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Today we are at over 7 Billion. Suppose the population falls to say, 2 Billion or something like that. Is that a big problem? Like, what is the optimal number o
by akudha 5y ago
Today we are at over 7 Billion. Suppose the population falls to say, 2 Billion or something like that. Is that a big problem? Like, what is the optimal number of people that this planet can support, without wreaking havoc on other species that also live here? 2 Billion is still a very large number...
This might sound cruel, but the less humans the better.
- vidarh 5y agoThe issue is not the number. The issue is the rate of change.
- pzo 5y agoI would stay both: rate of change (up or down) and overall size of population - there has to be a ceiling somewhere - if you start filling your bucket with water even slowly at one point it will start overflowing.
- vidarh 5y agoThere has to be some sort of ceiling, sure, but the point of focusing on a rate of change is that the ceiling is constantly moving too, no matter what you consider the "ceiling". There are many ceilings. E.g. there's the carrying capacity of earth. But that carrying capacity changes with technological improvements. There's the carrying capacity of the solar system that changes as we get the technology to settle more and more other planets. There's the number of housing units currently available, and the amount of food currently produced, and so on. But a lot of these current ceilings are highly malleable given time to address them, which is why what matters is the rate of change. Even if one assumes there is a hard ceiling on capacity for earth that no technological advance can overcome, as long as the rate of change is low enough we can bypass that by building off-earth colonies fast enough . So ultimately, while you're right there are ceilings, it's still the rate of change that matters: We can build or obtain more buckets to move water to, but we need enough time to do so.
- rowanG077 5y agoIt seems you answered your own question with: > This might sound cruel, but the less humans the better. Honestly any species will ALWAYS displace some other species. Nature doesn't just let usable energy lay around on long timescales.
- curtainsforus 5y ago>Suppose the population falls to say, 2 Billion or something like that. Is that a big problem? There are problems with that, yes. That's fewer geniuses, who are in short supply. I like humans. The more humans, the better, quality of life being equal.
- neutronicus 5y agoThere's always an incentive to make more young people to dump grunt work onto. So without environmental pressure populations are going to grow
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y agoThrough what mechanism?
- pyuser583 5y agoThe problem isn’t just absolute population, but relative population. How many working people are there and how many dependents? What’s the ratio? And how many of the dependents will “graduate” to productivity (children v elderly)? A geriatric society with a large number of elderly is very different from a society with a demographic dividend from fewer children.
- refurb 5y agoWithout humans around does the environment matter at all?