[throwawaylinux]

This illustrates why it's a terrible shame that the overpopulation topic has effectively been silenced and demonized in science conservationism and environmentalism.

I frequently get people becoming wildly irrational and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably, let alone a much larger one. They'll angrily insist that the earth's "carrying capacity" is 20, 50, 100 billion people! Or that countries should be looking to increase their populations, or that natural population stability and decline is a terrible thing.

As though we have not _already_ caused (and are continuing to cause) a great extinction event almost entirely before any significant effects from greenhouse gas emissions have made an impact.

Habitat destruction, chemical pollution, mining, mineral and fossil fuel depletion, water depletion and contamination, farming practices and monocultures, human interference, etc., are all just horrific, are responsible for massive destruction and extinction of the environment, and aren't all suddenly going to get magic'ed away the instant we somehow get the GHG pollution thing under control (if we ever do).

The funny thing about that is, if our population was a very healthy, say, 5% of its current level, greenhouse gas emissions would be practically a non-issue too. The problem would literally be solved. Gradually moving toward cleaner and more renewable sources of course should and would happen, but while that was responsibly and efficiently changing, there would be no imminent climate catastrophe occurring.

EDIT: It's happening again.

[jdkee]

2430 A.D. by Asimov.

"Earth has established a totally balanced and ecologically stable underground society (similar to that portrayed in Asimov's novel The Caves of Steel). But one man, Cranwitz, regarded as a deviant and eccentric because he keeps a few animals as pets, refuses to get rid of these animals, the last non-human inhabitants of the planet.

He is finally persuaded by his sector representatives to exterminate his pets, but also commits suicide. This leaves Earth in 'perfection', with its fifteen trillion inhabitants, twenty billion tons of human brain and the 'exquisite nothingness of uniformity'."

[Groxx]

Greenhouse (specifically carbon dioxide) specifically might be solved, because trees exist and are pretty good at what they do, but I absolutely do not believe that a 95% reduction in population would lead to a consistently-healthy world. I think you dramatically underestimate our ability to pollute in small populations. Consider how bad air pollution was in London during the 1700s and 1800s.

[idontwantthis]

But in the 1700s and 1800s you could leave London and go to the countryside and have very little pollution. That would be wonderful today. Instead we are filling and polluting every space in the world.

[ekianjo]

Air goes around.

[throwawaylinux]

I didn't say a 95% reduction in population would lead to a consistently healthy world. I said if global population was 5% of what it is now, greenhouse gas emissions would practically be a non problem.

[Groxx]

Fair enough, and for carbon dioxide I mostly agree. But it definitely seems like this:

>Habitat destruction, chemical pollution, mining, mineral and fossil fuel depletion, water depletion and contamination, farming practices and monocultures, human interference, etc., are all just horrific, are responsible for massive destruction and extinction of the environment, and aren't all suddenly going to get magic'ed away the instant we somehow get the GHG pollution thing under control (if we ever do).

is claiming broad relation to population being above some threshold, since the whole comment is about overpopulation.

[throwawaylinux]

The aggregate environmental impact of those things are all quite directly related to population, yes. I don't understand what you're getting at.

[Cullinet]

What do you think about our ability to raise qualified adults enough to manage the continuing industrial sectors of the planet, if we were 5% of our present number?

Subjectively and with zero rigor I think that possibly 150 to 100 years ago levels of population were capable of creating so much of the modern world. But from the Holocaust to Pol Pot, the Bangladesh civil war, mass exterminations of some of humanity's most capable gene pools is something that I very badly want to be convinced hasn't badly harmed the species potential.

[throwawaylinux]

I'm not saying 5% is the correct population mind you, several hundred million people is quite a lot though. Certainly enough to carry on civilization in my opinion.

[ijidak]

"the appointed time came to bring to ruin those ruining the earth" Rev 11:18

I find it interesting that ruining of the earth by humans was predicted approx 2,000 years ago.

Sadly we have lived up to the hype.

And, we show no signs of making the wholesale changes needed to turn this ship around.

But, if you're interested in an often pooh-poohed alternative, you may find some comfort reading this: https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/peace-happiness/save-e...

[momenti]

You are not the first "genius" realizing this. Look up Ted Kaczynski. But he was smarter than you because he considered what this reality entails for the ruling classes: Namely the decision whether they shouldn't give up on maintaining the masses once technologically feasible. It is for this reason that it is a taboo and has to remain one. Everything else is propaganda and chatter.

