> The more important question is what happens to our economic model once the global population stops growing on a global scale, assuming we did not become an in

> The more important question is what happens to our economic model once the global population stops growing on a global scale, assuming we did not become an interplanetary species by then? The simple answer is that we don't know. If we don't change our current model, its pretty clear that we will ruin our planet long before we even reach that population level. Some things that could possibly happen: * AI based automation results in a Golden age of ever increasing productivity and changes all economic models forever, resulting in mass unemployment, social unrest and ultimately, socialized medicine, basic income etc. disengaging most of the populace from the economy. * Advances in Space Technology lead to colonization of other planets; communities/cults/religious minorities that want freedom to do what they please emigrate and found human colonies across the galaxy. There are various versions of this where humans learn how wormholes work and use it for interstellar travel etc. * Advances in medicine allow us to upload ourselves into the digital realm where we continue to live after our biological essences are extinguished, allowing a digital economy to be created in parallel to the non-digital one.