[throw0101c]

> I hate this fake idea that everyone in the past was one bad harvest from starvation.

Perhaps one was/is sometimes a stretch, but starvation and famine were a thing:

> Over two million people died in two famines in France between 1693 and 1710. Both famines were made worse by ongoing wars.[127]

> As late as the 1690s, Scotland experienced famine which reduced the population of parts of Scotland by at least 15%.[128]

> The Great Famine of 1695–1697 may have killed a third of the Finnish population.[129] and roughly 10% of Norway's population.[130]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine#17th_century

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1695–1697

But even a single year is not unreasonable:

> The Great Famine, which lasted from 1770 until 1771, killed about one tenth of Czech lands' population, or 250,000 inhabitants, and radicalised countrysides leading to peasant uprisings.[135]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine#18th_century

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famines_in_Czech_lands

[doctorwho42]

I was never implying famine wasn't a thing, it has toppled empires...

But to say one season of bad harvest will kill off everyone is ludicrous...

[bluGill]

I didn't say it would kill everyone though. I said it would kill you. Your neighbors may get just enough to survive, but not enough to keep you alive. (If they have surplus they would help you survive - with the expectation you would return that favor in 10-20 years when the situation reverses.

[throw0101c]

> But to say one season of bad harvest will kill off everyone is ludicrous...

"Everyone", sure. But the 1770-1 Czech example seems to have taken out 10%: that's not nothing.