[throwawaylinux]

> You are not the first "genius" realizing this.

Found another one.

[ekianjo]

> and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably,

because you are wrong. 100 years ago people said we would all starve when the world population reaches 1 billion people. then we not only not starved but became wealthier as well. Doom predictions are mostly damn wrong.

[throwawaylinux]

No it's not because I'm wrong, because you can argue with or debate with people who are wrong (or you believe are wrong) without becoming irrational and angry.

And I'm not making any predictions, just observations. This might come down to semantics on what exactly you suppose sustainable to mean or whether or not it is desirable, but causing an ongoing mass extinction event does not meet my definition of sustainable.

I'm talking about environmental sustainability to be clear (hopefully it was from the context but I may not have been explicit enough). I don't doubt we could physically feed billions more people at least as long as we have cheap energy and fertilizers from fossil fuels if we accepted ever increasing environmental destruction.

[ekianjo]

> And I'm not making any predictions, just observations.

Claiming we are in the middle of a mass extinction event is a prediction, not an observation. It will become an observation when you have actually seen billions of species disappear over time. You don't extrapolate an extinction based on trends over dozens of years (especially on mostly imperfect data).

[throwawaylinux]

No I'm talking about actual observations. I'm not going to nitpick about semantics with you no this. Extinction rates are 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than normal, which is not sustainable.

[OtomotO]

Antinatalism is a thing, yes.

You're not alone and it doesn't matter if something is popular.

Apart from the adoption rate (no pun intended)

[idiocrat]

Please be aware there is also the "The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement". https://www.vhemt.org/

It is led by Les Knight.

Here is quick explanation, from their site:

''' VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It’s a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We’re not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.

Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology.

As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us. '''

I certainly like the promotional video, "Thank You For Not Breeding".

http://vimeo.com/7652051

[ekianjo]

This group will go extinct just by following their own philosophy. Brilliant.

[Typhon]

Organizations (mostly) don't self-perpetuate through sexual reproduction. It's perfectly possible for the VHEMT to expand if they manage to convince enough people.

[ekianjo]

Still, if your philosophy already favors self-extinction, you are already fighting against the odds.

[throwawaylinux]

Not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse or you actually think what I wrote equates to antinatalism, but no that's not my believe. No more than someone who believes the earth's carrying capacity is 100 billion saying that 200 billion is too many people would be antinatalism.

[toqy]

> I frequently get people becoming wildly irrational and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably

Arguing about how many people the earth can sustain is pointless without defining what kind of life you expect people to be living. How many billions can capitalism + western rates of consumption sustain and for how long vs a simpler way of life.

> aren't all suddenly going to get magic'ed away

and neither are all the people deemed excess by your world view, which is probably the part people get riled up about.

[throwawaylinux]

> Arguing about how many people the earth can sustain is pointless without defining what kind of life you expect people to be living. How many billions can capitalism + western rates of consumption sustain and for how long vs a simpler way of life.

Not really, 10 billion "simpler way of life" people have huge catastrophic footprints as well. Farming being a major one. But the point was not to come to a precise figure and metrics, it's an unhinged kneejerk reaction to any suggestion that the population is not sustainable. Which it is not.

> and neither are all the people deemed excess by your world view,

This false ad hominem suggests you are one of the people my original post refers to.

_My_ world view deems no person "excess". It acknowledges a simple reality that our population is not sustainable and reducing it or limiting growth is critically important for the environment and makes all other environmental efforts simpler or less severe.

> which is probably the part people get riled up about.

No, it's not. They get unhinged about the idea that population is a serious environmental problem at its current levels let alone increased levels. The (baseless and unfounded) claims they make being that it's not a problem "because earth's carrying capacity is 50 billion people" or other absurd statements along those lines.

[dwaltrip]

They probably get upset as they assume you are implying some moral judgment against having kids. Most people want kids, just like those before us for untold hundreds of thousands of years.

[iostream23]

There’s a difference between one kid, two kids, three kids, and that guy who had 150 kids or somesuch.

There isn’t an infinite carrying capacity to any planet, nor is it reasonable to have excess of a singular species for it is at the expense of others.

