5 ms·

Might as well say it: 8 billion is too many, and it’s a good thing that population growth is levelling off. A decline down to ~1 billion would be fine. If we ha

by jl6 4y ago

Might as well say it: 8 billion is too many, and it’s a good thing that population growth is levelling off. A decline down to ~1 billion would be fine. If we have to change retirement planning, so be it. No other species can grow its population exponentially indefinitely. Population growth in every other species is kept in check by conflict and starvation. We have an opportunity to voluntarily limit our footprint to avoid that check.

erklik 4y ago
Why? I don't genuinely understand this pessimism. More people means more brains, more intelligence, more energy to achieve things. More people means more Einstiens, Newtons, Da Vincis etc. I do think our systems need changing. Our society currently incentivizes the smart people into something that's not entirely productive but wishing for less people, hmm, I don't know. I feel like this is the start of history, not the end. No other species can grow it's population exponentially. True. However, we aren't any other species (that we know of at least). The planet can support far more people, it truly can, and more so, the rest of space awaits. We can spread further and further. Is it really good to wish for a reduction of our species? of the only life we know that can truly observe and appreciate the beauty of creation?
- Jensson 4y ago
  > More people means more brains, more intelligence, more energy to achieve things. More people means less energy and resources per person though, and people with little resources wont be using their brains to solve problems. Likely more people would have the opportunity to become Einstein's or similar if the population stayed at 1 billion than at 10 billion simply because we would have so much more raw resources to invest in every person and their ideas. I don't see the benefit of adding another billion people who have to live a life in poverty. If we could give them a good life, sure add more people, but we can't even give the population of earth a good life today so why add more?
  - joshuahedlund 4y ago
    > I don't see the benefit of adding another billion people who have to live a life in poverty. If we could give them a good life, sure add more people, but we can't even give the population of earth a good life today so why add more? One of the most stunning and under appreciated facts about the last two centuries is that, no matter how you measure it, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased even as population increased. Innovation is amazing.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      And all that innovation happened thanks to the population living a good life with excess of resources. The people who lived in poverty didn't create much innovation at all, making more people who live in poverty wont add any innovation. And even worse, if you add people until most has to live a life on the brink of starvation again that could stop innovation from ever happening again in the future, our current time is an historical anomaly and there is no guarantee that we can ever get back here if we screw up and get everyone back to a state of misery. There are only so many ways we can improve food production, we found a lot of them the past 200 years and that led to a ton of innovations since people no longer had to worry about starvation. But all of that will quickly revert if you can no longer buy food at a supermarket, since there is simply not enough food to feed every American, some will have to starve to death.
      - joshuahedlund 4y ago
        > The people who lived in poverty didn't create much innovation at all But as their incomes tripled and their children survived childhood, their birthdates dropped and their surviving children are better educated and less malnourished. This has been happening almost everywhere in the world, and is why world population will peak in a couple decades without mass starvation.
    - oldsecondhand 4y ago
      So they make $3 a day instead of $2? Still not enough to create future Einsteins.
- birksherty 4y ago
  That's a very selfish view. More people also means more energy need, more recourses use, more garbage too. There is not unlimited recourses to exploits. Watch Earthling to see only one part of human needs. All the advances are due to exploitation all natural recourses to the max and it created climate change and extinction of many species. But whenever people talk about progress they don't care about this and turn a blind eye.
  - erklik 4y ago
    > That's a very selfish view. Not sure how advocating for more people is selfish, but okay. > More people also means more energy need, more recourses use, more garbage too. There is not unlimited recourses to exploits. Energy can be practically infinite. Simply requires us to use nuclear power. Yes, Yes, there's issues of waste with that. It's overblown and a moral panic. More resources are used. Yes. However, thinking of it on a universal scale, even resources are "infinite". That's what i mean. Resources and Energy are practically infinite when you look at it on a long term scale. I simply don't think, it's a good idea to advocate for humanity to simply reduce and fizzle out. No. Why should we? We should advance life forward. That does not mean in the same way as before. We can do better. But advocating for the reduction of humanity, of life, is wrong in my opinion. After all, there is no other life we know of out there like us. Why stop?
    - luke2m 4y ago
      >More resources are used. Yes. However, thinking of it on a universal scale, even resources are "infinite". That's what people thought about oil, trees, etc. before.
      - erklik 4y ago
