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1B rich people would have an impact on the earth very comparable to the impact of 1B rich people + 9B poor people. Rich people expand to use all available reso
by bryanlarsen 2y ago
1B rich people would have an impact on the earth very comparable to the impact of 1B rich people + 9B poor people.
Rich people expand to use all available resources. We've used virtually all of our arable land for farmland and cities not because we have to, but because that's the cheapest way to make food. If we reduced our population, we'd likely just eat more beef and still use all the land. We'd use less cars and more jets. And so on.
- keybored 2y agoWhat relevance does that have? If you shrink the overall population you also shrink the wealthy part of it since there is less of the poor population to support the rich one.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThe rich don't live off the backs of the poor so much as the rich are rich because they hog the resources. Most of the imports from Africa are capital intensive raw resources, they aren't products with significant labour value add. If the population shrunk the remaining one billion would be much richer unless you also took away the society's built resources at the same time.