I’m listening right now to “The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague” by Dorsey Armstrong, a professor at Purdue. Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, this is a timely subject. Fascinating topic even without the connection to our latest events.
Oh yes, guess where the author says the first wave of plague that hit Europe in the 14th century started? The Hubei province of China, in 1331.
Related:
- “Immigration is the Reverse Black Death?” (Professor Armstrong concurs with other scholars that the reduction of population by 50 percent led to an enormous boost in income and standard of living for the survivors and their descendants; the U.S. is trying this in the other direction and expecting the same result!)
The black death flattened the wealth distribution by making the bottom 99% more scarce. Some theories say it started near the Caspian sea instead of China, but it may be modern views complying with political correctness. Hard to imagine waking up in a world half as crowded, but it could happen if spaceflight becomes like air travel & large swaths of millions of humans leave the most crowded areas for other planets.
How many humans, that are competent, would volunteer to colonize other planets? Maybe if we banned internet porn, til then no one is going anywhere.