Timeline for How many people are necessary to maintain modern civilisation?
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| Jun 20, 2019 at 16:12 | comment | added | FuzzyChef | One of my theories is: the Catholic Church. That is, the Black Death was the kind of disaster that the Church was prepared to handle, and channel the resulting panic into activities that reinforced the existing power structure instead of destroying it. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 16:10 | comment | added | FuzzyChef | Luaan: yes, historians attribute a bunch of benefits to the Black Death in terms of breaking Medieval Europe out of stagnation. One key part of that is that Europe was, at the time, overpopulated for its technological carrying capacity, so at least some of the population loss was a blessing in disguise. However, that leaves open the question of: why did the essential socioeconomic structure of Europe stay intact despite losing up to 30% of the population? | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 12:00 | comment | added | Luaan | The Black Death is thought to have removed many artificial barriers to technological, economical and societal growth. Imagine if you had a hundred farmers, together capable of feeding the rest of the population, but at the same time, burdened with having to spend 90% of their time on pointless rituals. When 90 of those farmers die, you've lost a huge load of productivity - but it will probably also cause those 10 survivors to drop those pointless rituals, and work full-time instead. Could something similar happen today? Many people think so, but I think it's mostly aivity. | |
| Jun 19, 2019 at 21:31 | history | answered | FuzzyChef | CC BY-SA 4.0 |