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Stacey Walked Hive Mind Doesn't Belong

This article is supposed to be about Malthusian catastrophe, and the following quote and reference certainly does NOT belong in the section where it has been placed:

"In her book Humanity and it's foolishness, Stacey Walker invites readers to challenge previous views on individuality looking instead for a paradigm shift towards a collective Hive Mind. Once in Humanity has entered the 'Hive State' Walker postulates an end to resource depletion via the Druidic virtue of 'Survival of the Fittest'."

That should be removed and if necessary placed into some sort of "related works" section.

Addendum to note: I would also beg to differ with the statement implying that Druids are somehow responsible for the theory of 'Survival of the Fittest'.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.46.43.230 (talk) 23:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Exponential growth annual growth chart

It says next to this image "The annual increase graph does not appear as one would expect for exponential growth. For exponential growth, it should itself be an upward trending exponential curve whereas it has actually been trending downward since 1986. " I don't think this is quite correct. In an exponential growth situation, the annual growth rate (given in % like the graph), should remain constant, not trend upwards exponentially. Comments? Ed Sanville 21:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

This is because on 27 March, Casito edited the image file because "Excel Graphs look unprofessional", and changed it to percentage growth because it is "more useful", but didn't adjust the description; the original image, which you can still find here showed absolute growth. Either the image should be converted back to absoute growth rate, or the description adjusted accordingly. For the time being I've adjusted the description to correct the inconsistency, but don't take that as a vote either way. (Worryingly, this image edit did not trigger my watchlists, even though that image was on my watchlist.) -- Securiger 11:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I have completed the edits I planned to make to this page. I would be interested to see any comments.

Buzz Bloom

Some of this article's information has been moved to Neanderthals Bandits and Farmers or Cannibals and Kings articles where it more rightfully belongs. The remainder contained some pretty basic errors (e.g. supply and demand) and has been mostly rewritten. I am pretty confident about this, but if you think it was correct we can discuss it here. User:H7asan

H7asan

We obviously have a disagreement regarding the relevance of "Beyond the Limits". I found the entire book exactly on the point. It deals with the exhaustion of food (and other resources) as a result of unconstrained population growth (as well as the unconstrained growth of consumption). I definitely think this book should be referenced from a discussion of neo-Malthusean theory. Why do you think otherwise? Also, what is the proper mechanism for getting a disagreement of this kind resolved?

By the way, I thought your moving of the discussion about the Harris and Tudge books to their own pages was a good idea.

Buzz Bloom

I have nothing against the Beyond the Limits book. (Actually I know nothing about it.) My problem was with the article which was empty. User:H7asan

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I plan to remove the two paragraphs beginning with "Another problem is that there is no strong evidence ... " including the two graphs. This discussion is irrelevant to the topic of the Mathusuan catastrophe. Malthus never described population growth as being exponential. He said the growth would be expoential in unchecked, and then only until a subsistance level was reached. Growth of a population until a subsistance level would correspond to what Securiger describes in the current text I plan to remove as a Logistic curve. All that the curves show is that the current trend of world population from 1950-2000 may be begining to reach a new limit of a kind that Malthus discusses: use of contraception, which Malthus called a vice.

I put this notice of intent here to elicit comments or alternative suggestions before doing it.

I also plan to edit the remaining material in the "Non-occurrence of the catastrophe" section cbecajuse I think it un fairly represents the state of the world at the end of the 19th century, which the anthropoligist Marvin Harris describes as one of approaching catastrophe as predicted by Malthus. The section should discuss the innovations of the twentieth century that offer opportunities to avoid the catastrophe, or only postpose it. From this perspective, I would change he title of the section to "Postponement or non-occurrence of the catastrophe".

I also elicit comments or alternative suggestions regarding these intentions.

User:BuzzB Feb 28, 2004

I disagree with both proposed edits, quite strongly. Firstly, the paragraphs beginning "Another problem is..." are highly relevant. Malthus proposed a particular theory, which was essentially premised on three claims, one of them being the idea that a human population undergoes geometric growth if unchecked. Malthus' Essay has been disputed by many, and one major point of disputation - indeed one of the few points, pro- or anti-, that bothers to look at empirical facts - is that there is absolutely no evidence in support of this basic premise. It was pointed out as soon as the Essay was published, and continues to be pointed out today; if you like you can propose hypotheses to explain that fact away, but simply removing all evidence of it would severely bias the article.

Equally, we could point out that there is no evidence that food supply increases arithmetically, and that in fact it patently does not. One of the nicer summaries is this, written by Hazlitt in 1822:

All that is true of Mr Malthus's doctrine then, is this, that the tendency of population to increase remains after the power of the earth to produce more food is gone; that the one is limited, the other unlimited. This is enough for the morality of the question: his mathematics are altogether spurious.

