patrick.net

http://historicalfictionresearch.blogspot.com/2014/11/snapshot-florence-1338.html

According to Wikipedia entry on Florence citing Will Durant's book, there were 17,000 beggars alone in the streets of Florence in 1338. Presumably that population had to be sustained by a much larger general population in the city and the tax and interest payment flowing into the city, just like beggars today in the Big Apple. That burden was removed by the Great Plague.

Reality and Plissken, get over the middle ages.

We're in modern times where in fact, technology, without the socioeconomic dynamics of the Black Plague, have a greater impact on the future than whether or not ppl in the cities survive the disease or not.

Think about it, if we knew how to control "cytokine storm" inflammation back in 1918, via injections/IV drips, the Spanish Flu would not have decimated the same number of ppl as WWI.

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.

Reality says

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.

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 says

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.

I'm not in total disagreement, a boom is Possible, Do the numbers only cover Florence or do they include the surrounding areas, damn can't remember the village the Medicis fled to just a few miles away.

My main disagreement is I'm pretty convinced Urbanization and Progress are linked, and there is no such thing as reduced urbanization going hand in hand with substantial economic and technological progress. If we even disagree about that.

Please see the link I provided above. It was citing historical records written by a Florentine banker / historian and elected city manager who lived through that time period. He gave 90k pop in the city not counting clergy and foreigners residing in the city. The city could provide 25k men in arms in times of war and 80k additional soldiers from surrounding countryside.

I agree with you that Urbanization and Progress are linked: ease of transportation (what can be cheaper than walking next door or a block down the street) enable new business opportunities. However, things go in cycles: eventually hangers-on and dead-weights outpace new creativity, and that's when urbanization=progress turns into urban decay (that cycle played out in Detroit over a century, and is playing out in NYC and Chicago with all the urban SJW's now!). After a couple centuries of re-urbanization in Western Europe (after the "Dark Ages" after collapse of the WRE), the tax burden (and interest payment was just another way of collecting tax) of keeping up urban centers was starting to be heavy again. The Great Plague drastically reduced that burden in Western Europe by disproportionally killing much higher percentage of urban population than rural population.

The Great Plague / Black Death killed just as high a percentage of population in the Middleast / Islamic Empires. For them however, what resulted was not an economic miracle but a societal collapse. The difference I believe was due to decentralization and independent merchants/bankers in Western Europe vs. the centralized management in the middleastern Islamic empires.

Reality says

the 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.

It's amazing that many Muslims can't even tell that Rumi's basically a Buddhist, trying to infuse those notions into Islamic speak.

Goran_K says

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?

1) 250 yrs is a joke.
2) I never said it will slow. I said it can't go on at exponential rate, because that would soon result in rates of breakthrough discoveries happening hourly faster than any human brain can possibly absorb.
3) data: trees don't grow to the sky.

Rin says

Reality says

the 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.

By today's standards, you are correct. By the standards of 8th century, when their empires just started, they were relatively low-tax for the commerce protection services that they provided. Once again, things went in cycles: by the 13th century and later, they became too much of a taxation and regulation burden. That's why Western Europeans tried to go all the way around the world the other way in order to get around them to reach India and China, accidentally discovering the Americas!

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.

Reality says

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?

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.

Also interesting: The Steam Engine (as a novelty) was rediscovered during King Billy's reign, not seen since the Roman Empire and (I believe) Archimedes.

Reality says

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.

The only reason Henry VIII didn't get his divorce is because the Pope needed Spanish troops to defend him from his enemies.

But I'm not so sure, religious societies can have many problems and Pagan/Atheist can ones have far fewer issues. For example, Roman unwalled cities. Whereas Dark Ages cities were all walled. The Pentagon is unfortified, as are most police department buildings and city halls. The revisionist conception of the Dark and Middle Ages is not helped by the fact that most castles and forts in the Dark Ages to Middle Ages were wooden, especially those of the petty barons and counts, and have long rotted away. Nobody spends money on expensive forts - especially relatively poor petty nobles - unless they are absolutely necessary; Wood was often the best most could afford. Raubritters - Robber Knights - were endemic in Germany. Which society had more internal strife? Something else is at play.

I've seen some reports that the Murder Rate in 1400s England was at least 13 per 100,000, based on scanty records of judgements. That was when England was 80-90% rural and united in one religion. One thing we do know is that most medieval marriages among ordinary people were due to the gal getting knocked up, since we do have abundant church records showing births far less than 9 months after the wedding is registered.

The Pope tried to get a peace of Christendom and ban crossbows against Christians, it failed.

