Famine, revolt, and the dynastic cycle: population dynamics in historic China

Taoist way of a balanced exercise training cocktail for the management of primary hypertension in older persons

High blood pressure is the world's leading risk factor for mortality, affecting nearly half of the global population aged 50-79 years. Physical inactivity is one factor contributing to the prevalence of hypertension. This paper discusses a new concept for the management of hypertension in older persons. We are inclined to fade the current guidelines used in China, the United States, and Europe. Although demonstrating irrefutable benefits for blood pressure regulation, the guidelines fail to address the need to incorporate balance exercises, which are crucial for mitigating the risk of falling. We address three pressing questions regarding the efficacy of various combinations of exercise modes for blood pressure regulation, alongside providing an overview of balance exercises. At the core of our concept, we explicate the challenges inherent in addressing the global pandemic of physical inactivity and hypertension in regular socioeconomic people. No guidelines could change the state of inactivity by jumping between zero and all things, where "zero" symbolizes conditions such as physical inactivity and hypertension, and the concept of "all things" encompasses the ideals of an active lifestyle and healthy aging. We advocate a Taoist way, "zero-one-all things," where "one" in this context refers to an inclusive and culturally diverse exercise training cocktail. The Tao guides us to illuminate an ancient way of overcoming physical inactivity-associated diseases in the present day.

Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) collapse in China

This paper analyzes the collapse of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) through the lens of the Structural Demographic Theory (SDT), a general framework for understanding the drivers of socio-political instability in state-level societies. Although a number of competing ideas for the collapse have been proposed, none provide a comprehensive explanation that incorporates the interaction of all the multiple drivers involved. We argue that the four-fold population explosion peaking in the 19th century, the growing competition for a stagnant number of elite positions, and increasing state fiscal stress combined to produce an increasingly disgruntled populace and elite, leading to significant internal rebellions. We find that while neither the ecological disasters nor the foreign incursions during the 19th century were sufficient on their own to bring down the Qing, when coupled with the rising internal socio-political stresses, they produced a rapid succession of triggering events that culminated in the Qing collapse.

Simulating rise and fall cycles of Vietnam empires

The life cycle pattern of empires is pervasive worldwide, and this is caused by multiple factors. In the history of Vietnam, there are totally about ten empires or dynasties, which have aggregately lasted for more than one thousand years. Here, we apply the life cycle model and agent-based modeling to uncover the underlying mechanisms of the life cycle pattern for Vietnam empires. Macroscopically, the man-land relationship greatly shapes the life cycle pattern of traditional agricultural empires. The balancing process between land and population is critical for the empires. The relationship between incomes and costs has determined the actions or strategies of the social members or individuals. It suggests that our optimal solutions and simulations have perfectly matched the real history of Vietnam. Under three optimal solutions, the distributions of simulated and real empire durations in history can be well-matched, in terms of both discrete (histogram) and continuous forms (kernel density). It indicates that the history of human society is a dynamic process, which is determined by certain evolutionary rules and regulations. Therefore, we are able to back-calculate, simulate, and even predict the future of empires or countries.

Historical dynamics of the Chinese dynasties

We develop a framework for studying state division and unification, and as a case study we focus on modelling the territorial patterns in imperial China during periods of unity and upheaval. As a modelling tool we employ discrete dynamical systems and analyse two models: the logistic map and a new class of maps, which we name ren maps. The critical transitions exhibited by the models can be used to capture the process of territorial division but also unification. We outline certain limitations of uni-modal, smooth maps for our modelling purposes and propose ren maps as an alternative, which we use to reproduce the territorial dynamics over time. As a result of the modelling we arrive at a quantitative measure for asabiyyah, a notion of group solidarity, whose secular cycles match the historical record over 1800 years, from the time of the Warring States to the beginning of the Ming dynasty. Furthermore, we also derive an equation for aggregate asabiyyah which can be employed in other cases of interest.

The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis

Recent studies have shown strong temporal correlations between past climate changes and societal crises. However, the specific causal mechanisms underlying this relation have not been addressed. We explored quantitative responses of 14 fine-grained agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic variables to climate fluctuations from A.D. 1500–1800 in Europe. Results show that cooling from A.D. 1560–1660 caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes, leading to the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. We identified a set of causal linkages between climate change and human crisis. Using temperature data and climate-driven economic variables, we simulated the alternation of defined “golden” and “dark” ages in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere during the past millennium. Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and climate-driven economic downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in preindustrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere.

The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis

Recent studies have shown strong temporal correlations between past climate changes and societal crises. However, the specific causal mechanisms underlying this relation have not been addressed. We explored quantitative responses of 14 fine-grained agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic variables to climate fluctuations from A.D. 1500-1800 in Europe. Results show that cooling from A.D. 1560-1660 caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes, leading to the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. We identified a set of causal linkages between climate change and human crisis. Using temperature data and climate-driven economic variables, we simulated the alternation of defined "golden" and "dark" ages in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere during the past millennium. Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and climate-driven economic downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in preindustrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere.

Long-term population cycles in human societies

Human population dynamics are usually conceptualized as either boundless growth or growth to an equilibrium. The implicit assumption underlying these paradigms is that any feedback processes regulating population density, if they exist, operate on a fast-time-scale, and therefore we do not expect to observe population oscillations in human population numbers. This review asks, are population processes in historical and prehistorical human populations characterized by second-order feedback loops, that is, regulation involving lags? If yes, then the implications for forecasting future population change are obvious--what may appear as inexplicable, exogenously driven reverses in population trends may actually be a result of feedbacks operating with substantial time lags. This survey of a variety of historical and archeological data indicates that slow oscillations in population numbers, with periods of roughly two to three centuries, are observed in a number of world regions and historical periods. Next, a potential explanation for this pattern, the demographic-structural theory, is discussed. Finally, the implications of these results for global population forecasts is discussed.