Mike Solana

malthus was absolutely wrong — proven historically and ALSO counterfactually. like, at the time he was writing he was already wrong. check out merchants of despair by @robert_zubrin

If we hadn’t revolutionized the tech, you think Malthus would still have been wildly off? I was under the impression that was *why* we revolutionized it, *how* it’s reasonable to claim we saved billions. Two sides of the same coin.

Btw.. Adam Smith discussed this a bit in wealth of nations and so far his theories have held up pretty well. Basically he argued when economies work well people can make better choices, have more security, and can often make better choices and that large families

Are not as necessary because every family or group need not do everything reducing the need for a large family for labour. Also since people have more time and capital they have more security unlike in earlier times where security came from lots of land, people, and

Stocks of grain. In Smiths theory populations would somewhat self regulate and stabilize and be more resilient to major changes and calamities. He also caveated and explained what could g0 wrong but my favorite comment on this topic is how Mercantilism and monopolies

Create confusing signals and can create major issues including starving communities, causing unmaintable expansions "bubbles" etc. Note he did this a like 3 decades before Malthus and it's still holds up. Amazing

Can it be true that grain technology saved billions, and at the same time, Malthus was wrong that billions would die?

First that's not Malthus argument. Second Burlogh was a example of how the US has promoted world prosperity. By allowing people to grow food that takes less energy, less watter, and produces more food and is easier to grow