John wrote:
> It's not just us and China. It's a world war. You could argue
> that it's an exaggeration, but not that it's impossible. There
> would be huge masses of deaths in India, Pakistan, the Mideast,
> the Caucasus and Africa as well. Furthermore, those Boomers
> running the World Health Organization would be helpless to stop
> the spread of an epidemic of Ebola or a new deadly strain of
> flu.
Higgenbotham wrote:
> According to this article, the Black Death caused an ~25%
> reduction in the population of Europe during the 14th century.
> I've seen other estimates that were on the order of 1/3. The
> population reduction across central Europe during the Thirty Years
> War was similar. So what's my point? The kill rate you are
> proposing should be attainable within a couple decades from the
> start of the crisis war or the onset of the first pandemic with
> both vectors operating on the population.
>
http://book.uraic.ru/elib/Authors/NEFED ... /Mod21.htm
> The population of Rome fell 40 fold from its peak to the nadir of
> the Dark Ages. Why that can't happen to every city in the world
> with population over 1 million, I have no idea, because it surely
> can. Lagos, Nigeria has grown 100 fold in 60 years. It can't
> collapse 50 fold in the next 20?
You're absolutely right, and WW I provides a precedent. The following
table, based on data collected by Mike Alexander, shows the death
rates per 100,000 population for major European wars:
Code: Select all
1623-1648 (Thirty Years War) 80
1688-1713 (War of the Spanish Succession) 80
1792-1815 (Napoleonic Wars) 80
1914-1918 (World War I) 300
1937-1953 (World War II) 700
[/b]
This is remarkable, because it shows that the number of deaths per
100,000 population exploded by a factor of almost 10 from the
Napoleonic Wars to WW II. How is that even possible?
When Mike presented that data to me almost 15 years ago, I tried to
figure out how that was possible.
I finally settled on the infant mortality rate. The following
graph shows infant mortality rates in Chicago, 1870-1999:
This graph is quite dramatic, because it shows that the infant
mortality rate in Chicago just before WW I collapsed from almost 30%
to about 2%.
Now, of courses, this dramatic fall in infant mortality is oh, so
wonderful, since it means that a mother doesn't have to suffer by
watching her wonderful newborn child die right before her eyes.
But applying the Fallacy of Composition, what's wonderful for an
individual mother is a disaster for society as a whole, since those
wonderful babies grow up to become cannon fodder in the next wars.
If you reduce the infant mortality rate, then there are a lot more
young men to fight and be killed in war. This increases the number of
people available to fight in wars, but it also decreases the average
age of the population, and so a larger proportion of the population as
a whole is available to fight in wars.
So we can compare the Napoleonic wars (1700-1714) to WW I (1914-18).
Napoleon mobilized two million men, but in WW I, the Allies mobilized
40 million men and the Central Powers mobilized more than 25 million
men. That shows the huge effects of the reduction in infant
mortality.
Those figures apply to Europe, but the "benefits" of reduced
infant mortality would not have reached other regions -- Africa,
the Mideast, Asia -- before WW I or even WW II.
So your example is exactly right. You say that the population of
Lagos, Nigeria has grown 100 fold in 60 years.
A factor of 100!!! That's amazing! And it shows how our wonderful
doctors and scientists are spreading joy to other parts of the
world, through reduced infant mortality.
And let's not forget the wonderful Green Revolution, which makes it
possible to produce a lot more food, so that a lot more people can in
live in Lagos and other cities, especially in India. It's absolutely
wonderful how fantastically much more cannon fodder for wars has
become available in Africa and Asia because of the Green Revolution.
One more thing: The population growth rate in Sunni Muslim Arab
countries since WW II has been more than twice as high as in other
countries. Here's a table that I prepared a few years ago:
Code: Select all
> Population Growth Rate
> Western countries Other non-Muslim countries
> ----------------------- -----------------------
> United States 0.97% Russia -0.47%
> United Kingdom 0.28% Vietnam 1.10%
> France 0.53% China 0.49%
> Germany -0.06% Thailand 0.60%
> Israel 1.63% India 1.38%
> Spain 0.05% Mongolia 1.50%
> South Africa -0.05% Korea, North 0.39%
> Japan -0.24% Korea, South 0.26%
> Iran(Shia Muslim) 0.94%
[/b]
Code: Select all
> Sunni Muslim (especially Arab) countries
> Indonesia 1.10% Egypt 2.00%
> Uzbekistan 0.94% West Bank 2.13%
> Turkmenistan 1.14% Gaza Strip 3.29%
> Syria 1.95% Pakistan 1.51%
> Saudi Arabia 1.75% Kuwait 3.50%
> Iraq 2.45% United Arab Emir 3.56%
> Libya 2.12% Yemen 2.71%
> ------------------------------------------------
Source: "CIA Fact Book"
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2002rank.html
[/b]
I've never been able to find a reason for this vast difference in
birth rate. My guess is that in the 1940s, one generation past the
cataclysmic collapse of the Ottoman Empire, it became "common wisdom"
among Sunni Muslims at that time to develop a higher birth rate, as
the way of rebuilding the Muslim empire that had been so powerful for
six centuries. This huge growth in the Sunni Muslim population would
permit a new Muslim empire to replace the collapsed Ottoman empire,
including conquests in Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Kashmir.
And one difference between this reason for increased population versus
reduction of infant mortality as a reason is that the intention is
that these young Sunni Muslim children will grow purposely to be used
as cannon fodder.
So since World War II, we've had the Chinese believing that they're a
Master Race that will control the world, and we've had the Sunni
Muslims preparing to control the world by overrunning countries with
huge populations of young Sunni Muslims as cannon fodder.
So these are three things that are contributing to an enormous
bulge in populations, especially in Africa, the Mideast and
Asia: the reduction in infant mortality, the Green Revolution,
and the Sunni Muslim birth rate.
This has created many cities that are packed with people living
shoulder to shoulder, with no survival skills, dependent on outsiders
for food, water, medicines, pandemic control, electricity, internet,
and so forth.
Any one of these cities will be a fat target for nuclear weapons,
conventional weapons, famine, or disease. A 90% death rate in many of
these cities wouldn't be a surprise.
So, putting everything together, I think my 50% estimate for the death
rate for the entire world, rural and urban combined, is quite
reasonable.
But cheer up! Let's be "glass half full" kind of people. That will
leave the other half of the global population to rebuild the world!
And those 3-4 billion people rebuilding the world will be getting lots
of help from those new super-intelligent AI robots that are becoming
available, able to help with everything from farming to nursing care,
at least until they figure out that they don't need us.