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>will do the environment a huge favor and keep the birth rate trending down. Why? intuitively it would seem that that less humans will improve the environment,

>will do the environment a huge favor and keep the birth rate trending down. Why? intuitively it would seem that that less humans will improve the environment, but intuition is often wrong. The planet can sustain much more people, it's essentially empty. More people means more intelligence and more money and power to improve the environment. Remember, most of the environmental damage was done by a very small number of very rich countries. The poorest countries is where most of the population lives, and those cause the least environmental impact.

padjo 4y ago
> those cause the least environmental impact For now! They all want the quality of life of the rich nations and understandably so. I really doubt that the world can support 8bn people with the average US standard of living, let alone more. There isn’t enough land to grow feed for all the livestock we’d need for a start!
- aortega 4y ago
  >I really doubt that the world can support 8bn people with the average US standard of living That's a completely different problem. So basically what you want is to poor people to stay poor. Well, luckily technology improves and with that resource consumption is optimized. But that wont happen if you halve the population because there will be half of the scientists and engineers to do it (and likely, much less than half).
  - padjo 4y ago
    I’m definitely not saying I want the poor to stay poor! I’m saying I’d like more equality and that isn’t possible at current technology levels. I don’t buy that decreasing population would limit technological progress at all. The vast majority of people are currently living subsistence existences and contributing almost nothing to technological progress. We could easily reduce population and end up with more not less scientists and engineers
  - dathos 4y ago
    But that’s what you’re saying: > The planet can sustain much more people This is only true if we add only poor people. I think this argument that engineers or scientists will save the world removes the responsibility everyone has to consume less/better. Besides that this will probably only happen once the richer countries get hit, see the famines and water shortages all over the world. Mostly NGO’s and organizations like the UN are trying to fix those issues, while most of the money is spent on trying to get us to buy more
  - jack_pp 4y ago
    The problem isn't that we want the poor to stay poor but rather that the "rich" utilize resources very inefficiently. By our current definition of rich it is impossible for every human to live like the rich, that would mean automating everything like food production, food delivery, food preparation, construction and all of the associated menial labor which we are a very long way from. In theory you are right, there is a lot of space to grow the population but in practice most people want to live in big popular cities and chase the dream of being rich which simply isn't sustainable and promotes a lot of waste. A lot of people as they mature will give up their big city life dreams once they realize the cost / stress / commute isn't worth it unless you're very successful and rich. They move to the city to "make it", survival of the fittest selects some % of people who make it and the rest either cope with distractions / drugs or move to cheaper areas. So we have a lot of space for many people to live but they won't live in luxury and since human nature is to compare ourselves to others and strive to climb social hierarchies most of the population will just overcrowd the already popular areas to live which is a problem
01100011 4y ago
I think the problem now is that more and more people want to live like the small number of rich countries.
raverbashing 4y ago
> more intelligence and more money and power to improve the environment. > was done by a very small number of very rich countries And where do you think the (actionable) "intelligence" and money comes from? It's not that poorer countries don't have intelligence, but they don't have the resources to put it to good use. One random person in a TED talk gets more attention than the people actually dealing with the issue "More population" has always meant more misery and more conflict With less people, each one can go further
smallerfish 4y ago
> The planet can sustain much more people, it's essentially empty. More people means more intelligence and more money and power to improve the environment. "Empty" is a very biblical word, with shades of the brass age Hebrew mission of “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” It's time to drop superstitious beliefs and take a hard look at reality. For example, we're using resources at a rate that is no longer sustainable (https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en).
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  We can discover new resources though. Look at the discussions around "peak oil." Every time people think we can't get more oil we find a way. It's going to be the same for every other resource.
  - smallerfish 4y ago
    We _can_, but will we? We're not fated to discover new resources to sustain ourselves. Fracking opened up new oil reserves, for sure, but that didn't mean that the concern wasn't valid. > It's going to be the same for every other resource. That's superstition / survivor bias. Is your statement that far off from "the house is on fire, but I'm not going to move from the couch because a fire crew will be here sooner or later"?
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      It is not remotely the same. Technologies in agriculture, energy production, and human health have all followed this path. By the way, it isn't just fracking that defeated calls of "peak oil" - deepwater drilling came the time before that, and offshore drilling the time before that, and so on. People have been crying "peak energy" and "peak food" reliably for the last 150 years, and we're still growing as a species. This isn't just some hope, this is the way human history has run. To suggest otherwise is the lunacy here.
birksherty 4y ago

padjo 4y ago

> those cause the least environmental impact For now! They all want the quality of life of the rich nations and understandably so. I really doubt that the world can support 8bn people with the average US standard of living, let alone more. There isn’t enough land to grow feed for all the livestock we’d need for a start!

