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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>It's true that if human population on Earth grew to the point where there was no room for one more human on Earth, then we'd have huge problems. But this is a) very bloody obvious

And also a strawman. We can have huge starvation crises, and struggles for power, migration etc with much much less population, even 2x the current number can yield catastrophic power struggles.

>Q: Why are there any malthusians? A1: Because humans appear to be wired to be pessimistic and alarmist. A2: Because humans appear to be wired to be pessimistic and alarmist, which means that cynical people / psychopaths can take advantage of the rest of us. Doesn't make Malthus right

Actually you've got it backwards. We're wired to be pessimistic and alarmist so that fewer cynical people / psychopaths can take advantage of the rest of us.

If we were optimistic / eager to believe we'd be far worse.

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>If we were optimistic / eager to believe we'd be far worse.

That is an awesome thought, I always like how there's almost a bias in things we consider which always center around, I'm not sure how to articulate it, but center around things that have been demonstrated.

Consider something like gun deaths, a very tangible concrete easy to measure indisputable thing. Yet the possible outcomes from alternatives that have not yet been demonstrated is always a complex hypothetical thing. In the gun example how many folks have been saved because of guns, etc. That's not an easy metric to measure by any means because where do you draw the line and what examples to include, etc.

Exciting stuff to consider what a system would be like out of tune from the current backdrop of being tuned a certain way that we take for granted and maybe never even notice. Definitely welcome anyone to comment and develop these thoughts or share some formal concepts in this space.

I feel you just described a core reason that many people are conservative. Even if they don't know it. The risks of the hypotheticals outweigh the potential benefits.

No, being pessimistic means being vulnerable to those who preach that the sky is falling. Not always, obviously. For example, Churchill spent the 30s isolated and ostracized for doing just that, but he was right. Appeasement in the 30s is a bit of a special case though: to believe the sky was falling was to believe that war was needed, and no one in Allied countries wanted war after the Great War -- there was a greater pessimism about war than there was about Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Malthusianism has been wrong for centuries, and people still buy that garbage. This is because people are born every day and want to believe the sky is falling. Most eventually grow up.

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