Secondly, you propose to edit the remaining material in that section, because you claim that it "un fairly represents the state of the world at the end of the 19th century, which the anthropoligist Marvin Harris describes as one of approaching catastrophe as predicted by Malthus". Huh? That section doesn't even discuss the end of the nineteenth century! If you meant "end of the 18th century", which is mentioned, then of that time it says "At the time Malthus wrote, most societies had populations at or near their agricultural limits" - which is not contradicted by your point!? (Although there is plenty of evidence to believe that that statement is also somewhat exaggerated).

I should point out that when I get time to do it justice, I plan to make extensive additions to this article, which in my opinion is currently very shallow and unencyclopedic. It currently represents the shallow, ill-defined, handwaving version of the Malthusian theory that is frequently dragged out in the pub or at dinner parties in support of some political argument or another. But in fact Malthus had a much more complete theory than is represented here, which was one of the seminal theories that gave rise to economics. (Although there is very little of the detail that is still widely accepted.) We need to work in its rôle in the development of economics. Additionally the current article needs to mention Wallace, who had the idea first. Oh, and it also doesn't even mention the basic Malthusian idea that increased food supply automatically generated increased population until everyone was starving again, which segues into the rôle the theory in had in justifying the oppression of the poor in nineteenth century politics - again from Hazlitt:

The instant, however, any increase in population, with or without an increase in the means of subsistence, is hinted, the disciples of Mr Malthus are struck with horror at the vice and misery which must ensue to keep this double population down; nay, mention any improvement, any reform, any addition to the comforts or necessaries of life, any diminution of vice and misery, and the infallible result in their apprehensive imagination is only an incalculable increase of vice and misery, from the increased means of subsistence, and increased population that would follow. They have but this one idea in their heads; it comes in at every turn, and nothing can drive it out.

Securiger 11:28, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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I have extended the graph using the same data source, out to the years 1800-2005. Unfortunately, there seems to be some problem with the new image. Sometimes it appears when the article is displayed, and sometimes I see only a reference to an image. I have posted a query over at WikiMedia, and I hope to have it resolved in a day or two. Meanwhile, if you are looking for the image, please have some patience! --Aetheling 16:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

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Addressing the original question of this section, an exponential curve does not have a constant growth rate. A constant growth rate yields a linear curve (for example, y=2x, a linear curve, has a growth rate of 2, a constant). An exponential curve has a growth rate that is, itself, an exponential curve (simplest example is y=e^x, a curve whose growth rate is equal to itself y'=e^x). For more information on this, you could visit the wikipedia page on exponential growth. I corrected the incorrect sentence.

Matt

• You have misunderstood the meaning of the term "growth rate". When we say that a population of size X grows at a rate of 5%, for example, we mean that the growth this year will be 0.05X. If you solve the difference equation X(t+1)-X(t) = rX(t), the solution is exponential growth: X(t) = (1+r)^t X(0). I have therefore reverted your edit. —Aetheling (talk) 07:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

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I have updated the figures for world population and world population growth rate, to reflect the latest figures and estimates from the US Bureau of the Census. I also took the opportunity to improve these charts a little. I narrowed the range of the first and converted the vertical scale from semilog, so as to bring out more detail. If you look at this chart in its highest resolution, you can see that we have been following pretty closely the UN Medium projection (though it is still way too early to make any definitive judgement on this point). For the growth rate chart I added the latest projections by the US Bureau of the Census out to 2025, in red. Cheers! —Aetheling (talk) 18:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC).

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I wanted to point out that this approach to exponential growth is to limited. In the article it is suggested that you should view the population as different groups with different growth rates. You could compare a population that is decreasing with 2,5% per year with a population that consists of two groups. Lets say half of the population is a group that decreases with 10% and the other half increases with 5%. The latter would have a decrease of 2,5 percent in the first year. But this would slowly change over time. After 15 years you will see a growth of about three percent. And over time the growth of the entire population will be five percent. The group with the largest growth wins.

This is an important aspect because people will respond differently to the changes in society. There are a lot of explanations why population growth slowes when gdp rises. There will be more contraceptives and more luxury etc. However there will be a group within the population that despite all these changes still has a preference for having children. M. Meijer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meijer1973 (talk • contribs) 20:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Graph of World Population

Hmm. I just wanted to object to a few things:

