281–290 of 480 posts
The population already exists. But we don’t see that many geniuses working on ambitious projects because they are working minimum wage jobs or wasting away without education in Africa, India, China, or downtown LA. We don’t have a population problem, just a utilization problem.
I want to fiddle with both sides of that particular funnel
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…
The OP also claims that growth is possible indefinitely. But somehow, we need more humans to to have critical resources necessary to execute some projects. The contradiction is lost on the OP author.
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How about providing concrete methods for reducing population? Exactly how do you propose to reduce population and who should be forced to not have children first? Should we assume that you will lead by example?
Rich people voluntarily have fewer kids. Spread the wealth, reduce the population pressure.
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This is true only to some degree, there are always limits to growth. These limits are actually very far away, most of the trouble is caused by the funny rationing/commons depletion system we call capitalism. The predicted 10-12 billion humans should have more than enough everything. We don't because capital and access are rationed.
This is such a weird take because every other system except capitalism did not produce enough resources to let there be 8 bn people, and capitalism did produce them and also made the people vastly richer than the 1 bn there were before.
The prior has a _lot_ of bad outcomes. Check out Nestle's impact to the world.
The latter has a _lot_ of good outcomes, but it easily opens up to the former.
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No one has to decide. It's as simple as not actively encouraging unsustainable growth and letting people choose. No one is advocating forcing anything on anyone.
Unfortunately, this is not the end game yet. The end game is "breeder tribe" subcultures who raise their children to reject the idea that that two or three children might be enough. Those subcultures will be immune to change as long as there is still enough "them" around for "us vs them" to keep "we're the ones with the children" a core of their identity. I write "subculture", because they exist in many different cul…
Hopefully those breeder subcultures will inherit the earth. Hopefully not nazis though. Care to start a non-nazi breeder subculture?
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There are links to three pages where he goes into depth.
Cures both the water crisis and climate crisis while also allowing unlimited population growth with increased consumption expectations across the planet? Riiiiight.
Go modern nuclear.
@dang
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…
If "more people" was always better then India and Africa should be much richer than Europe. A lack of people can be an innovation driver: "hiring people is too expensive, so we have to automate everything", i.e. innovation is a must for survival.
This is a good example of a very narrow human centric view that captures why its bad to try to maximize for particular made up metrics, such as human utility. It also a wonderfully hare brained view of technolocial innovation that disregards the dark sides, material input, or externalities at all. Is this person an economist or something?
As a human, I have a human-centric mindset. I don’t want to live in the forest with rain filling up my mud floor. I like nice things.