On Friday, July 22, 2016 at 11:51:10 PM UTC-6, Chris.B wrote:

History recalls that there is rarely a true shortage of anything vital.

Maybe that's because when there _is_ one, it never lasts for more than one
generation?

It just is not true that for most of human history that we have had near-zero
infant mortality rates, or societies where even the poorest had enough to eat.
The process may happen more dramatically in aphids - but pretty well all living
things breed in excess of replacement, and so they reach environmental limits,
and so their numbers are limited by starvation when they are not continually
trimmed by predation.

Humans have generally managed to avoid succumbing to predators. So it's been
starvation and plague for us rather than lions and tigers and sharks for the
most part.

John Savard