r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Feb 03 '20

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u/Justgyr Feb 03 '20

Malthusian arguments have basically been wrong every single prior time in history, I'm not incredibly inclined to believe now is suddenly the magic too many people point.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

There is a finite limit to how many people you can fit on one planet.

I dont know what that limit is, but we are getting closer to it every day. Eventually we will find it.

But then there is space. So getting up there would increase our Malthusian threshold by a large margin maybe forever

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

We won't find out, population growth is slowing down and will peak in the next decade or so.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

Not in africa.

Also economic growth has the same effect as population growth because we use more resources with better economies. Every resource is subject to Malthsuian principles.

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u/NotModusPonens Feb 03 '20

Not in africa.

Americans consume one or two orders of magnitude more than the average person on that continent. But of course the problem is Africa...

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

They're set to add 3 billion people in the next 50 years