• The World Population graph is described as "clearly... close to linear". Really? To me it looks "clearly curved". (In fact, I think I see evidence of the logistic curve, but that could well be spurious.) As alluded to in the article, 50 years is an awfully short time to get a good idea of how human population levels are changing. In fact, graphing the data from 1804-1999 given in the first external link at that point in the article, would give a strong impression of exponential growth. Yes, maybe we're starting to see the beginning of the "slowing down" in growth that's predicted by the logistic model, but it's relatively early in that process, IMO, so I would be very hesitant to claim that the growth is no longer exponential — certainly not based on the data given here. (dcljr, continued below)
  • Yes, graphing the 6 points 1804-1999 does look closer to exponential (see below) - but the data prior to 1950 are extrapolations or approximations, based partly on the assumption of exponential growth prior to 1950 (and of course data after 2004 is purely extrapolated with some unstated model). Only the data highlighted in blue are based largely on actual census counts. (In any case, it looks closer still to two linear segments with an critical point near 1960). So the reason for concentrating on the last 50 years is because that is the sole period for which we have reasonably reliable data. And when you graph that real data, you get something that offers little support for the common assumption that "it's obviously exponential". Also it was not stated that it's "no longer exponential", but rather that there is no strong evidence that it ever has been. In fact it could be a very slow exponential, or maybe a very slow logistical, or perhaps linear, or quadratic - the point is we really don't know, and at any rate it certainly isn't a simple function. But at least the reason for choosing this period should be clarified. (Securiger)
    
    • Hmm... Part of the reason it might look closer to two linear segments is because the interpolating curve is (I assume) a cubic spline (and there's no point for it to go through between c. 1805 and 1925). Anyway, I agree with the rest of your paragraph. - dcljr 22:53, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Note that the plot of World Population Increase suggests that the rate of increase may actually still be going up, perhaps even (approximately) linearly (you always have to expect short-term fluctuations from the overall trend), which would imply quadratic growth. (dcljr)
  • How do you figure that? Apart from two years, it has been going down every year since 1987 - which is a third of the period for which we actually have reliable data! (Overall, there has been downturn in the growth rate for 26 of the 54 years considered.) (Securiger)
• The sentence that begins "Also the rate of increase should increase, whereas, of the increase between 1960 and today, five-sixths occurred in the early 1960s", aside from being confusing, is completely misleading, since a mere glance of the Increase graph shows something highly unusual happening in the years 1957-1962, resulting in a lcoal minimum in 1960! That dip in the graph is the only reason the statement above is true (to the extent that it is). (dcljr)
  • I'll try to rephrase the sentence you find confusing. The point is that in a positive exponential, the first difference (and second difference, and all other differences) is also a positive, upward trending exponential. Thus when you get a true exponential growth curve and plot the differences between years, that rate-of-growth curve is itself an upward curving exponential. The rate-of-growth curve for human population clearly does not look like that at all. This is seen even more so in the 2nd difference curve (below), which however I would not include on the main page because second differences are heavily affected by noise. If population was exponential, the second difference curve should also be exponential, in fact it has a lot of noise oscillating around zero but with an overall downward trend. As for the statement which you claim is "completely misleading", umm, your "objection" agrees almost exactly with the point and meaning of that sentence: if we were looking at exponential growth, most of the growth would be recent, but in fact most of the growth is due to "something highly unusual" happening back then - the big dip from '57 to '60, and also the huge surge from '60 to '63. And even if we interpolate the years '57 to '63 to remove this curious feature, 75% of the growth increase between 1950 and the peak year, 1990, occurred in the first half of that period. This is just not at all consistent with a positive exponential growth. It seems I need to make some clarifications on why this chart, and the data it represents, are wholly inconsistent with the implications of exponential growth. (Securiger)
    
    • Maybe I misunderstood your purpose of pointing out the circa-1960 thing. I don't know. In any case, I wouldn't read much into the data of around that time. The "hiccup" might just be "noise" or might be due to a completely administrative cause (a change, say, in how censuses were taken or recorded in one or more large countries at the time — who knows?). I think most of our "differences" can be summed up by the following statement from the article: "...short-term trends, even on the scale of decades or centuries, do not necessarily disprove the underlying mechanisms...". I've been taking a much more long-term perspective, figuring that things like the 1960-ish "hiccup" and the "decrease in the increase" since 1986 are likely short-term deviations from the overall pattern over centuries (which is essentially unknowable anyway, but at least an exponential [and logistical] model has some theoretical basis). Anyway, I think both of us can agree that in the last 50 years or so the trend has not appeared to be exponential. On a completely different note, it would be interesting to consider (not in the article itself — or even here, necessarily) what role (tele)communications and transportation plays in all of this. Might population growth be "stabilizing" (2nd derivative graph above) as a result of the increased interconnectedness of human populations? Perhaps that's the reason behind the "critical point" of around 1960? - dcljr 22:53, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Finally, I think the correlation coefficient is a pretty useless measure of anything in this context; someone should do an appropriate statistical test on the yearly data instead (I suggest an F-test to see whether an exponential term is needed over linear [intercept and slope] terms, and possibly an approximate lack of fit test). - dcljr 08:00, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Why do you think it is useless here? $r^{2}$ is supposed to measure the fraction of the variability in y explained by the function of x - in this case, a linear model and exponential one explain the variability about equally well. I don't understand what you mean by "F-test to see whether an exponential term is needed over linear", but an F-test finds no significant difference in the residuals from linear and exponential models. Securiger 16:58, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Why is it useless? Because an exponential with slow growth can look linear and have a correlation close to 1! As for r², the article mentions the correlation coefficient not the coefficient of determination. Although obviously they're computationally the same in this case, the author was using it specifically to indicate linearity. In any case, even if you grant that "practically speaking" the correlation is close to 1, consider what "practice" we're putting this information to: we're using these models to predict population levels far into the future (sometimes as far into the future as we have "reliable" data in the past, in fact — see above graph) and there can be a big difference between extrapolation using a linear model and one using an exponential. (Of course. That's why we're discussing this in the first place.) Oh, and I meant an ANOVA "F-test" for testing whether a coefficient in a regression model is zero (as opposed to an "F-test" for testing the equality of two population variances). I should have been more specific. I'm not sure what "F-test" you did. - dcljr 22:53, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Depletion of resources.

