101–110 of 480 posts
The thing that bothers me about this line of argument is...there already are a lot of people! We've had _massive_ population growth over the past few centuries, especially in the last 100 years or so. We have 8 _billion_ people now...and I personally don't see a lot of the benefits that the author talks about. I really don't think going from 8 billion to 10 billion or 16 billion or even 50 billion people would really…
These resources are abundantly available on Earth and endlessly recyclable. It's a question of economics, energy production, and negative externality. At some point, your problem will be heat, not energy, because roughly speaking humans are 100 watts space heater, never mind all the heat generated from making food, transport infrastructure, industrial production and extraction. If you take a look at cities and how th…
And we're doing a pretty poor job at solving those problems today, for many people at the lower end of the wealth & income spectrum. What makes you think adding more people will magically fix those issues?
I don't think anyone is arguing that it's technically impossible to fix issues like this and have a much larger population, with everyone housed, clothed, fed, and even more than that, happy. But humans -- especially those with wealth and power -- are a selfish bunch, and we are pretty bad at sharing when the goal is to raise other people up.
I mean, we could ensure that not a single person on Earth went hungry. We could do that today, with our level of food production technology. But we don't, because we don't like the economics of it. We could swallow it and do it anyway, but we refuse to.
The continued comfort and wealth of the haves will always be a priority, at the expense of the have-nots. Eventual post-scarcity increasingly feels like a pipe dream to me.
> So, let say that you have a square kilometer area. If you add a floor of space, congratulation, you just doubled the amount of space in an area.
That's just another way to create inequity. Would suck to live on anything but the top level, without sunlight in your home. Sure, maybe it's possible to get sunlight to everyone's home, but let's not pretend that would actually happen, out of the generosity of every builder's heart.
More ambitious projects need a certain critical mass of resources behind them. Ancient Egyptian civilization built a large irrigation system to make the best use of the Nile floodwaters for agriculture, a feat that would not have been possible to a small tribe or chiefdom. This doesn't mean people, we're no longer bound by labour intensive solutions. I live in a single state with a tiny population that mines and ship…
Will technology allow us to sustain larger populations - likely but at what cost.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Interesting that another account posted this exact response slightly further up. It's a non sequitur designed to degrade the conversation and it implies that having reservations about constant growth within the current paradigm is somehow akin to desiring large scale mass killing? Bizarre and troubling.
A political movement to “decrease the Earth’s population” is extremely bizarre and troubling, and deserves being called out for what it is.
This could easily all be arguments for why you personally should want a more equitable world where we don’t have a Third world full of unhappiness and wasted tallent.
The problem is not too many people. If anything, people who think there are too many people are a problem.
What do you suggest? Gas chambers?
Reducing population is as simple as making less babies. Not encouraging natality, large families, and reducing immigration.
Better-educated people (especially women) seem to tend to have fewer babies. (Note that I'm not making a value judgment here.)
And beyond that, to avoid demographic shocks, you probably do want to bring in new people from elsewhere to help care for the aging population that's now much larger than the young population, after the birth rate has been below replacement for long enough.
Granted this is a zero-sum game: countries that lose their young people will end up being worse off, while those that aggressively pursue new sources for immigration will benefit.
On the other hand if there are only two people you can probably pollute as much as you are capable of without worrying (too much).