        and they were right? Resources are practically infinite on a universal scale. We just keep progressing and we will get there. Trees are literally infinite. Just plant enough of them while you cut them down. Oil is not, but oil is energy, and energy is also practically infinite as long as we do it cleanly, and we have the capability to do so that today.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  We have enough brains. We don't invest in ~80% of the brains we have on this planet.
- akudha 4y ago
  more energy to achieve things What things though? It is mostly materialistic, isn't it? We are more comfortable than ever. We can talk to a person on the other side of the planet anytime we want. Yet, we don't know our neighbors. More people are lonely, more people are single etc. We live longer today, yet my generation seems less happy than my parents' generation. When I was a 10 year old, I played outside all day. Can you imagine letting your 10 year old by himself, outside the house, all day today? We can't even be sure kids are safe in schools (though this particular problem is just American one). On one side, we are relentlessly moving ahead, mostly materialistic. Fantastic communication tools, medical equipment etc. On the other side, people are obese, unhappy, unhealthy (mentally and physically). We can't even a significant portion of the people accept that climate change issues are real and maybe slightly alter their lifestyle (eat less meat, less dairy, use less plastic...). How are you proposing to achieve any kind of cooperation between people when the population keeps going up?
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    "When I was a 10 year old, I played outside all day. Can you imagine letting your 10 year old by himself, outside the house, all day today?" Exactly. The trouble is that those who weren't there to experience the freedom we had as kids and the resilisence and self confidence it instilled and developed in us simply don't understand. It's a tragedy really.
- JaceLightning 4y ago
  That's illogical thinking: should we increase our population by a factor of 10? To get 10x the Einsteins, Newtons, and Da Vinci's? By a factor of 100? 1000? There will always be smart people and brilliant artists. If we reduce population, they will just come at a slower rate, which is fine. Will just make them more special when they do come. I hate people and definitely would love to see fewer of them.
bojan 4y ago
This makes no sense whatsoever. 8 billion is too many, for what, for whom? Next to 8 billion of us, we also take the luxury of keeping and feeding billions of animals, which is enormously expensive and horrible for the environment. Let's start first by making sure we only keep and feed animals that we actually need, and then discuss if we are too many. I wonder how many humans this planet can sustain for every cow that is out there.
- jl6 4y ago
  8 billion is too many to also take the luxury of keeping and feeding billions of animals. If we had 10x fewer people and kept 10x fewer cattle (and more generally, consumed 10x fewer resources), the environment would be doing just fine. But it’s not doing fine, and that’s why 8 billion is too many.
  - kmlx 4y ago
    > If we had 10x fewer people and kept 10x fewer cattle (and more generally, consumed 10x fewer resources), the environment would be doing just fine. why? and why would it not be worse? just because of the number of people?
- xtracto 4y ago
  IMHO 8 billion is too many for the size of the earth. With a total of 150 million km2 in land, each person corresponds to 0.018 km2 or 18000m2 which is equivalent to a 130x130 meter space. That includes sleeping, eating and "food growing" spaces. And the 150 million also includes inhospitable places. I think that no matter how efficient our food generation processes get, this is very little space per person. That's why people live in the air and on top of each other.
  - gls2ro 4y ago
    While your math is correct it also contains a false assumption about how much land is needed: What do you think about Netherlands? It seems to me they had a good way to use the space while keeping it green and also caring about nature. Earth can support at least twice the current number of people with a better organisation while also disrupting less the natural habitat. What makes it hard to achieve this is our focus on nationalities and countries instead of thinking about a global society combined with our greed and our individual/centrism way to think about the world as if the only way forward is us vs the forest or us vs the wild animals ... we should focus more on how to embed into nature and not how to change it to make it work for us.
irthomasthomas 4y ago
Where does this kind of thinking lead us? Should we not be even more proactive, then, and start reducing our population as fast as possible to avert the catastrophe that you predict? If less is more, and time is running out, will you live by your own belief, and volunteer for euthanasia? To save the planet, for our children, and our children's children? Every generation has it's soothsayers that are absolutely certain we are near the population limit and heading for certain doom. And every one of them was wrong. Our population soared past those limits, no problem. I share the opinion that earth can sustain about 100B of us, with a bit of planning and thoughtful engineering. So long as most people don't mind living in sky scrapers. More people = more brains to solve the type of problems that I assume you are worried about. I don't actually believe we will continue growing like we have, as nothing in human affairs follows a strait line for long. Every great kingdom has fallen, every empire divided. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. We don't need to try and control it, but only observe and adapt to it.

