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It only require one person to come up with something that transforms society completely I hear this a lot, in the context of, we must keep growing the global p

It only require one person to come up with something that transforms society completely I hear this a lot, in the context of, we must keep growing the global population on the off chance that someone may be born who comes up with a way to live on an over-populated, polluted, resource-depleted planet. It's nonsense.

chr1 6y ago
Is Netherlands an overpopulated and polluted country? It is one of the best countries i have seen and its population density is 10 times higher than world average, so we can have 70 billion people living on earth without even discovering anything new. As for resource depletion, 3.5 vs 7 billion people doesn't make that much difference, both are more than earth can support naturally without us constantly finding new ways to obtain resources. After all the largest extinctions we have caused so far were megafauna extinctions 10k years ago and we managed to do that with just a few millions of people.
logicchains 6y ago
>I hear this a lot, in the context of, we must keep growing the global population on the off chance that someone may be born who comes up with a way to live on an over-populated, polluted, resource-depleted planet. It's nonsense. Standards of living globally are better than at any time in the past, yet in spite of the continued failed predictions of disaster people have been making for the past couple hundred years, people still persist in making such predictions. Willfully ignoring humanity's ability to adapt and overcome, that's the real nonsense.
- antisthenes 6y ago
  The first part of it is nonsense - quantity of people does not translate into quality and innovation automatically. You have to free people from drudgery and spend tons on their education, and provide them with a stable environment in which to work, and cultural encouragement for the parents to nourish children's curiosity. Only then can you hope to generate ideas that surpass our already quite formidable body of knowledge, and it's still not guaranteed. > yet in spite of the continued failed predictions of disaster people have been making for the past couple hundred years, people still persist in making such predictions. They only have to be right once. On a geological time scale, a disaster is certainly inevitable. Not that I necessarily agree with doomsaying all the time. Population growth isn't the biggest issue we're facing.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    That is why we need to create knowledge to be able to curb these disaster to make sure we don't follow the fate of almost all other species who's gone extinct and are likely to go extinct. We are the one species that might just have a chance if we don't succumb to the dystopian pessimist view that is a much bigger risk than anything else.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      You don't get it. All the knowledge in the world already exists. There is no lack of new knowledge for the problems of today. Existing populations are lacking old knowledge.
ThomPete 6y ago
We live in a much cleaner, safer and richer world today than we did 100 years ago. Resources is something we invent and use not something we deplete. We use these resources to make the world even safer, richers, to pull more people out of poverty all based on producing things of value that humans appreciate. You are more than welcome to not use the computer you are likely to be using for writing your comments. But you won't because it's valuable to you, more valuable than the "depletion" of the resources that was used to make it. So now take you and multiply by 7 billion people and you will see why we are choosing to keep creating and coming up with new resources.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  Resources is something we invent and use not something we deplete. Rainforests are marine biomass and ozone and ice caps are things we invent and not deplete?
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    They aren't resources they are material we then invent methods to turn into resources or optimize or cultivate to provide better outputs, aquafarming, restoring forests (the world have gotten 14% greener because of increased CO2) etc. How do you think we were able feed the amount of people we are doing today if it wasn't for our ability to transform things like dead animal goo into energy to power our machines which then again provide wealth which gives us time to do other things.

chr1 6y ago

Is Netherlands an overpopulated and polluted country? It is one of the best countries i have seen and its population density is 10 times higher than world average, so we can have 70 billion people living on earth without even discovering anything new. As for resource depletion, 3.5 vs 7 billion people doesn't make that much difference, both are more than earth can support naturally without us constantly finding new ways to obtain resources. After all the largest extinctions we have caused so far were megafauna extinctions 10k years ago and we managed to do that with just a few millions of people.

logicchains 6y ago

>I hear this a lot, in the context of, we must keep growing the global population on the off chance that someone may be born who comes up with a way to live on an over-populated, polluted, resource-depleted planet. It's nonsense. Standards of living globally are better than at any time in the past, yet in spite of the continued failed predictions of disaster people have been making for the past couple hundred years, people still persist in making such predictions. Willfully ignoring humanity's ability to adapt and overcome, that's the real nonsense.

antisthenes 6y ago
The first part of it is nonsense - quantity of people does not translate into quality and innovation automatically. You have to free people from drudgery and spend tons on their education, and provide them with a stable environment in which to work, and cultural encouragement for the parents to nourish children's curiosity. Only then can you hope to generate ideas that surpass our already quite formidable body of knowledge, and it's still not guaranteed. > yet in spite of the continued failed predictions of disaster people have been making for the past couple hundred years, people still persist in making such predictions. They only have to be right once. On a geological time scale, a disaster is certainly inevitable. Not that I necessarily agree with doomsaying all the time. Population growth isn't the biggest issue we're facing.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  That is why we need to create knowledge to be able to curb these disaster to make sure we don't follow the fate of almost all other species who's gone extinct and are likely to go extinct. We are the one species that might just have a chance if we don't succumb to the dystopian pessimist view that is a much bigger risk than anything else.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    You don't get it. All the knowledge in the world already exists. There is no lack of new knowledge for the problems of today. Existing populations are lacking old knowledge.

ThomPete 6y ago

We live in a much cleaner, safer and richer world today than we did 100 years ago. Resources is something we invent and use not something we deplete. We use these resources to make the world even safer, richers, to pull more people out of poverty all based on producing things of value that humans appreciate. You are more than welcome to not use the computer you are likely to be using for writing your comments. But you won't because it's valuable to you, more valuable than the "depletion" of the resources that was used to make it. So now take you and multiply by 7 billion people and you will see why we are choosing to keep creating and coming up with new resources.

goatinaboat 6y ago
Resources is something we invent and use not something we deplete. Rainforests are marine biomass and ozone and ice caps are things we invent and not deplete?
- ThomPete 6y ago
  They aren't resources they are material we then invent methods to turn into resources or optimize or cultivate to provide better outputs, aquafarming, restoring forests (the world have gotten 14% greener because of increased CO2) etc. How do you think we were able feed the amount of people we are doing today if it wasn't for our ability to transform things like dead animal goo into energy to power our machines which then again provide wealth which gives us time to do other things.