I think these things should be included because they strongly effect what decisions should be made regarding Malthusian theory. I find it impossible to argue with or doubt the basic theory. Almost the only requirements for its applicability are that life exists and there is no centralized control. What is in question are the time scale and the nature of the catastrophe. Both of these are strongly effected by pollution and resource depletion, especially energy and farm land. One can consider food the "fuel" of non-industrial man, so energy is the modern equivalent.

The only way I feel I am being pessimistic is that nuclear (breader fission and/or fusion) power may well be able to replace fossil fuels with acceptable pollution and hazard, but no-one is sure of that. Anyway it can't support the kind of increase in energy consumption we are seeing.

David R. Ingham

Citations Needed

There is no cite given for the following assertion:

In fact, currently, food supply per person is several times higher than when Malthus wrote his essay

Reference #10 links to the International Data Base home page, but does not contain a reference to any particular article.

Only showing to 1950 in the chart

I read what was discussed before, and I still think it is misleading to only show data from 1950-2000. Regardless of the precision of the data before 1950, the numbers can still be shown to be in the right ballpark. (One reader commented that the data before 1950 were often approxomations that, in part, assumed exponential growth - but one can not possibly assume linear growth, or there would have been no people before 1900! And the numbers for earlier dates are based on real data, not merely assumptions.)

It's obvious that the period from 1950 to 2000 looks much more linear than, say, 1750 to 2000, and gives a misleading impression. The correct answer is, as has been said, that world population appears to follow a more complex function than simple linear, exponential, or quadratic growth. So why show only the select portion that appears linear? – Quadell ^(talk) 13:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Since there has been no discussion for 2 weeks on this, I'm going to change the article. – Quadell ^(talk) 15:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

An Inaccurate Interpretation

When you say:

"[Malthus] predicted that population growth would eventually outrun food supply,"

(this being one of many statements you've made in support of your interpretation) you seem to be claiming that Malthus was describing (and predicting) a future catastrophic global event - one that has yet to occur. That is not what he was saying, at all.

Malthus posited a doubling of world population every 25 years under ideal conditions (no shortage of food and none of the "positive" constraints of, for example, war and disease). It is wrong to assume that Malthus actually thought the world population would double every 25 years until some future event in which there would not be enough food to sustain the population. (Given his ideal conditions and a population at the close of the 18th century of 1 billion, the world population would now be in excess of 250 billion.)

What he predicted was not some apocalyptic event but ongoing catastrophes playing out simultaneously in localized areas all over the world, wherever and whenever any group of people could not sustain themselves because their population had outrun the local area's food production capacity. His intent is quite clear in his statement (when discussing the American Indian):

"Yet, [...] the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be always greater than the means to support it." [emphasis added]

It is also implicitly clear that when Darwin found in Malthus' essay the mechanism that drives evolution - a constant competition for survival due to limited resources - he didn't think Malthus was predicting some future global catastrophe.

Malthus was addressing the idea of utopian societies gaining popularity at the time he wrote his essay. The point of his essay was to show that there could never be a population free from poverty and hunger and, therefore, the dream of a utopian society was just that - a dream. While your point that food production is now far greater than Malthus could ever imagine is true, what Malthus was saying remains valid. There are more people living in extreme poverty today than there were people (in total) at the time Malthus wrote his essay.

Paul Pomeroy 06:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

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I was going to make those very points (see above) about the logistic curve behaviour not contradicting Malthus's ideas, i.e. that he did not predict exponential growth but rather a tendency towards it, always modified by "checks", which is precisely where the logistics curve comes from. But then, why hasn't that change yet been made?

I'd also like to draw attention to [Nassau Senior]'s work on wages, which has some of this thinking behind it. The particular point I want to bring out is his idea that machinery could theoretically compete with people for food, if only it needed fuel that drew on the same resources - which using more renewable fuels might soon cause. PML.

