Thomas Malthus ( 1766 – 1834) had a theory that continual increase in the world population would eventually cause food demand to outpace supply, and a collapse that would push the survivors back to subsistence farming conditions. Obviously, this hasn’t happened and there are a number of theories why. For example:
- Malthus’ theory is just flat out wrong.
- He didn’t take into consideration the growth of technology and the productivity of farming over the last 200 years has increased faster than what is necessary to (temporarily) prevent worldwide famine.
- Population levels determine agricultural output, not the other way around.
- Malthus didn’t understand the impact of geniuses.
I’m not really interested in discussing Malthus or his theories here, but I do want to talk about point number four–geniuses. Some economists have pointed out that greater population means a greater number of geniuses and geniuses are the people that can really causes leaps in productivity for the world as a whole.
Eli Whitney’s invention changed cotton cloth from an expensive luxury to a common commodity available to everyone. Edison’s light bulb dramatically extended the amount of time people could spend working productively. Einstein’s theories paved the way for nuclear power (to power those light bulbs).
Throughout history, individuals made contributions that altered life for most of the rest of the planet. These are the geniuses that create the huge leaps in productivity. It is easy to look at them and say “wow, I wish I were someone smart like that.” The funny thing is that these people were recognized for their brilliance after the fact. Edison’s teacher didn’t think he was teachable, so his mom had to home school him. He was fired from an early job working on a train when he caught a box car on fire. These aren’t exactly signs of genius.
Einstein applied to go to college in Switzerland, but failed the entrance exam. When he graduated from the college that accepted him, he couldn’t find a position teaching anywhere. After two years, he took a job that a family friend helped him secure at the patent office as an assistant examiner. While this wasn’t a horrible job, it isn’t the type of thing you’d expect a “genius” to be doing.
I’m not trying to say that these were just ordinary people. However, it is easy to get caught up in what they accomplished and forget that they had many of the same struggles we all face. It wasn’t their lack of making mistakes or sheer intellect that made them great. It was the fact that they did something. They took risks, published papers, and performed experiments. We recognize their intelligence because of what they accomplished, but most of the credit should go toward their willingness to try and to keep trying.
We call them geniuses because they made a lasting, positive change on the world around them. In that sense, genius is something we can all strive for.
This is a fantastic reminder. Normally I take inspirational blog posts with a grain of salt, as they do not usually provide helpful information or real-life examples of what the writer is preaching – but I find this piece to be a particularly insightful take on what “genius” is. Well done, and thanks.
Thanks Nathan. I appreciate your kind words.
Sheesh, isn’t it a little harsh to say that “Malthus’ theory is just flat out wrong”?
I mean, technically, it probably is possible for food demand to outpace supply, and thus considerations would have to be made for the space needed to grow things versus how many people it can feed, or whatever.
A theory is only wrong if it is disproven by evidence that directly conflicts the hypothesis. This particular theory predicts something about the future, which could make it notoriously difficult to disprove. I might consider it disproven if we get to the point where we have offworld greenhouses, because then the amount of space available is well beyond the boundaries of Malthus’ statement. But what if we don’t get there? What if we starve first, or are reduced to eating rations instead of meals while we get an offworld growing program in place? Then Malthus will be correct, after all.
So, perhaps that theory should be reserved as a final option in your list, instead of it being the first one, jarring people into thinking that it’s okay to jump to that conclusion first instead of considering other ideas first.
@Qrystal – I said that was one of the theories about why his predictions haven’t come true is that he is simply wrong. Regardless, the amount of food we produce from a given section of land is significantly more than it was in Malthus’ day. Most of this is because of things like fertilizers and other leaps in food productivity by the geniuses that this article is about.
To be a bit pedantic, technically I believe his prediction has not come true _yet_. (my apologies if we’ve lived past a date by which he predicted cannibalism would happen). Personally I tend to agree with your assessment of geniuses and hard work leading the way forward out of perils. The pessimist in me alas recognizes that these advances also enable a fall from a much greater height.
I humbly suggest we keep producing people who embody your advice.
Thank you for your posts, despite my nitpicking here, I find your comments and writing very inspiring.
Obviously, we will never get to a position where we can say his predictions have been disproved. But for that matter, I could predict that the moon will turn into cheese. If someone says I was wrong, I can just say it hasn’t happened yet. :)
Malthus did make a good point though. At the rate things were going he thought they would run out of the ability to produce food. Sometimes identifying a problem ahead of time can be the turning point in getting people to look at avoiding it.
Thank you for your kind words and your comments.
I agree that genius thinking (whether collaborative or individual) can change the dynamic of a system. Or to put it another way, we are creative and sometimes discover new or improved ways of doing things.
But I think we owe much more to the process in which society can develop, not by individual flashes of genius, but by the work of countless people putting in their time and making miniscule, additive advances. Microsoft might have started with some wiz-kids, but it exists today as a gigantic entity because of thousands of programmings working man-years.
