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This makes me wonder. What is the optimal size of the population for a given country/territory/planet? That is, the size of the population at which the welfare
by agent008t 6y ago
This makes me wonder. What is the optimal size of the population for a given country/territory/planet?
That is, the size of the population at which the welfare/wealth of the median individual is maximized.
Given that, as you say, prime land, prime housing, prime infrastructure, prime tourist destinations don't easily scale, yet more people enable better technologies/more efficient production of other consumer goods and services.
Have too few people (in the extreme - a dozen), and you cannot have many nice things - not enough people to create nice art, build houses and cars and computers. Have too many (in the extreme - 100 billion), and there is too much competition for the same houses and tourist spots and what not.
- BlargMcLarg 6y agoAlso depends on how you split it. I'd wager a lot of metropolitan areas are over already. Smaller cities are close to the maximum, but most people in the middle class or lower will feel it is way over already simply due to the cost of things. There are quite a few fields you could at least slash in half overnight too. Bureaucracy is one: here (small European country) we have way too many managers and people that are only there to move boxes around and cause communication overhead to explode, offering practically no benefit whatsoever.
- agent008t 6y agoRight - also, the more people you have, the less attractive automation becomes, even if you already have or are close to achieving the technology.