Population, WHEN UNCHECKED, increases in a geometrical ratio

Hi,

when discussing the correctness of the geometric growth assumption and Malthus' theory in general it's important to keep Malthus' exact words in mind: "Population, WHEN UNCHECKED, increases in a geometrical ratio". Since the late 18th century occured plenty of Malthusian' checks to the human population: wars and epidemics, unhealthy living conditions, still existing infant mortality, contraception and abortion etc.

Arguing that the Malthusian population model is void because we can't see a perfect exponential growth in the world population chart seems somewhat dubios; without considering the existence of checks (that, in Malthus' thinking, avoid, or delay, the "big catastrophe").

-- 212.144.193.196 12:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

user 212.144.193.196 is right on target. i wish she or he would get a name :) Anlace 21:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Fertility Rate

There has been enormous decrease in female fertility worldwide and this is something that is not just specific to the west. The average worldwide fertility is now 2.59 (2.1 is the replacement rate fertility at which no population growth will occur in the long term). For instance the fertility rate in India is now 2.73. This implies that growth is not exponential since a constant fertility rate would be required for exponential growth. This is the reason for the UN estimates. A scientific approach (scientific does not mean environmentalist) implies that population growth must level off due to decreasing fertility. Therefore neo-malthusian theory makes no sense and has just been debunked. QED bitches.

the anonymous author above makes little sense. the birth rate of India for example would lead to tens of millions more people in that country in the next decades if the rate is left unchecked and death rates do not escalate severely. moreover there are many ways population growth can "level off" besides decreased fertility. thus the author above has revealed his or her inherent lack of scientific approach. Anlace 04:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the commenter means by 'female fertility'. There is no reason to think that women are physiologically less fertile than they used to be. The reduction in actual birth rates is due mainly to contraception, abortion, and to the increasing economic independence of women, which means they do not need to marry as soon as possible. I don't know about 'neo-Malthusian theory', but Malthus himself was aware of the primitive methods of birth control available in his day, and deplored them as immoral 'violations of the marriage bed'. His own preferred method of birth control was 'moral restraint', i.e. abstention from marriage by those who cannot afford to raise children, combined with chastity by the unmarried. Which is a bit grim, but don't forget he was a clergyman.109.158.128.2 (talk) 13:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

That assumes fertility does not continue to decrease and we have no reason to expect that will happen given that it has decreased from 6 to less that 3 worldwide from 1960 to 1990. You say India will continue to experience population increase. It will but at a slower rate which is completely inconsistent with Malthus. Showing an increase in population is not enough. You are required to show an exponential increase. A decrease from 6 to 3 definitely implies that growth is not exponential since exponential growth requires constant fertility.

Could we please have a moratorium on comments about Malthus by people who have never read him? Malthus never claimed that population actually increases at an exponential rate, only that it would do if there were no 'checks' on reproduction. He then devoted hundreds of pages (in the later editions of his Essay) to analyzing what those 'checks' were.109.158.128.2 (talk) 13:37, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

i think someone is missing the big picture here. have you seen the "low" projections for india and many lesser developed countries (i am not considering India lesser developed by the way). the real issue is carrying capacity. do you honestly believe there is carrying capacity for these burgeoning billions when over one billion people today do not have safe drinking water? this is not a simple matter of sharing the wealth. we are simply living on a finite planet, whose resources are stretched thinly. wake up and smell the coffee. the catatastrophe is occurring now. by the way your credibility would grow exponentially if you would create an account :) Anlace 05:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Carrying capacity is a variable in the Logistic curve, it is not part of malthus' original theory afaik. Kim Bruning 09:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Logistic curve and lotka-volterra

They're already mentioned, but not emphasized. Could we maybe stress that there are currently improved population models available. Both these newer models *do* actually have malthusian style exponential growth for certain parameters. They just also have different behaviour under other parameters. --Kim Bruning 09:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV & Factual accuracy

The section on "is the catastrophe happening?" seems to have a Non-NPOV and perhaps even some factual accuracy. I just stumbled on this article and don't know enough to necessarily correct it all myself, but tagged the section. For example, the unsourced and original opinion that the UN study is "less scientific" than contradicting studies. There are weasel words/phrases like "numerous scholars accept...", "some analysts consider...", etc. I think the section has definitely been massaged to push a subtly apocalyptic point of view.--160.39.213.64 01:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I did enjoy the bit about one lone economist suggessting that global starvation might not be inevitable! Most economists (and others with a half a brain!) regard theories of Malthusian catastophes as a 19th century goof, and comprehensively disproven! Neo-Malthusianism is up there with those who believe that reading the Bible backwards reveals Satanic messages! --Nmcmurdo 19:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the earlier version had some serious problems with bias. As time permits, I have been trying to improve this section with both text and figures that let readers make up their own minds based on the most impartial and accurate graphics that I can devise. — Aetheling 20:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

