Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children

Re:Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children by slim on Wednesday June 07, 2023 @05:19PM (#36233730)

I think the fact that it seems incredible to us that people could sacrifice their children is a testament to the advance of civilisation.

children were not always so precious. if memory does not fail me, in the 20th century, there were still laws that stated that children were property of their parents who disposed of their lifes as they wish. that means you could kill your child without consequences. child labor : legal. etc...

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Re:Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children by jlawson on Wednesday June 07, 2023 @07:52PM (#36235307)

They lived at the Malthusian population limit of their ecosystem anyway.

Sacrificing children was just another way to get rid of excess population and would absolutely improve the lives of whoever was left.

Any children not sacrificed would have to die by disease, war, or starvation at some point anyway, because again, the population cannot grow above the Malthusian limit.

This core concept - that preindustrial people all lived at their Malthusian population limit - is incredibly important in understanding the preindustrial world and it's shocking that it's not more broadly understood and applied.

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Re:Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children by whythre on Wednesday June 07, 2023 @08:04PM (#36235392)

Sounds like an overly simplistic answer. You got a source?

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Re:Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children by svnt on Wednesday June 07, 2023 @11:12PM (#36236710)

It is hard to argue against it as a first principle in population growth: reproduction is pretty simple math.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

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