[jal278]

You're making an assumption that the purpose of humanity is to work to create wealth. That's a very narrow view of our potential. Many would view human flourishing more through the lens of creativity, relationships, and meaningful work (which may not be economically productive).

While I do believe that smaller populations may be more desirable, the logical conclusion of your line of thinking would be that once we automate everything, then humans should naturally bow out to their technological creations.

[fredkbloggs]

That assumes it's possible to automate everything that creates wealth (I'm using "wealth" in the author's extremely broad sense; it does not mean "money"). It sounds like you're saying it isn't, and I agree. That is, the optimal human population will never be zero.

[eli_gottlieb]

"Optimal human population of zero" seems like a contradiction-in-terms. For whom is it optimal to have a human population of zero? Surely not for the humans, and since we're the ones who exist, we draw up the criteria.

[fredkbloggs]

> "Optimal human population of zero" seems like a contradiction-in-terms.

Well, I also noted that it wouldn't occur, so... ok?

> For whom is it optimal to have a human population of zero?

While this is moot given the above, the sad reality is "probably most species other than humans". But that really wasn't the point here at all. Even if an ecosystem is a zero-sum game and the success (or anything less than total extinction) of humans means the failure of something else, that's not a reason to voluntarily go extinct. Nor did I say otherwise. The point isn't there should be zero humans but rather that there's probably a need for far fewer than 8 billion, and that not only would every individual human be better off if there were fewer, humanity as a whole would likely be better off, too. The fact that most other species would have a much better chance of survival in a world with a few million humans than with tens of billions is a great bonus, and one that also adds value to those humans' lives, but was not really the main point.

[fastandfurryous]

This is a product of valuing production and efficiency over human lives.