It's impossible to tell how the human race would develop in this case then. Lessons learned would be remembered, but the motivations and drives would be altered as well. I imagine stuff like the plague and famine would clean up the pool every once and a while, until we figured out how to beat it. The societal adaptations to avoid overcrowding would be curious to see. Constant warfare, forced sterilization, life deservency testing, etc. The economics of wealth accumulation would cause some problems as well.