simply say Malthus is irrelevant when his assumptions (positive relationship between wealth and birth rates, population grows faster than economy) don’t hold?
This is the correct view; his argument is practically deductive, and the only way around it is to take one of his escape holes: people collectively choosing a higher standard of living rather than offspring. The real questions we should be discussing are:
Applied to the argument in the post, the correct view is simply that Malthus was right. Applied to understanding of Malthus and Darwin in general I agree with your comment.
The demographic transition is temporary unless natural selection can’t influence desire for offspring. Hanson I think makes a similar argument as to why the future in his view is probably sort of Malthusian.
This is the correct view; his argument is practically deductive, and the only way around it is to take one of his escape holes: people collectively choosing a higher standard of living rather than offspring. The real questions we should be discussing are:
why does the demographic transition exist?
will it last indefinitely?
if it willn’t, when does it end? And will it reverse itself to high-fertility and either a population increase or a decrease in standard of living?
What repercussions does the end of the transition signal?
Question 4 leads us right into Robin Hanson’s crack of a future dawn and Dream Time scenario.
Applied to the argument in the post, the correct view is simply that Malthus was right.
Applied to understanding of Malthus and Darwin in general I agree with your comment.
The demographic transition is temporary unless natural selection can’t influence desire for offspring. Hanson I think makes a similar argument as to why the future in his view is probably sort of Malthusian.