population of Florence was reduced by 60-70%) and administrative centers and their dependent population (i.e. the urban poor and the wasteful rich that had become a tax/interest burden on the rest of the society especially farmers outside the cities). Because the economy was heavily agricultural at that time, the reduction of urban population as ratio to rural population served as a tax-reduction on the rural farmer population.
Those cities were not big banking centers before the plague. Florence had a population of 110,000-120,000 before the Great Plague; that was reduced to 50,000 after the plague.
Thanks for interjecting, Rin. The numbers from Plissken and from me are actually not in disagreement. Florence apparently had an early boom from the 1200's to 1338 (increasing population from about 30k to about 120k) before the crash during the Great Plague / Black Death, dropping back down to 50k pop, before booming again after 1351. The city managers may have figured out in the 2nd go-around not to run huge welfare programs and attract welfare seekers (the same mistake the Rome had made), thereby putting the city on a more sustainable growth path.
Thanks for interjecting, Rin. The numbers from Plissken and from me are actually not in disagreement. Florence apparently had an early boom from the 1200's to 1338 (increasing population from about 30k to about 120k) before the crash during the Great Plague / Black Death, dropping back down to 50k pop, before booming again after 1351. The city managers may have figured out in the 2nd go-around not to run huge welfare programs that attract welfare seekers (the same mistake that ancient Rome had made 1500 years earlier), thereby putting the city on a more sustainable growth path.
the centralized management in the middleastern Islamic empires.
The rate of technological innovation has geometrically increased every century since the beginning of the industrial revolution. That’s over 250 years.
What data do you have that it will actually slow?
Reality saysthe centralized management in the middleastern Islamic empires.
The question here is .. what management? A bunch of Imams and their so-called Caliphates are a bunch of douchebag religious bumpkins who don't know their head from their ass, can't manage any society, nevermind an empire.
BTW, religion was/is a very efficient way of reducing administrative cost. Put it this way: in Detroit and parts of Chicago, only 15% of murder cases get resolved. How can a society function without a religious faith that criminals will be caught and punished somehow?
BTW, religion was/is a very efficient way of reducing administrative cost. Put it this way: in Detroit and parts of Chicago, only 15% of murder cases get resolved. How can a society function without a religious faith that criminals will be caught and punished somehow? In the absence of a faith in a "god" or "gods," most people would default to a blind faith in an omnipotent government run by very much fallible men in costumes.
England seemed to do well when it confiscated the Monasteries, so here we disagree. Not to mention the huge bump in performance over Southern Europe by Germany, Scandinavia and Britain starting in the 1500s.
The French tried to abolish religion itself during the French Revolution. They quickly had to come find a replacement, first "Church of Reason" then personality cult.
religion was/is a very efficient way of reducing administrative cost.
Put it this way: in Detroit and parts of Chicago, only 15% of murder cases get resolved. How can a society function without a religious faith that criminals will be caught and punished somehow?
As real life experience since French Revolution (followed by Russian Revolution, then Chinese Revolution, etc. etc.) proved again and again, when a modern society abolishes religion, what follows into the power vacuum is not Reason, but Personality Cult.
2. check on temporal rulers;
I recognize your examples (Napoleon, Stalin, Mao), but China remains officially irreligious, and several eastern European countries remain mostly irreligious while renouncing communism. They don't seem to suffer a personality cult anymore.
2. check on temporal rulers;
The issue with that is the tendency by ambitious political or religious figures to fuse church and state, sometimes as an express command, e.g. the totalitarian doctrine of Islam (which Muslims call "a complete system" because it fuses mosque and state).
Rome survived much longer than US Existed with the Anona in place. And a similar one in Constantinople The Anona was necessary because slaves took the jobs freemen used to do, esp. after Pompey Magnus and Caesar flooded the Slave Markets from their big conquests in Asia and Gaul. Eventually, slaves took all the farms, as wealthy landlords dispossessed the Roman Yeomanry and turned them into grazing lands for sheep, forcing the Legions to rely increasingly on Barbarian troops instead of the lesser sons of stout Roman Peasants, and Italy dependent on Grain Imports.
Reality saysThe French tried to abolish religion itself during the French Revolution. They quickly had to come find a replacement, first "Church of Reason" then personality cult.
Agreed.
The French Revolution is the model for Leftist Utopians, hence "Jacobin Magazine".
I recognize your examples (Napoleon, Stalin, Mao), but China remains officially irreligious, and several eastern European countries remain mostly irreligious while renouncing communism. They don't seem to suffer a personality cult anymore.
You guys just ignore the role of the low clergy in the French revolution, including in starting the revolution in the general states of 1789.
The French revolution maybe included some anti-religious elements but was never built against religion the way communism was. It's totally absurd to claim the French lost their religion, stopped being Catholics and started adoring Napoleon instead.
This entire narrative is just a lame republican rewriting of history to justify an irrational need for religion, just like claiming the nazis were collectivists.
These are bad, bad, simplistic ideas.
And btw, this could be an interesting thread on history but thoroughly irrelevant to this thread. I suggest you move to your own.
You're right. It doesn't make any sense. Reality is just rationalizing that we need religion.
The real reality is that no one has ever suffered from being too rational - and certainly not from being rational enough to reject religion.
The French Revolution was a pre-run of the latter communist revolutions (starting in 1848). Existing religious establishments were targeted due to the wealth and asset amassed by them. The Cult of Reason ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Reason ) took place at the height of the French Revolution, before Robespierre's Cult of Supreme Being (himself as the high priest) and long before Napoleon. Your high school history may not have covered that aspect of French Revolution.
These ideals are very close to those carried by the American revolution.
These ideals are very close to those carried by the American revolution.
And yes, the French Revolution was a bloody affair. This is what happens when you remove the central authority , and a vengeful crowd rules the streets. Napoleon ended this in 1 day by shooting with canons on that crowd, and reestablishing the central authority. (Take that libertarians).
Napoleon ended this in 1 day by shooting with canons on that crowd
Interestingly, he labeled such tactics “The Last Argument of Kings.”
When I can't get a house in the country and have my next neighbor over a mile away, then I'll believe in overpopulation.
Which in exponential growth, is likely to happen in the last minute before you are overwhelmed with too many people.
Combined with a decline in marriage and birthrates across the US, we are going the opposite direction.
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Plus 1 billion per decade.
When a culture of protozoa hits the size of the Petri dish, they drown in their own waste or run out of nutrient, or both.
Do you think we are different from protozoa?
Do you think we're special?
I'm not sure why so little attention seems to be paid to these questions, but here's 1 talk about it:
https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_c_mann_how_will_we_survive_when_the_population_hits_10_billion#t-697701