> If we were at carrying capacity the idea would be ludicrous because you not working would result in one of us starving to death. This is where it feels like

> If we were at carrying capacity the idea would be ludicrous because you not working would result in one of us starving to death. This is where it feels like your argument falls apart to me. Suppose in 200 years the Earth is able to support a population of 10B humans, and has 10B humans occupying the earth. Suppose the labor to support those 10B humans is nearly entirely automated, such that we only need 100M people to work to reach the carrying capacity of earth. You have an underlying assumption that each person's labor increases the carrying capacity of the overall population. That we're limited by the total production capacity of the human race, rather than the carrying capacity of the earth. And that was true in the past, but is less true in the present, and may become wildly disconnected in the future.