Some may have hurt feelings if you explain that more than 2 kids increases the population, but then “go forth and multiply” is probably not currently sound guidance, given what we now know, vs what we knew, say, 5 thousand years ago. It was arguably bad judgment to completely finish the great grazing herds and the Mastodons but try telling that to a hungry lot of humans.

The more we come to grips with the human as another animal species, one of many on earth, the easier it is to see how our own hubris is the issue everytime.

To the person above who thought 7 billion humans above wasn’t pushing any planetary limits: while no individual human wants to feel like excess, and certainly homicide is never what is being suggested, the fact remains that a wise human race that wishes to have a healthy planet and lots of resources per capita will steer their population over generations to be healthy.

I’m rather convinced that the same way a rabbit population without predators will suffer disease if it blooms too much, that this is what we are starting to encounter as we brush with the limits of our host in terms of our reckless dominance and destruction on the only known home to life so far…

No one wants to hear about limits or rules but hey, reality called…

[throwawaylinux]

No I don't think it's that either: for example many seem to get especially upset when I suggest that most developed countries have naturally slightly declining populations so they should more or less be left alone rather than implement policies to drive population growth.

[ekianjo]

They are not trying to promote population growth. Rather avoiding a too steep decline.

[throwawaylinux]

No they're trying to promote population growth.

[toqy]

> This false ad hominem suggests you are one of the people my original post refers to.

It's not an ad hominem, and if you think that my reply is "wildly irrational and upset" then I question if you actually get that kind of reaction in general.

It's merely my interpretation of what you said, since you've given no concrete details and left nearly everything to the imagination of the reader. Given your 5% figure, you are arguing for reducing the population by ~7 billion people, but how? On what timeline? Just saying the world is overpopulated is uninteresting.

> The (baseless and unfounded) claims they make being that it's not a problem "because earth's carrying capacity is 50 billion people" or other absurd statements along those lines.

You've stated that the earth's carrying capacity is 5% of current population, which seems to be equally unfounded.

[carbonguy]

> _My_ world view deems no person "excess".

So we don't have "too many" people? The world is not OVERpopulated? Because excess means "too many" or "more than needed," so if you're saying there's no excess, then you're saying there's not too many people.

I definitely agree with you, by the way: the world does not have an excess of humans!

[throwawaylinux]

We have many more people on earth than can sustainably be supported without continuing environmental damage and depletion.

[ekianjo]

Nope. That is catastrophism.

[throwawaylinux]

No, it's just what's happening. For example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29546714

[littlecosmic]

if we were kangaroos, rabbits, or deer, we would do a population cull on ourselves 'for our own good' (not that I think we should).

[jjoonathan]

It's not so much the abstract idea of depopulation that has people upset at you, it's that every concrete proposal for getting there involves genocide and suffering.

[spodek]

First, no they don't. Look up successes in Thailand, Costa Rica, Iran, South Korea, and other nations that lowered their birth rates through noncoercive means that improved health, longevity, prosperity, equality, and stability.

Second, not lowering birth rates involved billions of people suffering and dying. There is no option where we keep living above sustainable levels without consequence.

[throwawaylinux]

No it's not that at all actually. It's a plain head-in-sand denial of reality that I'm talking about encountering.

Same kinds of thinking cause the exact same kinds of knee jerk reactions, denialism, conspiracy theories, etc. when you suggest green house gas emissions are not sustainable and should be reduced too.

And I should say that you're wrong about that genocide assertion too. In most of the countries with the highest consumption and environmental footprints, populations are naturally in slight decline on their own. No genocide or suffering needed to reduce populations in those places.

[jjoonathan]

You seem quite convinced that you have the carrying capacity argument correct. I can understand why: it's really easy to come up with doomsday arguments of this form. Extrapolate any rising trend against any perceived constraint and bingo bango you have your prophecy. Thing is, people have been doing this since the dawn of history, and they've been spectacularly wrong since the dawn of history. Doomer models just never seem to be nearly as clever as real human beings.

One day the doomers might actually get it right for once. I'm not holding my breath, but even if I were, proactive genocide would be a tough sell.

> populations are naturally in slight decline on their own

I am aware.

> No genocide or suffering needed

That depends entirely on why you think this trend is happening, but if you're willing to accept the trend as it stands then we can probably find common ground.