One benefit of the Black Plague was the death of so many Petty Lords with their endless petty squabbles and the consolidation of territory, reducing internal violence.

TwoScoopsOfSpaceForce says

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.

England made the local branch office of a religion into an independent religion. As did northern Germany and Scandinavia. Thereby reducing the overall cost of running religious institutions in the local society (not having to pay homage or tax to Rome for licensing rights). BTW, it can be argued that both Christianity and Islam are actually spin-off's of Judaism.

The French tried to abolish religion itself during the French Revolution. They quickly had to find a replacement, first "Church of Reason" then personality cult.

Reality says

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.

Agreed.

The French Revolution is the model for Leftist Utopians, hence "Jacobin Magazine".

www.youtube.com/embed/Xcb4_QwP6fE

Unfortunately Catholicism, Judaism, and (many forms of) Protestantism are in decline. Episcopalians, Reform Jews, and unfortunately Catholic Educational Institutions lead the pack in utopian rubbish. Oh, and Anglicans. Eventually the Anglican Church will probably be claimed and dominated by Africans, which is likely a good thing given the complete spinelessness of CoE. The CoE could not be a center of resistance to Islam, nor could the Lutheran Church of Sweden.

I say this a secular person.

But I do believe civic nationalism can stand in for quite a big deal. There does have to be a common touchstone of beliefs for all, even if people only dig 7 of 10 of them.

The current assaults on EVERYTHING by PostModernism is extremely dangerous, since any whacky theory/Islam will fill the void.

Reality says

religion was/is a very efficient way of reducing administrative cost.

No, religion is the SUV of motivational vehicles. It has a lot of power, but terrible environmental costs, and is grossly inefficient at traveling the same distance (i.e. doing the same work) compared to other vehicles.

Ancient Greek religion helped to motivate spectacular intellectual achievements, because of the possibility of earning distinction and becoming a god. Archimedes, Pythagorus, Plato, Socrates, and many others achieved a sort of immortality by their discoveries and innovations. The same religion motivated the prosecution of Aristarchos for heresy, because he figured out that the earth revolves around the sun. Archimedes' otherwise brilliant Antikythera mechanism had only one flaw: it put the earth at the center of the solar system, so he wouldn't be executed for heresy. It's amazing Archimedes got the mechanism to work well even with that flaw, but still, the loss of Aristarchos was a tragedy.

Reality says

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?

There is no substitute for evidence and reason, especially in criminal justice. Religious faith produces witchcraft executions, which Islamic theocracies continue to this day. Group loyalty results in crimes getting blamed on outgroup "enemies" who had nothing to do with them, and we see a similar dynamic in Detroit: loyalty and fear preclude testimony, because witnesses fear getting killed if they testify, and mistrust the police anyway. Tracking guns and ammunition would produce evidence and lead possibly to convictions, although gang members can provide alibis for each other, as vigilante Sharia patrols can to thwart prosecution.

Curious,

I can certainly agree with you on the specific issues that you have raised. I was addressing a meta-issue.

Most people simply worship power: pick a sport team/color and be a fan of that. Only about 15-20% of the adult population can think for themselves on bigger issues and vote for someone like Ron Paul. The rest just want to be sheep. Perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 of that 15-20% would one day decide to exploit the sheep, until they themselves are carved up on the chopping block. That's just the reality of life.

In the absence of a vague theistic "Creator," most people (not 51%, but more like 80+%) would simply worship whoever is the temporal ruler toting the biggest gun. That's how Egyptian Pharoahs ruled, as gods. That's why some of the religions postulating a higher being was/were invented to begin with! as a counter-balance to the temporal ruler.

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.

Traditional religions serve three very important functions in society:

1. faith in Crime and Punishment; pun with Dostoyevski's book title intentional: as his book clearly illustrated what intellectualizing youth in marginal financial circumstances and removing religious faith would lead to, as proven later on by all the participants in the October Revolution and the following soviet era;

2. check on temporal rulers;

3. putting a lid on female hypergamy, so young women would reproduce.

Seems to me, doing all three via government power in a purely secular society would be much more expensive.

Reality says

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.

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.

Reality says

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).

curious2 says

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.

Both Russia and China still suffer from massive corruption and leader-worshipping tendencies. It is not a co-incidence that both those two countries tried/trying to buy off the less religious Democrat politicians in this country. Corruption is simply a sign that individuals in leadership positions having too much arbitrary power instead of being under robust procedural oversight.

curious2 says

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).

Religion is quite unnecessary if a totalitarian leader wants to merge state power and religious power onto himself. Personality cult can be carried out quite successfully without religion (aside from the personality cult itself). Personality cult is a religion.

