Soil is now becoming depleted and fertilizer isn't enough.[1] Globally, much also depends on rapidly depleting ground water that isn't being replenished. Agriculture is exceeding its limits.
[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conserv...
Why ignore human ingenuity ?
A lot of those people died because no fix was found in their lifetimes. Nobody fixed the plagues that went around Europe. Nobody fixed the droughts that killed millions. Entire civilizations went extinct because they weren't able to find a fix before a problem caught up with them.
A lot of problems won't have a fix within our lifetime. Thinking it's guaranteed to happen is magical thinking--assuming we're the main characters in the universe and things must work out. Most of the time, they don't.
Living today doesn’t guarantee living tomorrow.
The discussion is around whether the human race will survive and continue to grow.
As you may have noticed, population numbers have increased since the days of the Aztecs.
Hence proving the fact that we have no good insight of the future.
The current fertiliser shortages might undo some of that, there's a real chance we see severe famines in Lebanon, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Yemen, and other countries next year.
100 years ago people were saying we would all die from starvation after a few billion more people. Doom sayers have zero credibility.