On the grand scale, over time carrying capacities will generally rise as the crops and animals used are improved, people will get better at living in cities, merchant and priestly casts will keep getting smarter, farmers and herders will keep getting more resistant to infectious diseases and better adapted to their diets. And this should accelerate as long as population keeps getting larger.
Carrying capacities may increase, but so what? You don’t see a whole lot of innovation out of Africa. Per capita is what matters, and per capita there is no long-term upwards trend. To quote Clark’s Farewell to Alms:
The wage quotes from 1780–1800 do seem to confirm that technological sophistication is not the determinant of wages. English wages, for example, are above average in the table, but not any higher than for such technological backwaters of 1800 as Istanbul, Cairo, and Warsaw.7 English wages in 1800 on average were about the same as those for ancient Babylon and Assyria, despite the great technological gains of the intervening thousands of years.
On a time-scale of what, a century? In the absence of oil and coal I can’t imagine say 18th century European civilization stagnating on a time scale of millennia. These are cosmic eye blinks. Canals, wind-power and watermills had already basically created a mini industrial revolution in some places. I also can’t imagine say Aztec civilization stagnating in the absence of easily obtainable gold or copper.
I disagree. 18th century Europe (by which I mean, of course, England, as the starter of the Industrial Revolution) was already dependent on non-renewable energy, and had been since roughly the late 1650s. Look at the charts in http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6781 and notice where ‘coal’ exceeds firewood+water+other-renewables. (Firewood began falling in absolute terms; Easter Island comes to mind.)
I just realized we may be arguing about different things. I tought we where arguing about technologically progressing civilization that eventually leads to an intelligence explosion or life leaving Earth, while you may have thought we where arguing about escaping the Malthusian trap and increasing average living standards beyond sustenance.
Carrying capacities may increase, but so what? You don’t see a whole lot of innovation out of Africa. Per capita is what matters, and per capita there is no long-term upwards trend. To quote Clark’s Farewell to Alms:
Carrying capacities matter because according to the 10k model, larger populations in novel environment > faster biological evolution.
More people > more brains > bigger economy
And this should accelerate as long as population keeps getting larger.
I was referring to the speed of their adaptation.
Carrying capacities may increase, but so what? You don’t see a whole lot of innovation out of Africa.
Don’t see why Africa matters here. India and China created plenty of innovation. Higher IQ in the priestly and merchant classes will drive technological, scientific and memetic innovation. It will not be as explosive as the historic development of European civilization, but then again that’s pretty anomalous.
Carrying capacities may increase, but so what? You don’t see a whole lot of innovation out of Africa. Per capita is what matters, and per capita there is no long-term upwards trend. To quote Clark’s Farewell to Alms:
I disagree. 18th century Europe (by which I mean, of course, England, as the starter of the Industrial Revolution) was already dependent on non-renewable energy, and had been since roughly the late 1650s. Look at the charts in http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6781 and notice where ‘coal’ exceeds firewood+water+other-renewables. (Firewood began falling in absolute terms; Easter Island comes to mind.)
I just realized we may be arguing about different things. I tought we where arguing about technologically progressing civilization that eventually leads to an intelligence explosion or life leaving Earth, while you may have thought we where arguing about escaping the Malthusian trap and increasing average living standards beyond sustenance.
Carrying capacities matter because according to the 10k model, larger populations in novel environment > faster biological evolution.
More people > more brains > bigger economy
I was referring to the speed of their adaptation.
Don’t see why Africa matters here. India and China created plenty of innovation. Higher IQ in the priestly and merchant classes will drive technological, scientific and memetic innovation. It will not be as explosive as the historic development of European civilization, but then again that’s pretty anomalous.