aortega 4y ago
>I really doubt that the world can support 8bn people with the average US standard of living That's a completely different problem. So basically what you want is to poor people to stay poor. Well, luckily technology improves and with that resource consumption is optimized. But that wont happen if you halve the population because there will be half of the scientists and engineers to do it (and likely, much less than half).
- padjo 4y ago
  I’m definitely not saying I want the poor to stay poor! I’m saying I’d like more equality and that isn’t possible at current technology levels. I don’t buy that decreasing population would limit technological progress at all. The vast majority of people are currently living subsistence existences and contributing almost nothing to technological progress. We could easily reduce population and end up with more not less scientists and engineers
- dathos 4y ago
  But that’s what you’re saying: > The planet can sustain much more people This is only true if we add only poor people. I think this argument that engineers or scientists will save the world removes the responsibility everyone has to consume less/better. Besides that this will probably only happen once the richer countries get hit, see the famines and water shortages all over the world. Mostly NGO’s and organizations like the UN are trying to fix those issues, while most of the money is spent on trying to get us to buy more
- jack_pp 4y ago
  The problem isn't that we want the poor to stay poor but rather that the "rich" utilize resources very inefficiently. By our current definition of rich it is impossible for every human to live like the rich, that would mean automating everything like food production, food delivery, food preparation, construction and all of the associated menial labor which we are a very long way from. In theory you are right, there is a lot of space to grow the population but in practice most people want to live in big popular cities and chase the dream of being rich which simply isn't sustainable and promotes a lot of waste. A lot of people as they mature will give up their big city life dreams once they realize the cost / stress / commute isn't worth it unless you're very successful and rich. They move to the city to "make it", survival of the fittest selects some % of people who make it and the rest either cope with distractions / drugs or move to cheaper areas. So we have a lot of space for many people to live but they won't live in luxury and since human nature is to compare ourselves to others and strive to climb social hierarchies most of the population will just overcrowd the already popular areas to live which is a problem

01100011 4y ago

I think the problem now is that more and more people want to live like the small number of rich countries.

raverbashing 4y ago

> more intelligence and more money and power to improve the environment. > was done by a very small number of very rich countries And where do you think the (actionable) "intelligence" and money comes from? It's not that poorer countries don't have intelligence, but they don't have the resources to put it to good use. One random person in a TED talk gets more attention than the people actually dealing with the issue "More population" has always meant more misery and more conflict With less people, each one can go further

smallerfish 4y ago

> The planet can sustain much more people, it's essentially empty. More people means more intelligence and more money and power to improve the environment. "Empty" is a very biblical word, with shades of the brass age Hebrew mission of “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” It's time to drop superstitious beliefs and take a hard look at reality. For example, we're using resources at a rate that is no longer sustainable (https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en).

pclmulqdq 4y ago
We can discover new resources though. Look at the discussions around "peak oil." Every time people think we can't get more oil we find a way. It's going to be the same for every other resource.
- smallerfish 4y ago
  We _can_, but will we? We're not fated to discover new resources to sustain ourselves. Fracking opened up new oil reserves, for sure, but that didn't mean that the concern wasn't valid. > It's going to be the same for every other resource. That's superstition / survivor bias. Is your statement that far off from "the house is on fire, but I'm not going to move from the couch because a fire crew will be here sooner or later"?
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    It is not remotely the same. Technologies in agriculture, energy production, and human health have all followed this path. By the way, it isn't just fracking that defeated calls of "peak oil" - deepwater drilling came the time before that, and offshore drilling the time before that, and so on. People have been crying "peak energy" and "peak food" reliably for the last 150 years, and we're still growing as a species. This isn't just some hope, this is the way human history has run. To suggest otherwise is the lunacy here.

birksherty 4y ago