[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.

[ekianjo]

No, they are not. Most countries would be happy to get back to population replacement. Countries like Korea, Germany or Japan CANNOT even dream of increasing their population at 1.2 fertility rate. Get your facts right.

[throwawaylinux]

Yes they are.

[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

[ekianjo]

Please explain to me how the survival of birds is linked to the survival of human life on Earth. We are already in a civilization where we don't depend anymore on foraging stuff that grows in nature anymore.

[throwawaylinux]

Strawman.

[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).