[betwixthewires]

It is impossible to exceed the carrying capacity of the earth. Let me explain why.

Every human being alive is made up of biomass, which means that the meat that people are made up of was once animals and plants, also eating, also drinking water. So the idea that food and water shortages are caused by increase in human population is simply not possible. It is not possible for there to be more people than there are resources to create them in the first place.

The only real difference is that human beings consume industrial goods and excess consumption caused by increase in standard of living (for example flushing toilets, something animals and plants do not do). But even considering these things, they're due to an increase in standard of living which can only come from an increase in production. In aggregate, humans cannot consume more than we can produce. So it follows that an increase in population that causes resource shortages can only lead to a reduction in living standards, and only down to the living standards of a subsistence agrarian society. Overconsumption of resources then is a self correcting problem.

Now, suppose human beings could exceed the earth's carrying capacity, which I have just showed you is not possible. This would cause many human beings to die from starvation, as the decrease in living standards would take us below the standard of living of subsistence agriculture in this hypothetical scenario. Even in this extreme case, it is still a self correcting problem. There is no need to artificially correct it.

Any and all problems that appear to stem from overpopulation are actually resource allocation problems, inefficiencies in resource distribution. The problem with China is not that the resources cannot be produced to support the population, the problem is that the resources are inefficiently distributed, in part because a centrally controlled economy cannot possibly distribute resources more efficiently than a distributed (or free market) economy, but that is a different discussion.

[Chris2048]

> It is not possible for there to be more people than there are resources to create them

People can have different daily-intake requirements as children versus adults, plus a growing populations consummation can temporarily exceed food production by burning trough food stores. Also, local food production can vary, place to place, season to season - what's sustainable during a good year, might not be during a bad one.

Plants and animals can eat and drink things humans can't; e.g. a plant is fine with muddy, faeces-contaminated water, it would even thrive on it. Livestock may happily eat grass/straw long-term.

The killing of one cow won't feed a human for the rest of their lives - multiple cows are needed to provide constant food, and the cow population may as such increase along with the human population.

When the rate at which the cows are eating grass is faster than the rate at which the grass grows, your population is unsustainable, and you will eventually not be able to feed everyone. The only sense in which it's "impossible to exceed the carrying capacity of the earth" is that when you do, people will die.

[betwixthewires]

You make a lot of good points here.

So I should elaborate, global overpopulation is impossible. Local overpopulation and resource shortages are possible, but this is not due to too many people (as the resources exist somewhere on earth to support them) but due to inefficient resource management.

Local shock increases in population are due to migration, not birth rate explosion, since birth rate follows resource availability. And again, a sudden migration from one place to another of large numbers of people (which we see in urbanization) is another example of inefficient resource allocation.

The increase in resource demand from a person as they grow into adulthood is a consideration, but an indicator that resources are strained is child mortality. The fact that it is decreasing worldwide tells us that we are not at the edge of carrying capacity. Even if we were, the result would be either decreased standard of living or increased child mortality, and thus the problem self corrects. My assertion again is that human population cannot exceeded carrying capacity globally.

Some creatures can consume resources that humans need to process before consuming, but in aggregate the amount of biomass stays the same and so the resources are always available. It is a question of production, not availability. An increase in livestock that depletes the food store of the herd is essentially the same scenario as a local increase in population of humans that strains locally available resources. And like I pointed out talking about that scenario, the issue is inefficient resource allocation, not overpopulation.

[cute_boi]

Yes you are right but not fully correct here.

The inefficient resource allocation happened because of overpopulation. Managing resource of 1 million is easy but 1 billion (Hello Hello?) is not easy.

And the issue is quality life. Do you think many people from India/China can have same quality of life like that of US? No.

Just tell me how would u make efficient resource allocation? The world simply doesn't demand excess population. When there is more population resources must be shared and when resources are shared quality of life decreased leading to all sort of problem.

[imtringued]

>Even in this extreme case, it is still a self correcting problem. There is no need to artificially correct it.

You're forgetting the most extreme form of self correction... People killing each other in a coordinated fashion AKA war.

The problem with your argument is that you consider wars to be an acceptable solution.

[betwixthewires]

Well, first of all, I demonstrated how this extreme case is impossible, but let's address war.

In such a world where there are too many people, we get suggestions such as instituting a one child policy, forced sterilization, outward extremists even discuss culling populations. What's the difference between that and war? The difference is, in war you have agency. War happens organically between people. An authoritarian solution takes agency away entirely. People are not free to be people, but you wind up with, best case scenario, the same result with regard to resource management. So yes, even in extreme circumstances where war is a response to resource shortages, it is still a preferable outcome to authoritarianism.

