[api_or_ipa]

Every era has it's Malthusian alarmists and without fail, each has been proven wrong by exactly the same thing the author decries and says won't work this time: technological change and adaption. There's no reason to think this time will be any different. Will some places become uninsurable? Sure, plenty of places over time have become uninsurable. Will the whole world became uninsurable? Absolutely not, because we are quite good at adaptation in the face of adversity.

The issue in California is not the price of insurance, it's availability because of extremely myopic ballot initiatives that are entirely political in nature. Should insurance be fairly priced, then the market can force people out of uninsurable areas and into areas with far less chance to burn.

[forgotoldacc]

Thinking technology will always save us is no different from divine or magical thinking.

Lots of societies and civilizations have collapsed. Some were straight up wiped off the earth and we don't even know what happened to them. Western civilization has had a good 500 years, and America has had a good 250 years, but that doesn't mean things can never go bad in the future.

Plenty of places have had catastrophic droughts, famines, and plagues. Nearly half of Europe died a few times from plagues. Most natives in America were absolutely wiped out from disease and other issues. Tens of millions died of famine in China last century. Tsunamis washed away and killed hundreds of thousands in Indonesia and Japan this current century.

In the past, the Krakatoa eruption messed with the climate around the world and made the sky dark. The Bronze Age Collapse is something we still don't understand but nearly wiped out everything in the western world. With population density higher than ever, disasters that match major historical ones would be far more destructive. It's really just been an unusually peaceful few decades in first world countries and people have gotten too comfortable.

[Daz1]

>Plenty of places have had catastrophic droughts, famines, and plagues. Nearly half of Europe died a few times from plagues. Most natives in America were absolutely wiped out from disease and other issues. Tens of millions died of famine in China last century. Tsunamis washed away and killed hundreds of thousands in Indonesia and Japan this current century.

Conveniently you selected pre-technology examples. How curious.

Meanwhile the impending global famine(s) - (plural) of the 20th century never came to be because captitalism kept pumping out agriscience improvements to improve crop yields to 10 times what they were in 1900.

[energy123]

  > "we are quite good at adaptation in the face of adversity."

Historically, much of this "adaptation" was achieved via migration. If your vision for the future includes mass migration away from the equator into the cooler north, then okay, we are on the same page as to one of the plausible outcomes.

[davidw]

I think what I worry about is large-scale migrations of people to 'better' areas and the problems that's going to cause.

[nejsjsjsbsb]

Let alone migrations for other reasons, e.g. moving to states with better human rights or work availability.

[locallost]

This is the same logic that almost destroyed the financial system in 2008. "House prices always go up, and there is no reason to think this time will be different". Fine logic that works until it doesn't.

At best your logic works because people get concerned, and work to solve the problem. Once there is a critical mass of people unconcerned, like yourself, that think we will magically adapt and solve the problem, we're screwed.

[InDubioProRubio]

? Have you opened a history book? The whole pre-WW2 situation was a malthusian trap. The colonial empires starved out whole continents on the periphery of their empires. Thats how japan and germany turned to hyper-imperialism in the first place.

And the solution of turning gas into fertilizer requires a free trade system to be reliable.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Which is nice.

But important, useful things will still be burning and flooding, at huge cost to the economy. Which is less nice.

At this point I think we've tipped into a world of complete delusion, where imaginary "markets" are more important than keeping the planet comfortable, stable, and inhabitable.

Also. this, from that most volatile, irrational, and least sensible of all professions - the actuaries:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/16/economic...

[colechristensen]

You can't live in places where your home is going to get destroyed every couple of decades by wildfires, floods, or hurricanes. There are more of these places now because of climate change and a lot of people are going to have to migrate over the next century, like huge global migrations. Insurance can't/won't allow a bunch of people to deny this reality any more (or at least much longer). LA is going to be pretty uninsurable unless the local governments do a lot to mitigate the fire risk.

[teractiveodular]

As the 173 million strong population of Bangladesh can attest, they can and do live in such places.

"Each year, on average, 31,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi) (around 21% of the country) is flooded. During severe floods the affected area may exceed two-thirds of the country, as was seen in 1998."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Bangladesh

Most of the world does not want to aspire to be Bangladesh, but humans have been living in extremely disaster-prone areas for millennia because the short-term benefits (rich soil etc) outweigh the occasional catastrophic losses.

[jart]

Yes and before they migrate due to climate change, they'll sell their charred lots to some fascist with the willpower to clear the brush, fill the reservoirs, and deploy fire fighting drones. Then everything will go back to normal. God protects only the strong.

[tptacek]

You can; it's just expensive.

[billfor]

So we can have 1 trillion people, 2 trillion, there's no upper limit?

[tom_]

But there are currently only 8 billion people, and already a lot of articles about how people in Europe and South Korea and Japan and America aren't having children. How are we ever going to get to 1 trillion like this?

[nradov]

It's always amazing and disappointing to see how many people actually believe that prices can be lowered by legislative fiat, or that "price gouging" is an actual thing that happens. I guess they would prefer to have shortages instead of paying market rates, and then complain about "greedy big business" or (my favorite) "late stage capitalism".

[TheOtherHobbes]

People who buy health care in the US already get de facto shortages (from denied coverage) and inflated market rates.

Other kinds of insurance are no different.