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by Rescis 2617 days ago
To start, we are at 7.53 /billion/, not trillion.

Second, ever single time someone has said that overpopulation was going to be the end of us, they've been wrong. To quote Wikipedia, which go so far back as Ancient Carthage and Greece:

Concern about overpopulation is an ancient topic. Tertullian was a resident of the city of Carthage in the second century CE, when the population of the world was about 190 million (only 3–4% of what it is today). He notably said: "What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint) is our teeming population. Our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly support us.... In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race." Before that, Plato, Aristotle and others broached the topic as well. [1]

Finally, to answer your question of "How can the world support so many of us?", I would like to point at that with every new person born, that is a new person thinking of scientific advancements that can be made, producing stuff for others, for their kids, etc.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation#History_o...

1 comments

> that with every new person born, that is a new person thinking of scientific advancements that can be made

Smarts for scienfic advancement is not evenly spread across global populations.

It's possible to have population growth while the high IQ fraction shrinks. All evidence says this is the current state of the earth.

What evidence? Afaik average IQ is constantly rising: https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence#iq-gains-over-time-a...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

Each group is improving but mix of groups is changing.

High IQ populations have low fertility vs low IQ groups having high. South Korea with IQ 106 has TRF of 1.17. Nigeria IQ 84 has TRF of 5.53.

A gain of IQs within groups will be dwarfed by the change between groups.

If you think IQ tests are bogus we can use other metrics, eg Europe had 2x the population of Sub Saharan Africa in 1950, now Africa is bigger but has produced no hard science Nobel prizes and no new technology (like South Korea's smartphones)