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If our economic model depends on eternal population growth, it is the model that needs to change, not the eternal growth that needs to be subsidized. Our plane

If our economic model depends on eternal population growth, it is the model that needs to change, not the eternal growth that needs to be subsidized. Our planet cannot support 10 billion people. With automation and robots, we can support a population without an eternal underclass of serfs to throw their vitality into the meat grinder of capitalism.

Izikiel43 3y ago
> Our planet cannot support 10 billion people. Source needed
- bagels 3y ago
  Would you agree that it is likely that there is some limit, regardless of if it's 10 billion?
- Tao3300 3y ago
  > Source [of food] needed
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    If you cover 50% of the Earth's land with nuclear powered greenhouses, and the other 50% with skyscrapers, you could house and feed a trillion people. Food is not the limiting factor for population.
    - Tao3300 3y ago
      That sounds awful.
      - bryanlarsen 3y ago
        Exactly. It being awful is a reason not to have a trillion people on Earth. Food isn't the limiting factor, other things are.
- gota 3y ago
  Well, I guess we can all agree that our planet cannot support X amount of people with a certain quality of life and sustainably for the then-on future Parent post hints that X < 10B, but I'd wager many believe X < whatever we have now It is obvious Earth could hold a very large human population - but not for very long, and not (for those people) very well
  - throwaw1yyy 3y ago
    still could, you need a bigger imagination!
  - autoexec 3y ago
    This is exactly the problem. It's not about how many bodies we can stack on top of each other, it's how many people can this one specific area sustainably support, knowing that the number we come up with will fluctuate with time and circumstance and that same calculation has to be made for every "area" we care to define. It's a highly complex problem. As resources like clean drinking water get more and more scarce, and climate change and the refugees it produces cause all of us to pack into smaller and smaller areas we'll need to start paying more and more attention to this to make sure that we're not destroying what resources we still have.
xnx 3y ago
I agree that eternal growth on a finite planet is the fundamental issue facing humanity. I wouldn't put any absolutes on the "carrying capacity", but I'm certain that things would be much nicer for everybody if the population returned to earlier levels.
Tao3300 3y ago
> With automation and robots, we can support a population without an eternal underclass of serfs to throw their vitality into the meat grinder of capitalism. But then the people who own the robots won't feel special...
basisword 3y ago
I feel like with automation of work, people would have more kids than they already do. They’d have more time to raise them, less concerns about resources or their future.
- mattnewton 3y ago
  People have always hoped for that but it doesn’t materialize, the opposite effect does as societies mechanize. Part of the reason I think is that the value of labor magnified by automation is higher, so the opportunity cost of not working more is higher as you mechanize more!
_dain_ 3y ago
there's a whole solar system out there
- thriftwy 3y ago
  Late XX century has shown that people don't want to live "out there" in the wide fields or lush grasslands. Instead they would line up for an overpriced apartment in London or a condo in Silicon Valley. A nice coast with view if they have the money. It would not be easy to beat people into moving off Earth en masse, if they aren't willing to move out of metro area.
- tzs 3y ago
  Exponential growth gets away from you even when you allow for resources that are vastly beyond what we now have access to. At an annual growth rate of 1%, starting from the present population in 3400 years the amount of mass we need for human bodies is equal to the combined mass of the Earth and the Moon. In another 600 years and the mass we need for humans equals the mass of Jupiter. From there it is only 700 years until we need the mass of the entire solar system, including the Sun, for human bodies. From then it is about 2000 more years before we need the mass of the entire Milky Way galaxy, which is problematic because unless we have FTL travel we won't have been able to use any resources that are farther than 6700 light years from Earth, which is only a small fraction of the Milky Way. Another 5600 years (about 12300 years from now) we need the mass of the observable universe. Without FTL after about 12000 years at 1% annual growth the amount of space we could theoretically have access to (a sphere of radius 12000 light years around the Earth) does not have enough space to hold everybody. The volume of that sphere divided by the population would fall below 0.006 m^3, which is about how much volume a human body takes up. (And we can't actually pack people that densely because we are not actually a shape that packs well). How about energy, rather than mass or space? If our energy needs grow by 1% per year in about 9300 years our annual energy consumption will be equal to the total energy of the Milky Way. By "total energy of the Milky Way" I mean what we could get if all of it were converted to energy (E=mc^2). In 12000 years we'd need the energy of the entire freaking observable universe.
  - _dain_ 3y ago