by jl6 4y ago

erklik 4y ago

Why? I don't genuinely understand this pessimism. More people means more brains, more intelligence, more energy to achieve things. More people means more Einstiens, Newtons, Da Vincis etc. I do think our systems need changing. Our society currently incentivizes the smart people into something that's not entirely productive but wishing for less people, hmm, I don't know. I feel like this is the start of history, not the end. No other species can grow it's population exponentially. True. However, we aren't any other species (that we know of at least). The planet can support far more people, it truly can, and more so, the rest of space awaits. We can spread further and further. Is it really good to wish for a reduction of our species? of the only life we know that can truly observe and appreciate the beauty of creation?

Jensson 4y ago
> More people means more brains, more intelligence, more energy to achieve things. More people means less energy and resources per person though, and people with little resources wont be using their brains to solve problems. Likely more people would have the opportunity to become Einstein's or similar if the population stayed at 1 billion than at 10 billion simply because we would have so much more raw resources to invest in every person and their ideas. I don't see the benefit of adding another billion people who have to live a life in poverty. If we could give them a good life, sure add more people, but we can't even give the population of earth a good life today so why add more?
- joshuahedlund 4y ago
  > I don't see the benefit of adding another billion people who have to live a life in poverty. If we could give them a good life, sure add more people, but we can't even give the population of earth a good life today so why add more? One of the most stunning and under appreciated facts about the last two centuries is that, no matter how you measure it, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased even as population increased. Innovation is amazing.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    And all that innovation happened thanks to the population living a good life with excess of resources. The people who lived in poverty didn't create much innovation at all, making more people who live in poverty wont add any innovation. And even worse, if you add people until most has to live a life on the brink of starvation again that could stop innovation from ever happening again in the future, our current time is an historical anomaly and there is no guarantee that we can ever get back here if we screw up and get everyone back to a state of misery. There are only so many ways we can improve food production, we found a lot of them the past 200 years and that led to a ton of innovations since people no longer had to worry about starvation. But all of that will quickly revert if you can no longer buy food at a supermarket, since there is simply not enough food to feed every American, some will have to starve to death.
    - joshuahedlund 4y ago
      > The people who lived in poverty didn't create much innovation at all But as their incomes tripled and their children survived childhood, their birthdates dropped and their surviving children are better educated and less malnourished. This has been happening almost everywhere in the world, and is why world population will peak in a couple decades without mass starvation.
  - oldsecondhand 4y ago
    So they make $3 a day instead of $2? Still not enough to create future Einsteins.
birksherty 4y ago
That's a very selfish view. More people also means more energy need, more recourses use, more garbage too. There is not unlimited recourses to exploits. Watch Earthling to see only one part of human needs. All the advances are due to exploitation all natural recourses to the max and it created climate change and extinction of many species. But whenever people talk about progress they don't care about this and turn a blind eye.
- erklik 4y ago
  > That's a very selfish view. Not sure how advocating for more people is selfish, but okay. > More people also means more energy need, more recourses use, more garbage too. There is not unlimited recourses to exploits. Energy can be practically infinite. Simply requires us to use nuclear power. Yes, Yes, there's issues of waste with that. It's overblown and a moral panic. More resources are used. Yes. However, thinking of it on a universal scale, even resources are "infinite". That's what i mean. Resources and Energy are practically infinite when you look at it on a long term scale. I simply don't think, it's a good idea to advocate for humanity to simply reduce and fizzle out. No. Why should we? We should advance life forward. That does not mean in the same way as before. We can do better. But advocating for the reduction of humanity, of life, is wrong in my opinion. After all, there is no other life we know of out there like us. Why stop?
  - luke2m 4y ago
    >More resources are used. Yes. However, thinking of it on a universal scale, even resources are "infinite". That's what people thought about oil, trees, etc. before.
    - erklik 4y ago
      and they were right? Resources are practically infinite on a universal scale. We just keep progressing and we will get there. Trees are literally infinite. Just plant enough of them while you cut them down. Oil is not, but oil is energy, and energy is also practically infinite as long as we do it cleanly, and we have the capability to do so that today.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
We have enough brains. We don't invest in ~80% of the brains we have on this planet.
akudha 4y ago
more energy to achieve things What things though? It is mostly materialistic, isn't it? We are more comfortable than ever. We can talk to a person on the other side of the planet anytime we want. Yet, we don't know our neighbors. More people are lonely, more people are single etc. We live longer today, yet my generation seems less happy than my parents' generation. When I was a 10 year old, I played outside all day. Can you imagine letting your 10 year old by himself, outside the house, all day today? We can't even be sure kids are safe in schools (though this particular problem is just American one). On one side, we are relentlessly moving ahead, mostly materialistic. Fantastic communication tools, medical equipment etc. On the other side, people are obese, unhappy, unhealthy (mentally and physically). We can't even a significant portion of the people accept that climate change issues are real and maybe slightly alter their lifestyle (eat less meat, less dairy, use less plastic...). How are you proposing to achieve any kind of cooperation between people when the population keeps going up?
- hilbert42 4y ago
  "When I was a 10 year old, I played outside all day. Can you imagine letting your 10 year old by himself, outside the house, all day today?" Exactly. The trouble is that those who weren't there to experience the freedom we had as kids and the resilisence and self confidence it instilled and developed in us simply don't understand. It's a tragedy really.
JaceLightning 4y ago
That's illogical thinking: should we increase our population by a factor of 10? To get 10x the Einsteins, Newtons, and Da Vinci's? By a factor of 100? 1000? There will always be smart people and brilliant artists. If we reduce population, they will just come at a slower rate, which is fine. Will just make them more special when they do come. I hate people and definitely would love to see fewer of them.

