Malthusianism is an early form of basilisk. its enduring popularity, despite batting .000, comes from its promise that *somebody* is going to have to choose what kind of people there needs to be fewer of — who of course is going to be someone wise enough to embrace Malthusianism
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Which suggests that they fear indeterminate outcomes from relatively neutral mechanisms much more than any determinate dystopia. “Oh shit, the outcome could effectively be a coin toss”
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This suggests also that they overestimate their personal agency in crafting determinate outcomes where they come out on top because of their agency identity as wiser/stronger/smarter/kinder etc.
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Although in the Malthusian case, I'd argue that food shortages are a /linear/ instability in that food production per year is directly proportional to human life carrying capacity, ceteris paribus
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In the long term yeah, but the classical Malthusian argument assumes short term geometric population dynamics and a high starting point for living standards to fall from
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