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>Resources and energy and the ability to meet basic human needs are, in fact, almost entirely NOT zero sum. This is absolutely not true. Earth has a carrying c

>Resources and energy and the ability to meet basic human needs are, in fact, almost entirely NOT zero sum. This is absolutely not true. Earth has a carrying capacity and we don't have technology currently to leave Earth for any reasonable time. Estimates vary as to the carrying capacity for humans but an upper estimate is around 16 billion. It could be significantly higher but there's definitely a limit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity

pnw_hazor 6y ago
The brightest minds (ala The Population Bomb) recently thought that the end times were supposed to happen 40-50 years ago.
RealityVoid 6y ago
I see you an a lot of other people in this thread arguing in two completely different frameworks. Your counter didn't address the parent's claim that economies of scale improved our life immensely, you just pointed out that there is a cutoff on how many people the earth can support. I think both points are true and in no way mutually exclusive. I will just highlight that while what your say is true, there _must_ be some upper bound where a high enough population will mean living on earth will become unsustainable, I would NOT use that as the most immediate threat seeing how: 1) We are still quite a bit off from the 16 billion figure you quoted. 2) The global trend is population shrinking, not population increase. 3) As proven in the past, technology does tend to allow us to greatly increase the carrying capacity of our environment.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  I think that figure would be on the order of 100 billion to 1 trillion people on Earth itself. And I agree about population stagnation at about 10-12 billion for the foreseeable future.
macinjosh 6y ago
Humans have the unique ability and motivation to increase the carrying capacity of their environment. We can breed or genetically modify crops to grow faster and fuller. We can clean dirty water. We can make bricks and build houses to shelter from nature. So far, there has been no evidence we are anywhere close to Earth's carrying capacity. Quite the opposite, actually.

pnw_hazor 6y ago

The brightest minds (ala The Population Bomb) recently thought that the end times were supposed to happen 40-50 years ago.

RealityVoid 6y ago

I see you an a lot of other people in this thread arguing in two completely different frameworks. Your counter didn't address the parent's claim that economies of scale improved our life immensely, you just pointed out that there is a cutoff on how many people the earth can support. I think both points are true and in no way mutually exclusive. I will just highlight that while what your say is true, there _must_ be some upper bound where a high enough population will mean living on earth will become unsustainable, I would NOT use that as the most immediate threat seeing how: 1) We are still quite a bit off from the 16 billion figure you quoted. 2) The global trend is population shrinking, not population increase. 3) As proven in the past, technology does tend to allow us to greatly increase the carrying capacity of our environment.

Robotbeat 6y ago
I think that figure would be on the order of 100 billion to 1 trillion people on Earth itself. And I agree about population stagnation at about 10-12 billion for the foreseeable future.

macinjosh 6y ago

Humans have the unique ability and motivation to increase the carrying capacity of their environment. We can breed or genetically modify crops to grow faster and fuller. We can clean dirty water. We can make bricks and build houses to shelter from nature. So far, there has been no evidence we are anywhere close to Earth's carrying capacity. Quite the opposite, actually.