> We do not need that many people. The planet does not need it. We need to learn to live with less and without never ending growth. This is where I really thin

> We do not need that many people. The planet does not need it. We need to learn to live with less and without never ending growth. This is where I really think it gets into the grounds of a moral or philosophical argument. Life without this neverending economic growth is nasty, brutish, and short. We would never have advanced modern medicine, increased lifespans, or invented any of the conveniences we all use every day without it. There are no systems other than broad economic/productivity growth that have ever worked on a large scale for improving the living conditions for humanity. And we still have a long way to go to make life better for the poorest communities around the world. Denying this type of progress to future generations of humans, for a purely aesthetic reason such as we're comfortable enough today in our upper middle class lifestyles and we just kind of feel like we don't need more people around, is unconscionable. There is plenty of water on the earth, and capacity for clean energy production, it's just a question of how do we harness it effectively while mitigating the downsides. I'm all for making some short term sacrifices and paying some costs now to avoid the worst of climate change, but that does not mean accepting that the future for humanity should be degrowth.