Re:The Last Mustard Maker in Dijon
by pjmlp on Monday January 30, 2023 @05:07AM
(#34577864)
We could still feed them before, the difference being not everyone had access to the latest goodies, which by the way many still don't as the Industrial Revolution isn't evenly distributed.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
> We could still feed them before
What do you mean by that? Before the industrial revolution starvation was widespread in human populations.
Just like it is in many parts of the world today.
What I mean is that you don't have to eat nice steaks and a full fish every day, sometimes twice a day.
> Just like it is in many parts of the world today.
It's not true, despite population increase number of people dying of starvation goes down https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/famine/ the reason of starvation in modern times is political, not production shortage.
So in all the thousand years mankind has been around we had to wait for the 1800 to be rescued from all famine waves, yet 3 centuries, a large portion of countries still hasn't managed to have been saved from such trends.
How many farming fields and insects have been destroyed with chemicals and genetic modifications from that wonderfull revolution?
Your getting your own points confused. Chemicals (generally salt) destroyed plenty of farmland in the past leaving places desolate.
Humans have been destroying habitats for as long as we find ourselves in the fossil record.
Re:The Last Mustard Maker in Dijon
by mrguyorama on Monday January 30, 2023 @11:43AM
(#34582326)
Never forget, Europe used to be covered in forests! Big, old, sturdy ones!
Human population is a function of the species' calorific output. We can produce at least 16 times more calories on aggregate than we did 500 hundred years ago.
I think it is more a side effect of something else.
What is it, actually? It seems like humans are complex animals and we achieve equilibrium in different ways than many others. Japan's population isn't shrinking due to a shortage of calories or surplus of predators (thankfully!)