How did humanity survive for thousands of years before GMO's and irradiated food?

I am waiting for the government to tell me how to answer your question. I don't know how to think for myself.

The world's human population is doubling annually, if I understand correctly, and eventually, at some point, we will either have to build larger buildings, or colonize other planets. It's a tough subject because, even though there are lots of resources out in space, the amount of money earned from 1 trip would be just enough to pay for what it cost to get there and back to make the money in the first place. Where humanity goes from here I have no idea, but I do not think that it will be anything we can possibly fathom at the moment. It will obviously be high-tech, at least by our current standards, but it is impossible to know exactly how we will afford such expansion. That said, I think that if we make it past 2012, we will definitely see it through the next X number of centuries.

Well. I'm with you on GMOs mostly. Certainly with you on monocultures and irradiation, and mega corporations. But the short answer here is that there were a lot less of us, and we died a lot younger in general, and life is actually pretty good in modern times if you have access to the modern stuff.

There are HUGE risks though. Look up the Gros Michel banana. That was your grandma's idea of what a banana was. It's gone. Something called panama disease wiped it off the globe in a matter of years. The only remaining Gros Michel bananas exist in greenhouses and seed banks. Think of what would happen if something existed that targeted corn or rice. Those are increasingly monoculture products, and the world depends on them to survive.

With our understanding of nutrition and our vast agricultural prowess, we have been able to push the the size of the population and the lifespan of each individual up so high that we are now the single largest biomass in the animal kingdom, having surpassed termites some timed in the 2000s.

Are we clever enough to sustain it? Not if we use monocultures.

They died like flies, particularly the children. Dysentery killed a great many babies. They dehydrated from diarrhea. Very high infant mortality was the population control of the past. When modern medicine stopped that populations exploded.

That brought pressure on economies by floods of excess labor like again now. It increased environmental devastations from the rapid expansions into other species habitat. It also escalated wars into a world wide arena under battles for ever more land and resources the expanding populations are forced to take from other people when they can no longer just take them from other species.

The infant mortality rate was one in four.

The most dangers thing a woman could do in her life before the 1800's was to give birth.

The average life span of a person during the middle ages was 40 years. We would survive, but even you would be regretting turning your back on scientific research.

A lot more of us died.

There's a reason overpopulation is only recently becoming a problem. We used to die enough to offset any increase.

You should know that statistically, raw milk is the single most dangerous food product consumed.

For one thing they weren't so fat . Kinda makes sense that if you inject a cow with chemically altered feed to make them fat the people just might eat the altered cow and get fat too .

...they got poisoned a lot and died. Ever sit by helplessly as a little child dies when it's possible easily to save him? That's what the anti-science, anti-immunization crowd is working for.

Be careful what you wish for.

Good point.

I mean, look at the garbage dogs eat and they hardly ever get sick.

It was easy. We used to be dead by 40.