As first user states. There are lots of NPOV issues with that section. Whoever authored that section was determined to reject all notions that the Malthusian Catastrophe is shoved back/not happening at all. Then again murdo, isn't it a bit personal to talk, ad hominem, to the Neo-Malthusians? We sure could use a little tact everywhere in Wikipedia. Pasonia 03:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

True. The way I heard it, the world food supply is more than enough to comfortably sustain the entire population, and famine is due mostly to politics and poor distribution. Vultur 9:48 PM, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

there is no question that more sourcing is needed on this article (along with 99 percent of all wikipedia articles}. Vultur, the way you "heard it" is factually in error. the world food supply is presently being produced by unsustainable agricultural methods. in some of the biggest production areas (eg great plains of USA and north China plain) groundwater is being exhausted. there are countless other factual examples of the fact that food production is not foreseeably adequate...let alone adequate drinking water. thus i hope the zeal expressed above will translate into acquiring fact based sources. regards. Anlace 15:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Malthusian catastrophe in popular culture

Maybe this article is asking for a "Malthusian catastrophe in popular culture" section, as popular on many other articles? To seed such a section, here's a piece of trivia: the Guardians of the Universe, from DC Comics, originated in a planed named Maltus, and were called Maltusians. Some of them evolved into the Guardians and left for Oa, while most stayed behind, and were later depicted as much less advanced than Earth, presumably due to Malthusian effects. It may be that the name is only a coincidence, and as such I'd rather not touch the article, but I believe it's intentional. I'm sure other people can remember lots of other pop references. LaloMartins 05:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Critics of Malthusian catastrophe

Following are the sections I wrote on critics of malthusian catastrophe. However, they might first be further discussed before any display on the article page again, so I moved them here. Please state if you find them reasonable or not. Mikael Häggström 06:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Economically

By the simple rule of supply and demand, an increasing population would lead to an increasing demand for food. If then the supply of food isn't increasing at the same rate, the price of food will increase. Thus, more people would find it worth to work agricultural, and if the land area of agriculture isn't enough, find alternatives for producing food. Such alternatives could be food based on algae or fungi or, on the long term, purely synthetic food. On the other hand, increasing prices of food would render the consumers to find cheaper alternatives. Thus, the worst catastrophe that could happen is that all people would have to become vegetarians, instead of the wasting system of eating animals eating vegetables. Alternatively, the population would have to eat more algae or seaweed.

The problem is that you run into limits of what can physically be produced. Prolonged exponential growth would lead to absurdities like having more people than there are atoms in the universe, or a vast ball of humans expanding into space faster than the speed of light. Supply and demand isn't going to make those scenarios any less absurd. Even to get remotely close to those scenarios would require sci-fi-style technology (think Ringworld), which, while it may appear in the future, should not be taken for granted. Currently feasible things like eating seaweed would buy us a few doubling times, at best, and the population doubles every 70 years at a modest 1% growth rate.

Malthus agreed with you that agricultural output could be increased, but he didn't believe it could increase as fast as a growing population.Rsheridan6 03:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't the growing occurrence of obesity in the developing world render Malthus' theory (at least as it relates to food) void once and for all? I mean now we can manufacture junk food with ridiculously high calorie content for next to nothing. The number of obese individuals worldwide has now equalled the number of underfed. This should be mentioned somewhere http://www.fao.org/FOCUS/E/obesity/obes1.htm81.153.62.232 20:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with the essence of the theory. Read the paragraph above yours: where is the cheap junk food going to come from when there are 12, 24, 48, 96, or 192 billion people? The theory is based on the fundamental nature of food production and population growth, and the fact that farming productivity outstripped population growth for a century or two (really not a long time on an evolutionary or historical scale) doesn't render the theory null and void forever, any more than the fact that oil production increased for a few centuries proves that there's an infinite supply of oil in the ground. To render it void forever, you would have to either show that we can reliably have food production increases similar to the green revolution on a regular basis, or that population growth will cease forever. Rsheridan6 05:53, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Distribution

The starvation we see on earth today isn't a result of an insufficiency of the earth to supply food, even without prospects of purely synthetic food and a shift to eating algae and fungi. Rather, it's a result of inability to transport it to all areas where it is needed. By the economic reasons above, this will continue into the future as well. Thus, there will be no deterioration of mankind due to the Malthusian catastrophe, although an unfair distribution of supply might persist.

The sections (Distribution in particular) are stating opinion as fact, and not crediting the opinion to any source. Wikipedia is a tertiary source, and must also be written from a neutral point of view. We cannot say "it's obvious that this theory is wrong because blah", we must say "John F. Doe and Dr. Foo disagree with this theory due to blah". Capi 14:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, right. [1] Guess the U.N. know what they are talking about when they say that there's already enough food for 12 billion people. And the population is expected to reach a maximum of 9 billion. Actually in many parts of the world the population already stopped growing. So I don't think figuring out how to grow stuff in space is our primary problem to stop people starving and I also don't think the Malthusian catastrophe is about to happen any time soon. --Mudd1 13:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Load of clap-trap

What a load of clap-trap! Even Malthus agreed that since his predicted catastrophe never happened, he was wrong. Would that his modern-day supporters were as intelligent and honest as he.

