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Well if Malthusian scientists are to be believed then we only really have another couple of decades at best before the global population level causes society to
by captainbland 5y ago
Well if Malthusian scientists are to be believed then we only really have another couple of decades at best before the global population level causes society to collapse. So you could interpret recent events to be the first warning signs of that.
Personally I remain unconvinced of that, though. Or at least, it seems to me that humans have the unique benefit of being able to problem solve their way out of the issues related to population growth, at least for a while. We don't have to be gazelles grazing themselves to death or to act merely on selfish instinct.
- zeroonetwothree 5y agoSomehow we are simultaneously doomed because of both too little and too much population growth
- cosmic_shame 5y agoNobody said that threading the needle was easy.
- captainbland 5y agoI think that's actually less contradictory than it sounds. In one case you're doomed in the way where too big a population uses too many resources leading to a crash. In the other case what you're actually doomed by is a historical population boom that requires a large younger population under it to sustain it, and in the absence of new young people, maybe that older generation cannot be sustained, potentially leading to catastrophe. In fact I'm pretty sure there's a potential middle ground with large enough historical population boom where both of these issues could hypothetically be realised simultaneously... But, you know I think we should really focus on just making agriculture and energy production more efficient/cleaner, reducing waste and making care work a decent living or something.