[xcom86]

Happy to see the world population growing. Unlike many here I don't believe the world is overpopulated and that we need more people to grow and expand beyond the planet.

Located in the U.S. where we could double the population without starting to feel cramped. We can and we should.

[grapeskin]

We were all born into a very fortunate time in earth's history regarding natural disasters.

The dust bowl absolutely destroyed a large part of the US. In prior centuries, massive droughts, volcanic explosions that blackened the skies, and massively deadly pandemics ravaged the world. These things happen periodically and absolutely destroy any population that's pushing the limits of its population totals.

So far we've managed to sustain huge population numbers by pumping up ground water. That's drying up across the world. We've survived off fish. Those populations are collapsing. We've diverted rivers for agriculture in deserts. There isn't enough rain to keep those flowing and hasn't been for years, plus with climate change glaciers and mountain snow that fed into rivers are increasingly a thing of the past--rivers and lakes that exist today will cease to exist within our lifetime (and long before we expect). Fertilizer let us push the land well beyond sustainable limits and vegetables are less nutritious than they've ever been due to nutrients being wiped out of the soil. Most countries are dependent on food being shipped from hundreds if not thousands of miles away and often from other countries entirely.

The world is severely overpopulated. We've just been lucky to have had a few decades of peaceful trade and a very, very, very mild environmental situation with zero major global disasters. This isn't the norm. One massive volcanic eruption, one actual plague, one massive drought and it's all over.

[nivenkos]

Because you live in the wealthiest country in the world (over 100 continuous years of highest GDP) with high salaries and lots of habitable space (from exterminating the native populace).

But that's not sustainable - the US has the highest CO2 emissions per capita when you factor in imports, etc. nevermind other environmental damage. And is also dependent on terrible conditions in Asia, etc. to produce all the cheap goods and clothes that you enjoy.

It's like the prisoner's dilemma though - the first countries that try to act responsibly with environmental policies, transitioning from fossil fuels, reducing population growth and unnecessary consumption are just at a disadvantage to those that don't.

[jimbob45]

We’re on track for electric cars to overtake gas cars in twenty years. Nuclear power is making a comeback. Even electric planes are in the wings. Best of all, lab-grown meat is here now and we’re just waiting for the price to come down. It seems as though we’ll have solved our emissions issues by the next generation.

Would you still argue against a higher population once we largely solve the emissions issues? Or is there a more fundamental reason you’re against a higher population?

[mytailorisrich]

We consume many resources and we won't consume less of them just because cars become electric. Emissions are just one of many pressures we out on the environment.

I think it's better to ask why should population keep growing? We don't need it and it physically has to stop growing at some point.

It seems much better to focus on growing quality of life and quality of environment rather than growing number of people.

[jimbob45]

I think it's better to ask why should population keep growing? We don't need it and it physically has to stop growing at some point.

Because you can’t stop people from breeding apart from killing them, at which point you’ve become Hitler. That or tax and social disincentivization at which point you’ve become the Illuminati. That or a procreation suppression field at which point you’re the Combine.

[mytailorisrich]

That's obviously no true since (1) many countries today have birth rates below replacement levels, and (2) contraception exists.

(Godwin point reached very quickly...)

[FooHentai]

If you take a 'planetary boundaries' view [1] we're outside of the safe operating limits for several factors: Extinctions, land system change, novel entities, biogeochemical flows, and climate change. 'Solving' emissions would only really address one of those (climate change).

Take a theoretical world where population was drastically lower (or individual consumption is hugely slashed amongst the top consumers): We would drop within the safe boundary for all limits simultaneously, because the underlying multipliers for all of them are number of people and individual consumption.

[1]https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2...

[nivenkos]

I'm pretty skeptical on electric planes (it's hard to generate that much thrust) but the others are all great improvements.

Still slowing population growth would be the easiest gradual way of dealing with resource and environmental issues. It also helps to spur automation and innovation by reducing the amount of cheap, desperate labour available (which is not a fulfilling existence for the workers either).

It can also be tied into ensuring that children have a good upbringing - introduce a child licence with requirements for raising a child to ensure some stability and responsible parenting - e.g. mandatory parenting and nutrition classes, $10+k in savings, living space requirements, etc. - this would help reduce crime and poverty and improve everyone's lives.

[ekianjo]

> But that's not sustainable -

100 years ago people were saying we would all die from starvation after a few billion more people. Doom sayers have zero credibility.

[grapeskin]

Yes, that was before we manufactured fertilizer. If that invention didn't exist, this number absolutely wouldn't be sustainable.

Soil is now becoming depleted and fertilizer isn't enough.[1] Globally, much also depends on rapidly depleting ground water that isn't being replenished. Agriculture is exceeding its limits.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conserv...

[j245]

We will come up with a way to “fix” that (if it’s even a problem), as we have done in the past.

Why ignore human ingenuity ?

[grapeskin]

Humans thought they'd find a fix for their problems before, so nothing to worry about.

A lot of those people died because no fix was found in their lifetimes. Nobody fixed the plagues that went around Europe. Nobody fixed the droughts that killed millions. Entire civilizations went extinct because they weren't able to find a fix before a problem caught up with them.

A lot of problems won't have a fix within our lifetime. Thinking it's guaranteed to happen is magical thinking--assuming we're the main characters in the universe and things must work out. Most of the time, they don't.

[j245]

Yet here we are.. having a discussion about whether too many humans are surviving for too long.