Man does not live by bread alone

In most discussions/articles RE: the sustaniability or otherwise of future (or even current) population levels there is far too much emphisis on the feasibility (or otherwise) of meeting projected demands of FOOD but what of other resources required by modern people to lead worthwhile lives like housing, clean water, clothing, energy, transport, medicine and all manner of manufactured goods. There are serious question marks over the long term availability of sufficent supplies of raw materials to meet these needs even at current population levels. And what pollution ? All other considerations being equal surely twelve billion people will produce a lot more than say two billion. 80.229.222.48 11:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Population growth

http:Disablelink//www.optimumpopulation.org/ your right about this one... it is a spam one really here ... because of the donation thing pov. etc... thanks for catching that NJGW it is not a good link here at all... and I guess you agree that you probably mistakenly removed this one previously... that is excellent information M. King Hubbert on the Nature of Growth. 1974 Thanks for being alert on the other one. skip sievert (talk) 18:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The Hubbert link doesn't really belong either... it doesn't mention Malthus or speak of population drops due to catastrophe. It deals with population growth. I think other editors should look very closely at that link and consider removing it. It has also been inserted into other articles recently to which it is only tangentially related. NJGW (talk) 07:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I think you are wrong. It is all about exponential growth and use of resources .. and future consequences.. Why would it have to mention Malthus to be pertinent? It goes way beyond Malthus... Malthus would have swooned over Hubberts charts and graphs. Hubbert was probably was the most well known Geo-scientist produced by the U.S. -- Removing that link ... is removing very good information. Not suggested. Look at Hubberts exponential growth explanation in the article. For that reason alone it is good... also here is a sample from the paper in question:

Yet, during the last two centuries of unbroken industrial growth we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture. Our institutions, our legal system, our financial system, and our most cherished folkways and beliefs are all based upon the premise of continuing growth. Since physical and biological constraints make it impossible to continue such rates of growth indefinitely, it is inevitable that with the slowing down in the rates of physical growth cultural adjustments must be made.[2] Now that is purely Malthusian. skip sievert (talk) 15:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Malthusian? Perhaps (though it's your word against Hubbert's lack of using the name Malthus for now), but how is it related to Malthusian catastrophes? Lots of folks have written works which may be traced back in some way to Malthus, but we shouldn't list every one of those papers here, or even at Malthus' article for that matter. The external links should be a stand-out resource which speaks about the topic itself, or else we'll have every single person who likes a tangentially related website wanting to link it here.

Better idea: try finding a way to use it as a ref here or at Malthus in a way which doesn't violate wp:OR. NJGW (talk) 19:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

E.T's are supposed to expand the information not directly in the article but pertinent.

Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position. This means that Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, or arguments.

How it is you interpret that file as such is not known. This is a scientist who was called before a subcommittee of the Congress to testify about energy, as it relates the environment and consequences of lack of energy in the future. Energy is what supports our system. If you loose access to it the system stops. Original research? Hubbert was called before these politicians to try and explain a very Malthusian problem... We use petrol also for making fertilizer and pesticides... That is the green revolution... or what powers it. skip sievert (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you mean ELs, not ETs. In any case, you should read wp:EL, and especially the list of suggested external links and the thirteenth entry in the list of links to avoid (which reads in part "Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article"). The article is not about Malthusian catastrophies, Malthus and catastrophies are not mentioned, and besides your interpretation we have no indication that this was essay was written to "explain a very Malthusian problem". I'm not trying to be mean, and I see why you believe what you believe (and even agree with your main points regarding Hubbert peaks and population growth), but that doesn't make it appropriate to link this essay in this and other tangentially related articles. Besides, it exists appropriately as a link in at least 6 other articles already. NJGW (talk) 21:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with NJGW here. The WP:OR violation he is referring to is not in the contents of the linked article itself; it's in your tacit assumption that the latter relates to the main topic of Malthusian Catastrophe. That is far from being a given. I echo his guidance in trying to place it within the body of the article. It's compliance or lack thereof will then become apparent. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 22:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok... but I do not agree... peak oil is about Malthusian as it gets, in every sense. skip sievert (talk) 05:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's more accurate to say that some of the predictions of oil depletion resemble Malthusian catastrophes, but that's already covered here and a link to Peak oil exists in the see also section. I see no reason to violate wp:ELNO-13 in this case. NJGW (talk) 15:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

You have a point there. Bartlett does a good job explaining things. I am thinking now that I agree with your points in general, after looking more into the issues you discussed. skip sievert (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Anarcho-primitivism connection?

