As a German I might be biased/oversensitive, but I would leave the Jews out of the discussion. I don´t see any good coming out of it, and Pundit has his own, trained, ideas about religion.

Quote from: Axiomatic;338570Wasn't the thing with the Jews that their religious practices made them more hygenic than the average Christian and thus less likely to catch the plague, and people noticed that fewer Jews caught the plague, proportionately, than Christians, and assumed that this must be because Jews were in fact behind it all?

Jews bathed regularly, had more rigid standards for household cleanliness, and kept apart from other groups outside of work. Most importantly, however: The moment of buboes appearing, the individual was immediately outcast as a leper.

Quote from: RPGPundit;338364What if the black death, the plague that wiped out ONE-THIRD of the population of Europe between 1348-1350, never happened?
What would that mean for the cultural and technological development of Europe?

RPGPundit

The Age of European exploration
would have been delayed. Surplus money was one of the reasons that so many wanted the silks (and more importantly) spices of the east. This demand spurred on exploration and a lot of R&D to develop better ships, etc.  Portugal, followed by Spain really capitalize on this.

Also, with such a huge surplus population & the scarcity that accompanies it, there would likely have been a lot more wars in Europe (which also would stymy exploration).

I think it is possible that A. There'd be no reformation or B. That it'd be even MORE violent than it was. Part of the reason that the Hapsburgs and the Catholic Church were willing to allow Protestants to exist was because there was a world full of heathens to convert. Without this, that wouldn't be the case for them.

Quote from: BASHMAN;338777The Age of European exploration
would have been delayed. Surplus money was one of the reasons that so many wanted the silks (and more importantly) spices of the east. This demand spurred on exploration and a lot of R&D to develop better ships, etc.  Portugal, followed by Spain really capitalize on this.

So in that case it is pretty conceivable (with another small touch of alt-history) that China would have been first to the New World, no?

Also it seems like somebody might have decided to throw another serious Crusade at some point with all these healthy people around.

Considering the available tech, they were running pretty close to some nasty Malthusian limits. Something had to give sooner or later.

Malthusian limits are a figment of...malthus and the Club of Rome. Pure propaganda.

But this thread is heavy wiht weirdo-bizzarro propaganda worthy of full Forgerdom & Evolutionary Psychology. I´m out folks.

Keep fucking that brown chicken.

Quote from: Imp;338808So in that case it is pretty conceivable (with another small touch of alt-history) that China would have been first to the New World, no?

I'm not so sure. China basically sealed itself after a while, and that was independent from European events.

Right, hence the other small touch of alt-history.

Quote from: Settembrini;338864Malthusian limits are a figment of...malthus and the Club of Rome. Pure propaganda.

But this thread is heavy wiht weirdo-bizzarro propaganda worthy of full Forgerdom & Evolutionary Psychology. I´m out folks.

Keep fucking that brown chicken.

Bwaaa? Malthusian limits are basic common sense. If you have a population with a given level of good production technology, after a certain point you get smaller and smaller marginal returns for sending more workforce into agriculture and therefore after a certain population level if reached, things get unsustainable.

Since the industrial revolution, we've kept ahead of Malthus through a combination of:
A. Rapidly increasing food production technology.
B. Birth control.

In Europe before the Black Death, continued population growth was untenable without large scale changes in food production that just weren't in the cards at that point in time. Something had to give, either large-scale death from disease, starvation, societal chaos, infanticide, or whatever, something had to give.

I'm generally in agreement with the historical theory that suggests that without the Black Death, the renaissance and progress out of medievalism would have been severely retarded.

Indeed, its possible that without both the demographic opportunities and the overall system-shock that the Black Death provided, there may never have been a renaissance as such, and Europe might never have been restored as the political and cultural dominant world force.

RPGPundit

It occurs to me that cultural and personal attitudes may have ended up being more optimistic. The plague cast an emotional pall over Europe that lasted centuries. Perhaps this attitude, coupled with population pressures, would have spurred even more vigorous exploration and colonization of the rest of the world earlier than it did in real life. Perhaps the Renaissance would also have occurred earlier. Perhaps Martin Luther's reforms would never have gained traction in this more optimistic Europe.

Just spitballing.

Quote from: RPGPundit;339139I'm generally in agreement with the historical theory that suggests that without the Black Death, the renaissance and progress out of medievalism would have been severely retarded.

Indeed, its possible that without both the demographic opportunities and the overall system-shock that the Black Death provided, there may never have been a renaissance as such, and Europe might never have been restored as the political and cultural dominant world force.

RPGPundit

That's interesting. I hadn't thought of it like that.

Quote from: Daztur;339108In Europe before the Black Death, continued population growth was untenable without large scale changes in food production that just weren't in the cards at that point in time. Something had to give, either large-scale death from disease, starvation, societal chaos, infanticide, or whatever, something had to give.

What is wrong with this analysis is that a societal population control in the form of regular bouts of starvation among the peasantry was just a basic reality. There didn't have to be a "large scale" mass death, because regular everyday death in the type of pre-industrial society that was the middle ages made certain that the "malthusian limit", if indeed such a thing exists, would never be
reached.

We have had several examples of cultures that consumed themselves to death, thus far in our history. But we have yet, to my knowledge, to see a culture that GREW itself to death. Natural barriers keep that from ever happening, and it seems to me Malthus was full of shit.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;339143What is wrong with this analysis is that a societal population control in the form of regular bouts of starvation among the peasantry was just a basic reality. There didn't have to be a "large scale" mass death, because regular everyday death in the type of pre-industrial society that was the middle ages made certain that the "malthusian limit", if indeed such a thing exists, would never be
reached.

We have had several examples of cultures that consumed themselves to death, thus far in our history. But we have yet, to my knowledge, to see a culture that GREW itself to death. Natural barriers keep that from ever happening, and it seems to me Malthus was full of shit.

Um, Malthus is all about natural barriers.

QuoteMalthus has become widely known for his analysis whereby societal improvements result in population growth which, he states, sooner or later gets checked by famine, disease, and widespread mortality.
—Wikipedia

So your regular bouts of starvation among the peasantry are a feature of a society skirting its limits. If they had great surpluses, there would not be regular bouts of starvation.

A Malthusian catastrophe is when a society grows so rapidly that it exceeds its limits. Massive starvation and disease that knocks the society below the limit replaces regular bouts of starvation and disease that keep the society at the limit. What Malthus did not consider was that advances in technology, science, and medicine could advance the limits. Britain, for example, could not feed its current population with 18th century farming methods. Nor would 21st century London be a healthy place with 18th century sanitation and medicine.

Increased consumption is a trait of increased growth, though consumption can and often does increase faster than growth, so determining which cultures consumed themselves to death and which grew themselves to death is a complex question. There is one reasonably simple example: Easter Island.