Izikiel43 3y ago

> Our planet cannot support 10 billion people. Source needed

bagels 3y ago
Would you agree that it is likely that there is some limit, regardless of if it's 10 billion?
Tao3300 3y ago
> Source [of food] needed
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  If you cover 50% of the Earth's land with nuclear powered greenhouses, and the other 50% with skyscrapers, you could house and feed a trillion people. Food is not the limiting factor for population.
  - Tao3300 3y ago
    That sounds awful.
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      Exactly. It being awful is a reason not to have a trillion people on Earth. Food isn't the limiting factor, other things are.
gota 3y ago
Well, I guess we can all agree that our planet cannot support X amount of people with a certain quality of life and sustainably for the then-on future Parent post hints that X < 10B, but I'd wager many believe X < whatever we have now It is obvious Earth could hold a very large human population - but not for very long, and not (for those people) very well
- throwaw1yyy 3y ago
  still could, you need a bigger imagination!
- autoexec 3y ago
  This is exactly the problem. It's not about how many bodies we can stack on top of each other, it's how many people can this one specific area sustainably support, knowing that the number we come up with will fluctuate with time and circumstance and that same calculation has to be made for every "area" we care to define. It's a highly complex problem. As resources like clean drinking water get more and more scarce, and climate change and the refugees it produces cause all of us to pack into smaller and smaller areas we'll need to start paying more and more attention to this to make sure that we're not destroying what resources we still have.

xnx 3y ago

I agree that eternal growth on a finite planet is the fundamental issue facing humanity. I wouldn't put any absolutes on the "carrying capacity", but I'm certain that things would be much nicer for everybody if the population returned to earlier levels.

Tao3300 3y ago

> With automation and robots, we can support a population without an eternal underclass of serfs to throw their vitality into the meat grinder of capitalism. But then the people who own the robots won't feel special...

basisword 3y ago

I feel like with automation of work, people would have more kids than they already do. They’d have more time to raise them, less concerns about resources or their future.

mattnewton 3y ago
People have always hoped for that but it doesn’t materialize, the opposite effect does as societies mechanize. Part of the reason I think is that the value of labor magnified by automation is higher, so the opportunity cost of not working more is higher as you mechanize more!

_dain_ 3y ago

there's a whole solar system out there

thriftwy 3y ago
Late XX century has shown that people don't want to live "out there" in the wide fields or lush grasslands. Instead they would line up for an overpriced apartment in London or a condo in Silicon Valley. A nice coast with view if they have the money. It would not be easy to beat people into moving off Earth en masse, if they aren't willing to move out of metro area.
tzs 3y ago
Exponential growth gets away from you even when you allow for resources that are vastly beyond what we now have access to. At an annual growth rate of 1%, starting from the present population in 3400 years the amount of mass we need for human bodies is equal to the combined mass of the Earth and the Moon. In another 600 years and the mass we need for humans equals the mass of Jupiter. From there it is only 700 years until we need the mass of the entire solar system, including the Sun, for human bodies. From then it is about 2000 more years before we need the mass of the entire Milky Way galaxy, which is problematic because unless we have FTL travel we won't have been able to use any resources that are farther than 6700 light years from Earth, which is only a small fraction of the Milky Way. Another 5600 years (about 12300 years from now) we need the mass of the observable universe. Without FTL after about 12000 years at 1% annual growth the amount of space we could theoretically have access to (a sphere of radius 12000 light years around the Earth) does not have enough space to hold everybody. The volume of that sphere divided by the population would fall below 0.006 m^3, which is about how much volume a human body takes up. (And we can't actually pack people that densely because we are not actually a shape that packs well). How about energy, rather than mass or space? If our energy needs grow by 1% per year in about 9300 years our annual energy consumption will be equal to the total energy of the Milky Way. By "total energy of the Milky Way" I mean what we could get if all of it were converted to energy (E=mc^2). In 12000 years we'd need the energy of the entire freaking observable universe.
- _dain_ 3y ago