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Every environment has a carrying capacity for any particular species. This is well observed and not a myth.

civility 8y ago
Please make a prediction about what you think the current carrying capacity is. Then, assuming you live 40 more years, it'll be long enough for you to see you were wrong. People love their doom and gloom, but truthfully there is a lot of room left for human growth on this planet. So maybe "carrying capacity" is not a myth, but "human overpopulation now" of the planet as a whole certainly is.
- iotb 8y ago
  There's no mystery to how prior civilizations hit collapse events when I read comments like this. Every system has a limit, if you don't believe this is the case, you'll likely hit it in catastrophic fashion. In the year 2018, you'd think people would be more focused on higher pursuits and inquiries about the Universe than just a joy ride from life to death and a maximization driven social trend to see how much money you can make and spend in a lifetime. Anytime prior civilizations have forgotten about the fundamentals or considered themselves to be so technologically advanced to be beyond the impact of nature, there usually is a reckoning and that reckoning usually occurs at the peak of society when resources are being improperly dedicated to vanity and idiocy. There's a reason the hallmark structures of past civilizations are erected pretty close to their demise. The Sun goes through cycles we have yet to fully understand. That alone could cause significant effects to the earth and its something we have zero control over. I'd think it would be a far better social culture to be focused on dedicating resources to exploring and studying the universe and fundamental nature therein than mining clown coins via bit flipping wasting energy/computing resources on a ponzi scheme. However, look how many billions are involved with this.. In a so called modern highly educated society. As far as population goes, why does a human being feel entitled to have kids? Why are there so many poor individuals having kids? Why should we try to test the limit of nature's carrying capacity? Why do we continue to push the world population higher? We did we create economic models that depend on population growth? Again, a different kind of life from just popping out kids and enjoy the rides of life. A life of inquiry and the pursuit of understanding.... > There's a lot more room left for human growth on this planet Until there's not or nature throws you a cyclical curve ball. See history for what the results are.
  - civility 8y ago
    > There's no mystery to how prior civilizations hit collapse events when I read comments like this. You're making my case for me. I'm sure there was some doom sayer in ancient Rome who predicted the world could never support more than 10 million people tops. Yet here we are at 7.7 billion and counting. > In the year 2018, you'd think people would be more focused on higher pursuits [...] You've clearly got some other agenda that you're trying to argue against. Feel free to try and tell everyone how they should live, but I'm not really interested. I was responding to claims of "overpopulation". > Until there's not or nature throws you a cyclical curve ball. See history for what the results are. Again, you're making my case for me. Sure plagues happened... I wouldn't be surprised if in 2200 some historian will look at the archives of messages like this and snicker you thought 7.7 billion was a lot. It also wouldn't shock me if once all the third world countries have birth control and health care that we find a natural equilibrium at 20-50 billion.
JPKab 8y ago
Agreed. Humans have the ability to alter that with technology. Hunter gatherers can't exist in density like modern agricultural/industrial societies.
- iotb 8y ago
  https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/angkor-wat-civilization-collapsed-floods-drought-climate-change/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/angkor-wat-civil...
Spivak 8y ago
There are two myths: * That we have any idea what that capacity is. * That we're anywhere near close to it. The most conservative estimates say we can handle 2.5 billion more.
buboard 8y ago
and yet people live in (and pay dearly for) ever-more-dense cities despite ample space outside.
jpatokal 8y ago
Local environments have carrying capacities; see eg. the Rwandan genocide for a reasonable convincing example of what happens when they are exceeded. However, I don't think we are anywhere near the carrying capacity of the planet as a whole, particularly since vast slabs of it are actively depopulating (Russia, Japan, rural areas of most industrialized countries, etc).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Please make a prediction about what you think the current carrying capacity is. Then, assuming you live 40 more years, it'll be long enough for you to see you were wrong. People love their doom and gloom, but truthfully there is a lot of room left for human growth on this planet. So maybe "carrying capacity" is not a myth, but "human overpopulation now" of the planet as a whole certainly is.

iotb 8y ago
There's no mystery to how prior civilizations hit collapse events when I read comments like this. Every system has a limit, if you don't believe this is the case, you'll likely hit it in catastrophic fashion. In the year 2018, you'd think people would be more focused on higher pursuits and inquiries about the Universe than just a joy ride from life to death and a maximization driven social trend to see how much money you can make and spend in a lifetime. Anytime prior civilizations have forgotten about the fundamentals or considered themselves to be so technologically advanced to be beyond the impact of nature, there usually is a reckoning and that reckoning usually occurs at the peak of society when resources are being improperly dedicated to vanity and idiocy. There's a reason the hallmark structures of past civilizations are erected pretty close to their demise. The Sun goes through cycles we have yet to fully understand. That alone could cause significant effects to the earth and its something we have zero control over. I'd think it would be a far better social culture to be focused on dedicating resources to exploring and studying the universe and fundamental nature therein than mining clown coins via bit flipping wasting energy/computing resources on a ponzi scheme. However, look how many billions are involved with this.. In a so called modern highly educated society. As far as population goes, why does a human being feel entitled to have kids? Why are there so many poor individuals having kids? Why should we try to test the limit of nature's carrying capacity? Why do we continue to push the world population higher? We did we create economic models that depend on population growth? Again, a different kind of life from just popping out kids and enjoy the rides of life. A life of inquiry and the pursuit of understanding.... > There's a lot more room left for human growth on this planet Until there's not or nature throws you a cyclical curve ball. See history for what the results are.
- civility 8y ago
  > There's no mystery to how prior civilizations hit collapse events when I read comments like this. You're making my case for me. I'm sure there was some doom sayer in ancient Rome who predicted the world could never support more than 10 million people tops. Yet here we are at 7.7 billion and counting. > In the year 2018, you'd think people would be more focused on higher pursuits [...] You've clearly got some other agenda that you're trying to argue against. Feel free to try and tell everyone how they should live, but I'm not really interested. I was responding to claims of "overpopulation". > Until there's not or nature throws you a cyclical curve ball. See history for what the results are. Again, you're making my case for me. Sure plagues happened... I wouldn't be surprised if in 2200 some historian will look at the archives of messages like this and snicker you thought 7.7 billion was a lot. It also wouldn't shock me if once all the third world countries have birth control and health care that we find a natural equilibrium at 20-50 billion.

JPKab 8y ago

Agreed. Humans have the ability to alter that with technology. Hunter gatherers can't exist in density like modern agricultural/industrial societies.

iotb 8y ago
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/angkor-wat-civilization-collapsed-floods-drought-climate-change/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/angkor-wat-civil...

Spivak 8y ago

There are two myths: * That we have any idea what that capacity is. * That we're anywhere near close to it. The most conservative estimates say we can handle 2.5 billion more.

buboard 8y ago

and yet people live in (and pay dearly for) ever-more-dense cities despite ample space outside.

jpatokal 8y ago

Local environments have carrying capacities; see eg. the Rwandan genocide for a reasonable convincing example of what happens when they are exceeded. However, I don't think we are anywhere near the carrying capacity of the planet as a whole, particularly since vast slabs of it are actively depopulating (Russia, Japan, rural areas of most industrialized countries, etc).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]