[mlinsey]

Of course Earth must have some finite carrying capacity, but that's only terrifying if you assume that "The Crunch" is the only way to bring population growth to a halt.

Population growth is already zero or negative in most developed countries if you remove the effects of immigration. If this becomes a consistent rule for all countries once they become fully developed, the real question is not whether we can sustain infinite population growth, but whether we have the resources to support a developed lifestyle for the entire world. Given current technologies and energy sources, the answer is almost certainly "no", but this is a much more tractable problem.

[tel]

I agree that such a state doesn't (a) seem impossible or (b) seem untenable if we have sufficient technological advances (solving fusion ignition, perhaps).

What kind of trajectory takes us from here to there (or to a place dense with similar stable solutions) without going through war and famine? Or, how does a developed nation survive in relative bounty surrounded by nations undergoing severe war and famine?

[Unseelie]

The first question is very difficult to answer..the second?

>Or, how does a developed nation survive in relative bounty surrounded by nations undergoing severe war and famine?

Brutality and self interest.

[Unseelie]

That currently developed nations currently have a negative growth rate only makes sense in terms of our current medical situation. If it were a hundred years ago, they'd all have collapsed by now, and if life expectancy doubled, or if people could halt their aging, population would once again explode, simply because couples like to raise children.