[salawat]

>It is impossible to exceed the carrying capacity of the earth. Let me explain why.

>Well, first of all, I demonstrated how this extreme case is impossible, but let's address war.

Did you happen to be an engineer working on the design or marketing of the Titanic in a past life? You sure sound like it. You also sound like you have not once ever grown a plant.

You can go from perfectly green and healthy to dead in a week if you don't pay attention. A seed can flourish just fine, only to eventually die as the energy burden required for it to thrive is no longer met. If this happens before you go to seed, congratulations, your population of plants just went extinct due to breaching the carrying capacity of their environment.

Try raising an orchid some time. I guarantee you'll learn something. One of the Vanilla ones in particular is best.

Your arguments are naive and reek of "not my problem" type thinking. You may believe that carrying capacity is a a priori defined as "I'm here, therefore not exceeded" but it isn't.

We're all hot-house flowers who are facing the possibility of the gardener (humanity collectively) just saying "screw it" and destroying our chances at continued success.

And war... War'll happen, and calling that a systemic self-correction is both callous and wretched beyond all reason. Nevermind that no one tends to factor in environmental damage that occurs as a result of warfare.

[betwixthewires]

I grow lots of plants.

Try to stick to discussing the topic and my point rather than attacking me personally, it is much more effective and productive.

[bronson]

> So yes, even in extreme circumstances where war is a response to resource shortages, it is still a preferable outcome to authoritarianism.

War IS authoritarianism. History shows that war pretty much requires it.

[betwixthewires]

Again, I need to point out that this extreme example is hypothetical for the sake of discussion and I've established that it is not possible. I'd like to stay on topic so I'm not going to get deep into why I think this, I allude to my reasoning in my previous comment, but I disagree that war is authoritarianism. That isn't to say war is good.

[amanaplanacanal]

Authoritarianism is my countries leaders trying to impose their will on me. War is some other countries leaders trying to impose their will on me. Not sure I like either option.

[dirtyid]

Your broad point seems to be problem will fix itself, but that's not very illuminating. Self correction spans the spectrum of manageable to disastrous. Carry capacity / resource availability has temporal element and is not stable, allocation today may not be sustainable or available tomorrow. Mismanaged environmental cycles means feast or famine i.e. fisheries / soil poorly managed and becomes increasingly unproductive or oil / water reserves tapped faster than new discoveries or replenishment. Disaster when you cannot efficiently distribute what's no longer there due to poor planning and foresight. Self correction could be preemptive population management or feast or famine cycles. One is more preferable than other for stable society. IMO free market is not capable of planning on such long timelines. Some problems become sufficiently large and long spanning that only state can handle, i.e. national defense is state directed, even if frequently poorly optimized in terms of resource allocation. Private military / industry could exist under free market but works within superstructure set by state.

[betwixthewires]

My broader point is that there is no problem to fix, human population cannot possibly exceed the carrying capacity of the earth.

Looking at recorded human history, the long term trend consistently is that the population has risen. This means resource availability has increased, either due to discovery of new sources, invention, efficiency increase. Shocking decreases in some or other resource have had little effect on this trend.

Unavailability of some resource just means reduction in standard of living, for everything except food and water. And again, the net biomass on earth does not increase the more humans are here, and so the demand for food and water does not change whether that biomass is humans or buffalo. There can be no food or water shortages from overpopulation, only mismanagement and natural disaster.

The free market is the only thing capable of handling shocks, no other system is flexible or agile enough to quickly resolve a change in resource availability or demand. And sudden change of resource availability is not what we are talking about, we are talking about resource shortage due to overpopulation. A shock decrease in resources would result in disaster no matter how many people exist, so trying to address it by managing population levels is pointless.

[klmadfejno]

> Looking at recorded human history, the long term trend consistently is that the population has risen. This means resource availability has increased, either due to discovery of new sources, invention, efficiency increase. Shocking decreases in some or other resource have had little effect on this trend.

I've been filling this bucket with water, and it's never overflown. Therefore the bucket can contain infinite water.

Free market economics don't work so well when the biggest players decide to augment their value proposition with the barrel of a gun. Available biomass is not the relevant metric when determining the carrying capacity of the earth, with the obvious caveat that by carrying capacity, we mean some definition that includes the continuation of modern society.

[betwixthewires]

>I've been filling this bucket with water, and it's never overflown. Therefore the bucket can contain infinite water.

I'd say a more apt comparison to the point I'm making is "I've been filling this bucket with after and it's never overflown, and it appears that there is no way to overfill the bucket and exceed it's carrying capacity." I never said anything about continuous population growth, in fact, my point is that it is not possible to grow the population beyond the carrying capacity.