bojan 4y ago

This makes no sense whatsoever. 8 billion is too many, for what, for whom? Next to 8 billion of us, we also take the luxury of keeping and feeding billions of animals, which is enormously expensive and horrible for the environment. Let's start first by making sure we only keep and feed animals that we actually need, and then discuss if we are too many. I wonder how many humans this planet can sustain for every cow that is out there.

jl6 4y ago
8 billion is too many to also take the luxury of keeping and feeding billions of animals. If we had 10x fewer people and kept 10x fewer cattle (and more generally, consumed 10x fewer resources), the environment would be doing just fine. But it’s not doing fine, and that’s why 8 billion is too many.
- kmlx 4y ago
  > If we had 10x fewer people and kept 10x fewer cattle (and more generally, consumed 10x fewer resources), the environment would be doing just fine. why? and why would it not be worse? just because of the number of people?
xtracto 4y ago
IMHO 8 billion is too many for the size of the earth. With a total of 150 million km2 in land, each person corresponds to 0.018 km2 or 18000m2 which is equivalent to a 130x130 meter space. That includes sleeping, eating and "food growing" spaces. And the 150 million also includes inhospitable places. I think that no matter how efficient our food generation processes get, this is very little space per person. That's why people live in the air and on top of each other.
- gls2ro 4y ago
  While your math is correct it also contains a false assumption about how much land is needed: What do you think about Netherlands? It seems to me they had a good way to use the space while keeping it green and also caring about nature. Earth can support at least twice the current number of people with a better organisation while also disrupting less the natural habitat. What makes it hard to achieve this is our focus on nationalities and countries instead of thinking about a global society combined with our greed and our individual/centrism way to think about the world as if the only way forward is us vs the forest or us vs the wild animals ... we should focus more on how to embed into nature and not how to change it to make it work for us.

irthomasthomas 4y ago

Where does this kind of thinking lead us? Should we not be even more proactive, then, and start reducing our population as fast as possible to avert the catastrophe that you predict? If less is more, and time is running out, will you live by your own belief, and volunteer for euthanasia? To save the planet, for our children, and our children's children? Every generation has it's soothsayers that are absolutely certain we are near the population limit and heading for certain doom. And every one of them was wrong. Our population soared past those limits, no problem. I share the opinion that earth can sustain about 100B of us, with a bit of planning and thoughtful engineering. So long as most people don't mind living in sky scrapers. More people = more brains to solve the type of problems that I assume you are worried about. I don't actually believe we will continue growing like we have, as nothing in human affairs follows a strait line for long. Every great kingdom has fallen, every empire divided. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. We don't need to try and control it, but only observe and adapt to it.