Comment of the Day: : Musings on Thomas Malthus, the Hellenistic Age, the Loyal-Spirit Great Kings of Iran 550-330 BCE, and Other Topics: The Honest Broker for the Week of August 17, 2015: "It seems more likely that human populations expanding into pristine ecological/economic niches...
...have a doubling time of 75 years than 25. The 25 year doubling time in Malthus is based on a misunderstanding of the American experience as pure endogenous population increase rather than the ethnogenesis of existing Western Hemisphere populations as 'Americans,' beginning witn the Halfway Covenant and the burning of Jamestown statehouse, and ending when the scalp poles turned into Liiberty Trees.
With this in mind, it might be more plausible to see the state mobilisations of the Roman Republic and its rivals as typical, rather than as extaordinary events requiring extraordinary explanations. Normal human societies are perfectly capable of massive efforts in emergencies, as long as established elites don't get in the way.
Oh, hey. Is that a global warming-fed forest fire cresting the hill? We should realy try doing something about that in 2030. Or 2100, if 2030 turns out to be too much trouble.
