The threat is underpopulation and not over population?
'Like today’s modern, well-fed nations, both ancient Greece and Rome eventually found that their elites had lost interest in the often dreary chores of family life. “In our time all Greece was visited by a dearth of children and a general decay of population,” lamented the Greek historian Polybius around 140 B.C., just as Greece was giving in to Roman domination. “This evil grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting attention, by our men becoming perverted to a passion for show and money and the pleasures of an idle life.” But, as with civilizations around the globe, patriarchy, for as long as it could be sustained, was the key to maintaining population and, therefore, power. ''
'The Return of Patriarchy,' Phillip Longman
The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today's Western living standards. I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse."
--Julian Simon (1997)
T.R. Reid, in the National Geographic issue of October 1998: 56-74 titled as "Feeding the Planet" wrote about the popular myth of ''overpopulation....''
...People have been debating the planet's carrying capacity at least since Socrates' day. Many experts, at many different points in history, have predicted that the world would soon be overpopulated, leading to famine and suffering on a gargantuan scale. So far, these predictions of disaster have all turned out to be wrong.
Exactly 200 years ago, when the world's population was nearing one billion, the British economist Thomas Malthus offered the most famous statement of the basic dilemma. Population, he said, must increase, because "the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain." But food supplies could not possibly increase as quickly: "The power of population is infinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man."
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