Traditional religions simply provide a platform upon which an alternative power center can be potentially formed.

TwoScoopsOfSpaceForce says

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.

That's the version taught in most history classes in school. However, the price structure in the market place must have worked the other way around: conquest brought in cheap grain, which depressed grain price in Rome, thereby bankrupting the independent farmers . . . driving them into the big cities (leaving farm land around Rome cheap enough to be bought up by the wealthy, or through mortgage debt bankruptcy repo process) . . . just like cheap imports in the past few decades made youths born in rural America migrate into the big cities in search of jobs and handouts. People would not sell their family farms when they were making profit and decide to become bums in the city.

Rome was in effect no longer a republic after Caesar and Augustus.

TwoScoopsOfSpaceForce says

Reality says

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.

Agreed.

The French Revolution is the model for Leftist Utopians, hence "Jacobin Magazine".

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.

curious2 says

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'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.

Heraclitusstudent says

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.

That's just like Hitler was an art student (painting and sketches), Stalin was a seminary student, Mao was a librarian and Pol Pot was a middle school math teacher. Bloody revolutions were usually led by young formerly unsuccessful / less successful intellectuals. At the time of French revolution, almost all entry-level intellectuals were either trained to be clergymen or trained to be lawyers. The young clergymen may have had the numbers, but the young lawyers were even more reckless and ruthless; e.g. Maximilien Robespierre himself.

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.

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. Wonder why. I bet, you probably never heard of Louis Phillipe II Duke of Orleans, the uncle of Louis XVI, and his role in paying rioters to attack Bastille starting the "French Revolution" as well as paying for and organizing "the women's march" on Versaille to capture the King and the Queen and force them to relocate to Paris to become prisoners. The Duke was going after the crown seeing that his nephew was weak and lenient by temperament (most scandals regarding the King's dictatorial tendencies and the Queen's extravagance that we learn in school today were actually fabrications by the "fake news" journalists of that time paid for by the Duke and his British financiers). The Duke was later beheaded at the guillotine too a few years into the revolution for his trouble in starting the revolution; his son though did become the King after Bourbon Restoration (after the fall of Napoleon) nearly 4 decades later, likely due to the family's connection to Britain.

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.

Just like the teaching of history in your high school was incomplete, history as it is presented to the public is always incomplete (subject to gate-keeping by those who wrote history, ref "1984"). The profession of history is essentially constant revision: at better times by adding back in the parts that had been omitted previously, so as to arrive at a more complete picture. Otherwise, the profession of history would be entirely rote-memorization of questionable material initially put down by the court historians for the benefit of contemporary politics shortly after the historical events. i.e. the first writing of history is almost always flawed, and therefore would have to be re-interpreted again and again later.

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.

The relevance of history is in that, those episodes were previous times when the same ideologies had been promoted to generate chaos. There is nothing new about the ideas "we have an over-population problem" or "let's get rid of God" Both ideas have been tried before, by entry-level intellectuals looking for a revolution in order to make room in the upper echelons of society (i.e. killing off the guys already in those positions in order to make room). The real over-population is in the over-educated rote-reciters who lack creativity therefore unable to create value thereby generate profit on their own in the market place. I highly recommend Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment; schooling that does not endow marketable skills indeed produce Roskolnikovs (i.e. raising expectations beyond the person's natural ability and unleashing the reckless malevolence normally hidden in the darker parts of human nature).

Heraclitusstudent says

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.

Like I said, might be a good idea to read up on the Cult of Reason and Cult of Supreme Being during French Revolution. Most of the leaders advocating either eventually had their heads chopped on the guillotine by their likewise rational and intellectual colleagues in the name of the Revolution itself (long before the later restoration of traditional religions).

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.

Reality says

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.

Total BS. The French revolution was inspired by the American revolution, coming right after it. It was a revolt against monarchy, with ideas like equality and freedom of men, that included the freedom of religion .
Can you read?: Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen de 1789
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/Droit-francais/Constitution/Declaration-des-Droits-de-l-Homme-et-du-Citoyen-de-1789
This document is the basis for what became known as human rights.
...equality of people in front of the law, human rights to freedom, property, security, resistance to oppression, presumption of innocence, and... Article #10 No one should be prosecuted for their opinions, even religious, as long as their manifestation doesn't trouble public order.

These ideals are very close to those carried by the American revolution. They obviously have NOTHING to do with communism, coming before the industrial revolution, before Marx, long before communism even existed.

Heraclitusstudent says

These ideals are very close to those carried by the American revolution.