First I just want to point out that links within the See also section shouldn't have the same level of scrutiny as those in the EL sections. That said, this connection is a bit loose... I can see how one might argue that an Anarcho-primitivist might support the return to a different lifestyle in order to avoid a Malthusian catastrophy, but couldn't the same be said for any type of primitivst? Maybe a section could be inserted in the text which discusses movements which aim to mitigate a catastrophy and primitivism could be mentioned there (but since this is essentially a population issue, a sudden drop in technology levels worldwide would create an instant and artificial--rather than organic--Malthusian catastrophy).

This seems a bit tricky, but if done correctly could improve the article. NJGW (talk) 18:11, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

It's complicated to distinguish "artificial" from "organic" social phenomenon. The connection is very clear if you consider that the "Malthusian catastrophe" is in itself part of the anarcho-primitivist theory on why civilization is unsustainable. In this sense, the anarcho-primitivists are not exactly looking to “mitigate” the problem, but to find alternatives of sustainable survival trough the inevitable collapse. Maziotis (talk) 21:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of technology. There are other non-anarchist forms of primitivism, and not all primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source of modern, civilized problems. I fail to see how this is related... much to Malthus, if at all. skip sievert (talk) 02:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you should try to read more than the first paragraph of an article in wikipedia when trying to understand a subject. Maziotis (talk) 09:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe there is not exactly a Marx in anarcho-primitivism like there is one in marxism. There is this general assumption that civilization is a two second disease in our biological history. Other than that, there is a space for different interpretations to what the unsustainability of civilization means. I never meant to argue that the Malthusian theory is a corner stone in anarcho-primitivist theory. Simply, if I understood it well, this theory is an explanation on how agriculture is unsustainable for human beings in the long run. This in turn is central to a political philosophy called anarcho-primitivism. There is where I see a clear connection. Maziotis (talk) 11:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah probably that is the angle that would have to be tried to get at... if a link were to be made. As NJGW said Maybe a section could be inserted in the text which discusses movements which aim to mitigate a catastrophy and primitivism could be mentioned there (but since this is essentially a population issue, a sudden drop in technology levels worldwide would create an instant and artificial--rather than organic--Malthusian catastrophy).... Another section might list a bunch of alternative concepts... but still Anarcho-primitivism being in my opinion... a kind of political social movement... that is possibly a couple of steps from even mainstream hetorodox thinking, although I am familiar with Tainter and his ideas, and also some of the other well known advocates of this movement. skip sievert (talk) 14:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

does not belong in lede

"An August 2007 science review in The New York Times raised the claim that the Industrial Revolution had enabled the modern world to break out of the Malthusian Trap,[1] " ... uh... the idea the that the Industrial Revolution enabled the modern world to break out of the Malthusian Trap goes back to ... well, shortly after Malthus. Certainly it was widely accepted among economists by the early 20th century. And that's way, way, way before 2007. This is so outdated (2007 vs. 1900) and trite ("raised the claim" to characterize a widely held view completely supported by empirical evidence) that it just does not belong in the article, and definitely not in the lede.radek (talk) 22:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

---

I am curious if Malthusian theory can be applied to other areas of growth. For example, educational institutions continually birthing graduates in relation to the number of jobs available. In trying to ease the problem, different organizations or government entities are wanting to create new jobs. This is not stated as reality but to only an example. Beetlebailey75 (talk) 09:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)beetlebailey75

This sentence is questionable

"In some cases, population growth occurs due to increasing life expectancies, even though fertility rates are below replacement."

Does not seem to make mathematical sense. The mechanism where increasing life expectancies creates population growth works in the way that: greater life expectancies cause increasing fertility rates, which causes population growth. Increasing life expectancies cannot create population growth without increasing fertility rates about replacement first. Think about the arithmetic of it:

If you have an initial number, say, 0, and can (only) add or subtract as many 1s from it anytime, you need to add more times than you subtract to get a greater number. I'm no mathematician, by the way, so I don't know if this is always true, but I'm pretty true it applies here. Anyways, if "fertility rates are below replacement," as in the sentence in question, it corresponds to subtracting more times than adding, if the resulting number corresponds to the population, but since you need to add more times than you subtract to get a greater number, the population could only decrease. If the population could only decrease, it wouldn't make sense how "population growth occurs". If no one objects, I'll remove this statement at February. 173.180.202.22 (talk) 06:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

And also, the example where there's "1.3 children/woman" doesn't seem to be a replacement rate because the children's parents don't necessarily have to be replaced. 173.180.202.22 (talk) 07:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Rename

Wouldn't it be better to have this article, with a slight rewrite and shift of focus, under Malthusian theory (currently a redirect here) rather than "catastrophe"? The way the idea works is that there are demographic checks on income per capita but a "catastrophe" in the sense of something sudden and very bad is not necessarily a consequence of the model.VolunteerMarek 08:13, 4 July 2012 (UTC)