Oh, and we are far from knowing whether Malthus was correct. He vastly underestmated the size of this Earth and it’s ability to produce. Overpopulation is a joke – we could fit the entire population of the world in Texas, and leave the rest as farm and nature preserve, if we had to. We are far, very far, from the true limit of our resources, and Malthus might be right … eventually.
More likely, he is wrong because he ignored the fact that governments would try to control the situation, whether by euthanasia or birth control (think China). He missed a key component.
I would suggest that just because something is big (Microsoft) doesn’t mean it is extremely relevant in pushing the limits on where society will be in 100 years. In fact, sometimes large organizations can impede growth rather than foster it.
That said, many of the advances we’ve seen in the past, were sparked by a genius but implemented by a bunch of unknown people who moved society forward on the foundation of the genius’ creativity.
I think it may be premature to dismiss Malthus.
The jury is still out as to whether or not “genius” and technological development will be able to perpetually outstrip population growth. And fertilizers are not the panacea some would believe them to be either. Ask any grower about the environmental problems fertilizers cause.
Genius may be able to provide a temporary fix for a given problem. But genius alone can’t override the laws of physics, or even simple mathematics for that matter.
When it comes to survival, I’ll be happy to work towards technological breakthroughs. But I’d sure as hell rather not plan on them as a matter of course. The human race can’t afford that much hubris.
Like the old saying goes: Pray for miracles – don’t rely on them.
Fertilizers (like everything) can have bad side effects–particularly if used irresponsibly. However, they do make a huge difference in the amount of food that can be produced from a given piece of land. There are a bunch of other advances that have made big differences as well (crop rotation and irrigation).
Given the decreasing growth rates of developed countries, it is likely that technology achievements can keep us going for a long time–even if they occur at a much slower rate. The undeveloped world may indeed be subject to Malthus’ predictions.
Geniuses may be able to find ways around problems with food production, but even now when there is enough food in the world, two-thirds of the world doesn’t have enough to eat. Perhaps some of the geniuses might want to work on this issue.
The end was the part that hit home the most with me… “most of the credit should go toward their willingness to try and to keep trying.”
Starred in my rss feeds and definitely something I will reread when my motivation wavers when working on personal projects and trying to ride out the storm.
Thanks for the post! Keep ’em coming! :)
Obviously we have no shorten of food in the West as our obesity statistics have proven. However, if you’ve traveled to many third world countries you’ll see there is a real shortage there. Especially of meals with protein in them. It isn’t always a lack of food within the country but lack of funds to purchase the food. It’s a sad thing to visit the orphanages and homes and see that they are fortunate if they have a protein meal once a week. Does it take a genius to figure out how to change that? CW
The solution to that problem is very complicated and in many cases people make things worse by trying to help. I’m not sure if the change you are purposing is to lower the birth rate or send food, so I’ll just look at the food scenario in this reply.
Lets say you have a farmer in an area of Africa that has very little food. He works hard and is able to get a crop of potatoes to grow. They aren’t very good and he doesn’t have great yields, but he has something edible that he can sell. However, when he takes it to market he is competing with a charity organization from the United States that is giving away free food. Rather than buying his locally produced food, everyone takes the free food.
How likely do you think it is that the farmer will put much effort into another crop? Everything might seem fine until the charity runs out of money or has to pull out because of a war. Then you leave a bunch of people who don’t have the skills necessary to care for themselves, no established food markets and no expectation that food should cost anything.
The long term solution to food shortages isn’t free food–it is teaching people how to produce food for themselves. We understand this about animals. Rangers and other people who manage wildlife put a lot of effort into preventing people from feeding the animals because they know that they can’t survive long term if they become dependent on people. I don’t understand why we haven’t figured this out when it comes to other people.
My point is that the problem is much more complicated than most people realize. I don’t know that it takes a genius to come up with workable long-term solutions, but a lot of what is being done now isn’t very effective.
Philosophically this sounds good but in Myanmar and the refugee camps in Thailand these thoughts don’t apply. It takes help in teaching and equipping local people to be able to support themselves and some generosity from those of us who spend more on our pets then these folks have for income. Sorry to get on a bandwagon but one’s life views things different when you have been there and seen first hand what they deal with. Thanks for listening. CW
I am sure that this still apply in Myanmar and other places. You’ll do much more good by helping people help themselves than by giving free handouts. Obviously things are going to be different in a refuge camp, but the concepts are still the same. If people come in and just give stuff away they are going to hurt the people in the long run. Anything that can be done to help people produce and earn their food is going to be far more beneficial. In a refuge camp “earning” food may be very different than what it would be elsewhere. It might even seem silly how trivial the “work” would need to be sometimes, but simply giving stuff away over the long term is de-humanizing and harmful.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t help other countries and places that have real need–just that it has to be managed very carefully.