I don't think there can by any doubt that the French Revolution was very bloody and violent turning citizen on citizen.

We had nothing like the mass arrests and executions France had in the US. Marxism and Communism weren't around yet, but Marxists certainly took some cues from the French Revolution and not the American Revolution.

"Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization_of_France_during_the_French_Revolution

Ok, now that the discussion of revolutions and communism are over, how about getting back to technology and how that solves the Malthusian problem?

Here's one on Solar stations in space ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

Combined that with advances in nanotechnology and you have an earth which can easily support many billions of ppl.

Yes, unlike protozoas, humans have the capability of solving these problems, provided that we're not stuck in stupid jobs and dating worthless women. And hence, Rin Wah Law, the epoch where sex robots become ubiquitous, will usher in this era, the Age of Pericles, where the arts and sciences will advance to such high levels, that humanity will be facing a new age, blowing past the renaissance and the age of enlightenment.

Combined that with advances in nanotechnology and you have an earth which can easily support many billions of ppl.

With all that unlimited energy and alchemy, we could build habitable spaces on the Moon/Mars/Venus.

Heraclitusstudent says

These ideals are very close to those carried by the American revolution.

It started that way, with Lafayette and Condorcet and others, but then the Montagnards and Robespierre came along.

The Founding Fathers weren't into changing the Calendar, setting up the Goddess Reason as the national religion, and starting the "Reign of Terror" by the "Committee on Public Safety" an executed thousands and thousands of those who weren't sufficiently revolutionary.

The concept of laïcité in French is basically the separation of church and state, by opposition to... like... a divine right monarchy where the church is part of the power circle, owns lands and wealth, etc...

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).

Heraclitusstudent says

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).

This is true. There was also the Thermidorian Reaction which is overlooked, also employed uh... non-judicial punishment

But the lid on mass state terror was opened up by the Revolutionary Left.

Heraclitusstudent says

Napoleon ended this in 1 day by shooting with canons on that crowd

Interestingly, he labeled such tactics “The Last Argument of Kings.”

Rin says

Aligning S curves into an exponential is unlikely to work as the speed of progress should continue to increase until no S curve has the time to happen, and then until no human brain can cope with the fire hose of new information.

Quigley says

Interestingly, he labeled such tactics “The Last Argument of Kings.”

Kind of showed the previous king was a wimp, who could have avoided a larger blood bath by taking the right measures.

NuttBoxer says

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.


I suspect the feedback loop is either positive or negative: A stagnating civilization probably already has a negative feedback.

To claim we can simply aim for stability is a bit like the realtors saying we reached "a permanently high plateau".

Heraclitusstudent says

Which in exponential growth, is likely to happen in the last minute before you are overwhelmed with too many people.

We aren't even remotely close now. Combined with a decline in marriage and birthrates across the US, we are going the opposite direction. Throw in the staggering rise in preventable diseases, and the unsustainable model of cities, and we're headed towards a resurgence in country living.

NuttBoxer says

Combined with a decline in marriage and birthrates across the US, we are going the opposite direction.

Factor in immigration though.
The US added like... 50 millions people since 2000.

Heraclitusstudent says

Factor in immigration though.
The US added like... 50 millions people since 2000.

Give those immigrants a few years on the American diet.

Heraclitusstudent says

Aligning S curves into an exponential is unlikely to work as the speed of progress should continue to increase until no S curve has the time to happen, and then until no human brain can cope with the fire hose of new information.

Huh? Have you actually worked in corporate America? The average employee does exactly the same series of tasks, for years at a time. And thus, as automation increased, companies found that they could do more with fewer ppl.

And likewise, this extended into countless enterprises where even material scientists (yes, so-called knowledge workers) were being replaced by automatrons, as configuration and testing cycles could be done with robots/expert systems.

If you think that the above isn't going to increase over time then you haven't been in the real world and perhaps, lost in some academic environment where everyone is 'creative' and doing something amazing, a.k.a Ivy League type of fantasies.

The truth is that expert systems will be able to cope with more data, so that the average engineer will be more an overseer than a technician.

I would not be surprised if come 2050, that a Solar satellite station is completely designed and built out by expert systems with only a few human overseers.

Heraclitusstudent says

Total BS. The French revolution was inspired by the American revolution, coming right after it. It was a revolt against monarchy, with ideas like equality and freedom of men, that included the freedom of religion. Can you read?: Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen de 1789 .

Heraclitusstudent says

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).

