[dunco]

land mass =/= habitable land mass.

Help me understand your view because I simply cannot fathom how you must think to want 500M people in Australia.

Have you traveled? Do you want to live the way people live in overcrowded countries? Do you think there will be some trickle down economic effect for you? Do you place any value on the environment?

[dools]

I don't see how Aussies expect to live on the least densely populated continent right next to the most densely populated continent much longer. The only question is on whose terms we reclaim arable land and begin the process of populating currently unpopulated regions. I reckon the average population density of Japan is a pretty good target, and that's what I'm basing the 500m figure on.

My point is that people assume we can turn Mars, an entire arid planet with no water, into a habitable place but that we can't turn deserts on earth into habitable, arable land.

[dunco]

Japan is a net importer of food and probably could not feed its population if it had to. We can't all be net importers of food. Australia's problem is water. Our rivers are already environmental disasters because agriculture belligerently takes too much water.

The earth is finite. And it becomes undesirable and polluted long before we hit a hard population ceiling. I just do not understand people who would happily see the entire earth destroyed just so we can have a few more billion humans. we have too many already.

almost all high density places in the world are shitholes. Japan is an exception, but I don't have faith that Australia could be. Sydney is already seeing net loss of residents (excluding new migrants) because it is becoming overcrowded.