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> It is quite likely that we can feed 7bn people. We could probably feed a lot more, if we crammed everyone into small cages and fed them like factory farmed a
by collyw 7y ago
> It is quite likely that we can feed 7bn people.
We could probably feed a lot more, if we crammed everyone into small cages and fed them like factory farmed animals.
The question is why you would want so many people living like that? You are already indirectly pointing out that meat will be off the menu for future generations and I am sure there will many other things that will need to be sacrificed as the population increases (for example, fish populations don't sound like they are keeping up with demand). And at some point there are going to be some hard limits on how many people can be fed.
- __HYde 7y agoWe don't need to do that. Earth could support a population of a trillion humans so a few 10s of billions is of little concern.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- AstralStorm 7y agoDo you mean feed them all soy mixed with wheat? Remove all meat production and most of the water expensive fruits? It can certainly be a palatable diet, the wide variety of vegetables can be kept. It will be hard to convince Asians to eat much less rice though.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago> It will be hard to convince Asians to eat much less rice though. that's an odd thing to focus on. Moving people off meat & cheese would do a whole hell of a lot more than moving people off rice. There's also some interesting work being done on growing rice in brackish water which could turn some unarable land to arable.
- aeternus 7y agoFarming is also mostly an energy problem. Assuming cheap energy, you can create hydroponics that scale vertically. Highrise farms, and they could consume electricity during off-peak times when it is extremely low cost. Water is also not a problem, we are surprisingly good at treating water, can even turn saltwater into freshwater given sufficient energy.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]