These two points do seem to be what the public schools have been teaching about the French Revolution. However, combining the two, we can easily see why a student produced by such a system would love a regime like that of the North Korea: can't you read, even their country's name has "Democratic Republic" in it! Shouldn't you like North Korea more than South Korea because the former has "Democratic" in the name whereas the the latter doesn't, and the former has a much stronger and more ruthless "central authority" (the Kim dynasty)

How could there be freedom of religion when priests and nuns were being guillotined for being priests and nuns? How could there be human rights when people were being executed on baseless charges without the presumption of innocence? The reality on the ground seems to be far removed from pie-in-the-sky theory during those revolutions.

Here was the real timeline of French Revolution:
July 1789: Duke of Orleans paid for a mob to attack and occupy lightly guarded Bastille ordinance depot;
October 1789, Duke of Orleans paid for "The Women's March" on Versailles and forcing the king and queen to relocate to Paris and become prisoners;
1793: execution of the king and queen early in the year, shortly followed by mass executions and Reign of Terror; Duke of Orleans was executed half a year later. Cult of Reason invented to fill the spiritual space vacated after mass execution of priests;
1794: Cult of Supreme Being (personality cult of Robespirre), execution of Danton (former close ally of Robespirre.) which so alarmed all deputies that they arrested and executed Robespirre. mass execution burning itself out;
1795: Catholic militia in western France advance on Paris; Paris was so exhausted by the earlier mass executions and political turmoil that couldn't stop the militia/mob from country side until Napoleon deployed canons with grape shots. The Directory was put in power.
1799: hyperinflation and political instability in France induced Napoleon to abandon his army in Egypt in order to get back to Paris to take power via a coup.

As one can see, there was a long delay between Napoleon firing on the crowd and him taking power 4 years later, almost as long the time delay between the start of French Revolution and Napoleon's canon fire on the crowd. It takes time for a revolution/society to burn itself out, and every fabrication about Louise XVI's atrocities to be actually carried out against the civilians. Despite all the theories of "absolute monarchy," Louise' troops wouldn't have fired canons on a crowd (they didn't even fire canons on the mob that stormed Bastille), but after more than half a decade of revolutionary turmoil the troops would! It's just like Czar Nicolas II executed a few dozen political prisoners in his half century reign as an "absolute monarch," whereas the revolution that followed quickly proceeded to dump poisonous gas on entire forests from the air in order to exterminate peasants who resisted confiscation by the communist regime, killing tens of millions of people in the first decade of its rule . . . all in the name of "equality" "democracy" and "people" of course.

The fundamental reality is that: equality and voting by a large cross-section of population is practicable in a "nation of shop-keepers" like England, where a large segment of the population are independent economic actors accustomed to independent decision-making and give-and-take in negotiations . . . whereas in a land of peasants and serfs accustomed to collective mania and being told what to do (aka "students"), extending suffrage much beyond the Prince-Electors would result in utter chaos and democide against the entire population/society.

BTW, isn't it interesting that most kids coming out of high school history classes would assume the US and France were the only republics in the world around that time. . . completely ignoring the fact that Venetian Republic had been around for over 1000 years (697-1797), Genoa, Amalfi, Pisa and etc. were all long-standing republics, at times the largest cities in Europe, with population far out-numbering London or Paris during the early middle ages, until conquest by Napoleon! Just like England, all those Italian maritime republics were nations of shop keepers.

How is this relevant to the topic of population control? Commerce, market and the division of labor they produce can pack a huge number of people into a small space like the Venetian Republic for 1100 years (eventually ended by Napoleon's invasion) . . . whereas collectivism and academic ideological rigidity (most revolutionaries were intellectuals) even with the best of intentions like "Bill of Rights of Men" written in the 2nd month of the French Revolution would lead to mass genocide as "solution" to the "over-population" problem created by the lack of creativity and growing expectations of a copy-happy population (i.e. a society where advancement was through education, not the market). Robespirre himself was a law student, and president of student body welcoming the King when Louise XVI inspected Paris University, which was the largest and most prestigious university in the world.

Actually, we are not very different from protozoa, we are maybe worse.

Reaching a population of 10 billion on the planet by the middle of the century is an optimistic assumption, try maybe 12 or 13 billion mostly because India will overcome China in terms of population.
You haven't seen that China and the EU are buying land in Eastern Europe and Africa to produce food, but not for the locals, they are already producing food on those lands and the food is exported back in their countries.

Politicians have already said that if we want to survive we need to have land.

You may have a car, clothes, gadgets, etc. all of these will never save you from famine in case of a crisis, but that piece of land could save your from certain death.

Look where is the main issue with overpopulation today.

https://www.alternative-energies.net/overpopulation-has-become-an-issue-of-the-21st-century/