[throwawaylinux]

Complete rubbish.

We're past the sustainable carraying capacity because we have already brought about mass extinction events, irreversible destruction of habitat and environment with our existing population (and it even started when the population was far lower, it's just that it's been accelerating). I have the counter example. There is no "model".

Also it's strange you accuse me of being a spectacularly wrong doomer when you were just now spouting easily disproven doomsaying about genocides. Maybe tone down the ad hominems a little at least while you're sitting in your glass house.

[lambdadmitry]

> We're past the sustainable carraying capacity because we have already brought about mass extinction events, irreversible destruction of habitat and environment with our existing population

People drove megafauna extinct before they invented the wheel. Great Britain lost most of its forest, irreversibly (for at least next few millennia), before Romans arrived. Romans, in turn, demolished half of Europe worth of forests to support iron production. Taking that argument seriously it means that "the sustainable carrying capacity" is way below what we had in 300 BCE.

Alternatively, it just suggests that there is no inherent carrying capacity, it's always of function of technology. As technology changes, the carrying capacity increases. Thankfully, our technology improves faster than ever before in the last few centuries and continues to accelerate. This suggests your core assumption is likely to become obsolete in not too distant future, even if it isn't now.

[throwawaylinux]

> Taking that argument seriously it means that "the sustainable carrying capacity" is way below what we had in 300 BCE.

No it doesn't, because I'm not saying there's one carrying capacity that's somehow inherent to earth.

Of course it's related to technology and lifestyles and our environmental impact. What made you think I was trying to say otherwise?

Clearly if we got all our energy from burning wood and food from hunting and gathering, we couldn't even support 1% of our population without massive unsustainable habitat destruction. And yes in the past there have been many unsustainable societies that we might like to have changed but that's done now we are dealing with what's in front of us.

And with our current environmental impact, the current population is not sustainable. Maybe technology and societies will change enough in future that it could sustainably support today's levels of population, but that's irrelevant. That doesn't help the 53% of grassland birds in North America being wiped out in the past 50 years.

[ip26]

populations are naturally in slight decline on their own

Yeah, by maybe 10-20% generation over generation. If your target population is 5% of today, and your strategy is to use the natural population decline of Western countries, you aren't getting to those levels for a good 15-25 generations. 400-700 years or so.

[throwawaylinux]

> Yeah, by maybe 10-20% generation over generation.

So my counter-example disproves the absurd claim that any population limitation or reduction requires or devolves into genocide.

> If your target population is 5% of today, and your strategy is to use the natural population decline of Western countries, you aren't getting to those levels for a good 15-25 generations. 400-700 years or so.

I'll assume that math works out for those stated assumptions. So what's the point?

[carbonguy]

The point is probably that, if you believe the biosphere is in crisis NOW, then waiting hundreds of years for human populations to decline is not a solution.

There's an odd disconnect in the comments you've been making where you identify this problem of overpopulation, but seem extremely reticent to describe what you think should be done about this problem you've identified. Maybe I've missed it, and I plan to continue reading the thread to see if that's the case, but if I haven't, let me ask you directly: what, if anything, should be done about human overpopulation?

And if your answer is "nothing, I'm just pointing out it exists" then... well, thanks for contributing, I guess?

[throwawaylinux]

> The point is probably that, if you believe the biosphere is in crisis NOW, then waiting hundreds of years for human populations to decline is not a solution.

I didn't say that waiting for western countries to decline to 5% of their populations was solution. Hope that cleared things up for you.

> There's an odd disconnect in the comments you've been making where you identify this problem of overpopulation, but seem extremely reticent to describe what you think should be done about this problem you've identified. Maybe I've missed it, and I plan to continue reading the thread to see if that's the case, but if I haven't, let me ask you directly: what, if anything, should be done about human overpopulation?

What's really odd is that you think an observation is verboten if it does not come with any solutions! Very strange. I don't think your question is the big gotcha you're hoping for though. In general, policies should be geared toward limiting population growth or reducing it, which as I said then makes all other environmental efforts proportionately less difficult.

Most of the highest consuming countries have naturally declining populations, so one thing would be to leave those alone rather than institute growth policies. Another would be to invest in education, healthcare, and other quality of life measures in other countries which are shown to reduce population growth over time. Another one would be to end global environmental and trade agreements which incentivize countries to boost population and limit quality of life with per-capita concessions. For a few examples.

