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This is something I always thought as a kid. Just look at a map... why arent there like a billion people in the US? This makes sense to a child because it's so

This is something I always thought as a kid. Just look at a map... why arent there like a billion people in the US? This makes sense to a child because it's so simple. But reality is more complicated. 2/3rds of the US lives east of the Mississippi river. So if we had that level of density across the US, we would have 650m people. So east of the Mississippi is pretty close to being populated at that level. The central plains is rapidly draining the water table. So it's unlikely we'll be able to continue farming it at the rate we have been (unless technology improves to reduce water usage), much less increase output. To illustate this, I love this image in [0] figure 2 on the first page. Water in an aquifer is stored in small cavities in the rock/soil/etc, and when you drain it enough, the ground literally collapses.. meaning you can never refill it. Our farmers now have to drill deeper than every before, and some farmers are just put out of business entirely... and that's today. And the west is arguably already overpopulated. We literally drain the Colorado river. We already need more desalination plants as it is. If we put a billion people in the US, it would look very much like China. China has a similar geography problem. So when you imagine the US with a billion people, just imagine them all packed in on the east coast with some of the same problems as China (food supply, pollution, etc). 0. https://water.usgs.gov/ogw/pubs/fs00165/SubsidenceFS.v7.PDF https://water.usgs.gov/ogw/pubs/fs00165/SubsidenceFS.v7.PDF

kiba 6y ago
This is because water usage is not priced, and that we wasted water in the most inefficient manner. Land is cheap, sun is free, and water is effectively free. We could switch to aquaponic, which is water and land efficient, but that's expensive.
- rgbrenner 6y ago
  That's very expensive... and consider we live in a globalized economy, that would just result in more food imports. Again, China has a similar problem, and they import food... because the economics of that solution just don't work unless the rest of the world agrees (and they won't).
gremlinsinc 6y ago
I kind of agree, I do think open immigration policies are admirable, but striving for a billion, seems far-fetched. We definitely shouldn't encourage more children, we shouldn't hinder people from having them who want them, but we shouldn't reward it, that just creates shitty parents who just had kids for the monetary gain they thought they'd get out of it. However, crises are on the forefront with global warming, covid, depression, and who knows what else over the next 20 years. The only way something like this would work is if we also could manage to bring all the manufacturing back to America, and by some miracle it wasn't 90% automated. Seems to me though the more people your country has, the more are going to die when the water wars/droughts begin next 20 years or so. I'm in Utah, and as you said resources are sparse here. My town almost completely ran out of water this year and had to fine people for watering lawns. tldr: I'm a leftist socialist, pro-open borders person, but I think we need to focus more on shoring up our nation, country, social programs, and supporting the people we do have and get through covid/depression before we worry about tripling our population. Cause we need to make sure we have the resources to support that esp out west. That said I'm for open borders, along w/ a VAT that would be higher for non-citizens. Let people come/work/live but subsidize the rest of us for the privilege.
citizenpaul 6y ago
"always thought as a kid" Exactly this is a "harvard grad" with the reasoning and logic skills of a child. - Assumption that every inch of land is equal to any other. Nope. - Generally take zero quality of life issues into account. - "Adding americans" Bringing in a nearly 2:1 ratio of immigrants is not "adding americans" that is replacing an entire country with immigrants. This would not be America but the country that the majority of those people came from. America would be flat out no questions dead as a country. All of human history teaches us that this would simply lead to a multiple country war in America as immigrants self divide into micro countries, just like the middle east.

kiba 6y ago

This is because water usage is not priced, and that we wasted water in the most inefficient manner. Land is cheap, sun is free, and water is effectively free. We could switch to aquaponic, which is water and land efficient, but that's expensive.

rgbrenner 6y ago
That's very expensive... and consider we live in a globalized economy, that would just result in more food imports. Again, China has a similar problem, and they import food... because the economics of that solution just don't work unless the rest of the world agrees (and they won't).

gremlinsinc 6y ago

I kind of agree, I do think open immigration policies are admirable, but striving for a billion, seems far-fetched. We definitely shouldn't encourage more children, we shouldn't hinder people from having them who want them, but we shouldn't reward it, that just creates shitty parents who just had kids for the monetary gain they thought they'd get out of it. However, crises are on the forefront with global warming, covid, depression, and who knows what else over the next 20 years. The only way something like this would work is if we also could manage to bring all the manufacturing back to America, and by some miracle it wasn't 90% automated. Seems to me though the more people your country has, the more are going to die when the water wars/droughts begin next 20 years or so. I'm in Utah, and as you said resources are sparse here. My town almost completely ran out of water this year and had to fine people for watering lawns. tldr: I'm a leftist socialist, pro-open borders person, but I think we need to focus more on shoring up our nation, country, social programs, and supporting the people we do have and get through covid/depression before we worry about tripling our population. Cause we need to make sure we have the resources to support that esp out west. That said I'm for open borders, along w/ a VAT that would be higher for non-citizens. Let people come/work/live but subsidize the rest of us for the privilege.

citizenpaul 6y ago

"always thought as a kid" Exactly this is a "harvard grad" with the reasoning and logic skills of a child. - Assumption that every inch of land is equal to any other. Nope. - Generally take zero quality of life issues into account. - "Adding americans" Bringing in a nearly 2:1 ratio of immigrants is not "adding americans" that is replacing an entire country with immigrants. This would not be America but the country that the majority of those people came from. America would be flat out no questions dead as a country. All of human history teaches us that this would simply lead to a multiple country war in America as immigrants self divide into micro countries, just like the middle east.