[wubbert]

With the Earth's being consumed at unsustainable levels, genocide and suffering are an inevitability. It's just a question of who is going to do it to who.

[benatkin]

> I frequently get people becoming wildly irrational and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably

Irrationality is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

[throwawaylinux]

Exhibit A

[AlanSE]

Well, people get wildly irrational at me when I suggest that the only viable option here is for people to migrate from Earth into orbit. Space constraints will go away, because in 3-dimensional space everyone can live in as large of a house as they want but remain in a fast commute to urban centers of space cities. There are plenty of materials available on the moon to build whatever we want with. This can, of course, leave the focus on Earth to shift to biosphere remediation.

After we take full intentional control of the planet's climate and shift 99% of human land use to the project, then I expect it will still be 100 years or more before we get back to pre-industrial natural productivity. This won't happen on its own, I'm assuming we put a large amount of artificial accelerators into to the process. It won't be the same as before humans, but we could quickly get back to the same megafauna numbers as before. Rough equivalents to pre-industrial ecosystems will eventually work out the missing niches.

[carbonguy]

I suspect part of the reason people have a strong response to your suggestion is that it's patently impractical, and thus easy to pick apart.

To offer one small critique: you suggest that we first need "people to migrate from Earth into orbit," THEN "take full intentional control of the planet's climate" - surely if we have the ability to fully control Earth's climate, we don't need everyone in orbit?

And, since we have to develop the technologies necessary to implement your plan anyway, wouldn't it be easier to just figure out how to remediate the biosphere directly, instead of figuring out how to get everyone into orbit, THEN figure out full planetary climate control, THEN artificially-accelerated natural productivity restoration?

[AlanSE]

Your comment doesn't add up. I need to ask more questions to triage what your positions are. Let's start with the fairly basic premise that virtually all of us agree on:

1. Current human impact on the planet is unsustainable

Now add these premises:

2. As developing world changes, our impact gets worse 3. As our own standards of living increase, our impact gets worse

Your vision of the Earth doesn't have space migration as part of our path to sustainability. Because of this, you're fighting increasing demands while at the same time needing to reduce total impact dramatically. Say that the equation is:

Impact = (number of people) x (quality of life) x (efficiency)

You can reject either (2) or (3) or both at the cost of some human harm. Most pro-tech people tend to not reject either of these, but you might be an exception. Because of that, you have 2 increasing factors, because you don't have control over the number of people are we're locked into growth for 50 years or something demographically, even with birth rates quickly falling below replacement (which they haven't yet).

There's only 1 factor left in your toolbox - efficiency. We live better but at a lower impact to the planet. Agreed, that's great, but because of (1) and (2) we already have high expectations of this factor. On top of that, we need truly dramatic total reductions in total impact. So if we need 2x improvement (which is probably underestimating) to stay level, then we need maybe 8x or 16x to get where we need to be so that the Earth is moderately healthy. That would be great, but this is magical unicorn-ish thinking. Is this what you're counting on? I want to know.

We can control Earth's climate today by Sulfur geoengineering, which I'm worried that we will not start until it's too late, and even more worried that it may not be globally coordinated which would be disastrous. This is just a band aid, we still need to virtually eliminate Carbon emissions on a time scale we're not prepared for. As long as we are here, then climate intervention will be done for us (our own selfish needs), not for the health of the biosphere.

[throwawaylinux]

It sounds like you agree that population levels on Earth are unsustainable and reducing them would help to preserve the environment.

Now certainly you can see why your ideas may be a little harder to accept as the scientific fact that human activity at even much smaller levels as today's population has caused terrible environmental destruction, extinction, etc., and with a lot more room to disagree, but so long as you approach the conversations humbly and with a willingness to consider differing opinions as you would have people consider your opinion I sympathize. Some people just react irrationally.

[eloff]

I think because it's not practical yet. I'm not sure if it ever would be, but if SpaceX gets starship right it brings us one big step closer to that. Also I think most people would prefer to remain on Earth. But moving some kinds of industry to space could be useful. Asteroids contain an abundance of elements that are difficult to extract here on Earth. If much of the demand for them was also in space due to heavy industry there, that might make it viable. Having heavy industry in space like that could really open up orbit and the solar system to us.