[ekianjo]

> Yes, that was before we manufactured fertilizer. If that invention didn't exist, this number absolutely wouldn't be sustainable.

Hence proving the fact that we have no good insight of the future.

[nivenkos]

And that was offset by the Green Revolution.

The current fertiliser shortages might undo some of that, there's a real chance we see severe famines in Lebanon, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Yemen, and other countries next year.

[mytailorisrich]

What do you think is the cause of the global environmental crisis?

[orangepurple]

Americans are saints when it comes to environmental destruction. Many African countries have very high birth rates and they do whatever it takes to survive, environment be damned, such as pouring used motor oil on the ground without batting and eye or thinking twice about the effects to their own health. Don't even get me started about the mining and deforestation.

[aortega]

Every american consume about 1000x the resources of every African. It's incredible how the media brainwash you into believe you are actually taking care of the environment when 90% of the CO2 emissions comes from America (and China joined them but just in the latest 5 or 10 years)

[delfaras]

Saints, for real ? The rate of consumption of Americans would require more than 5 planets to be sufficient,

Most African countries need less than one

You mention mining and deforestation but where do you think the material extracted are going ?

[proc0]

I often see this problem of comparing America to one country. We have 350 million people spread out in an area larger than EU. It's really one state is equivalent to one country in EU or Africa.

I would think it's still more energy consumption but not as huge of a gap, depending on the state.

[orangepurple]

China then to the rest of the world in the form of manufactured goods. America isn't the only major consumer of finished goods.

[Ma8ee]

You don’t have to go back many decades to where pouring used motor oil on the ground was the common practice in the US.

[xnx]

The US outsources a lot of its polution.

[doggwalker]

770 million Africans don't even have access to electricity.

Telling Africans they need to stay poor and stop having children is a pretty standard Western stuff.

[nivenkos]

Yeah, I agree, that's why we need population control everywhere.

The US is at a huge scale though, and that mining is probably going towards building American SUVs, military equipment, etc.

[theplumber]

All the issues you mentioned are problems we can and we will solve. Population growth is the best thing that happened to humanity. "Soon" we will become an inter-planetary species so it will get even better and exciting!

[proc0]

> But that's not sustainable - the US has the highest CO2 emissions per capita when you factor in imports, etc. nevermind other environmental damage. And is also dependent on terrible conditions in Asia, etc. to produce all the cheap goods and clothes that you enjoy.

Thanks to globalization... corporations influencing governments around the world to favor a global market. It's colonization all over again. Even back then, at the time of discovering America, for example, it was corporations that went around the world in their ships and did it for profit. The only difference today, is that there are no governments doing it explicitly (i.e. Iraq war), but rather corporations via the excuse of capitalism.

I'd be fine with buying everything local and more expensive, but often that option is not even present anymore. It's like the battle was won, and now we're all dependent on this global chain of commerce in one way or another.

[PradeetPatel]

The difference here is that corporations are subjected to local laws and legislations. Through those mechanisms, as well as general education and awareness efforts of the public we can overcome the environmental challenges imposed by globalisation.

Instead of taking a defeatist attitude, this has the opportunity to be a conversation starter with many big companies to champion a more ethical, sustainable future.

[CogitoCogito]

Personally I'd be okay with the population being 10% its current value (though I don't see any non-apocalyptic way of that coming to be). In any case, I think we should decrease our population to whatever extent possible.

But I guess that's just my opinion.

edit: I'm not really sure why you're being down-voted. You're just expressing your opinion here.

[Glavnokoman]

yeah... and it would be great if decrease in quantity would come with increase of quality. People themselves, their life conditions, human life appreciation all that stuff you know. (Cause I do not understand why would somebody want 2x of fat dolts).

[neuromute]

Overpopulation isn’t really about running out of space or feeling cramped, it’s about not having enough resources to sustainably support the population.

[k__]

I think, overpopulation is a eco-facist narrative.

Persons are autonomous, and if we would educate them correctly, they could help to make more of earth hospitable and use resources more efficientlly.

[tjpnz]

Who's we? As a westerner I'd feel like quite the hypocrite schooling the rest of the world on how to efficiently utilise resources.

[alex_young]

Eco-fascist is an odd term.

Fascism is generally used to describe right wing dictatorships with hierarchical structures which are opposed to democratic principles.

Do you really believe any of the people advocating for population stability are fascists?

[slavik81]

Human beings represent 3% of all animals on earth by weight. At this point, 90% of all birds and mammals on Earth are human-raised livestock [1].

There is room on this planet for more humans, but taking it for our own comes at a cost. If we choose to use it for people, then it can't also be wild. So, we have a choice to make about the kind of world we wish to live in.

[1]: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/al...

[shafyy]

It's not about the space and feeling cramped. A rich human's land and ecological footprint goes way beyond than "feeling cramped" walking around in a city.

I'm not against population growth, but this whole rhetoric fueled by Musk, among others, stirring panic that the population will collapse is crazy. Sure, we would have a problem if people suddenly stopped having children. But this is not the case. World population is still growing, and it should stabilize at around 10B people. That's not too bad, why do we need to keep growing?

[oezi]

Luckily growth mostly slowed and we are just seeing the effect of longer lifes.

Talk by Hans Rosling worth watching:

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_global_population_gro...

[psandersen]

Sorry for the off topic reply, but I saw your post "Ask HN: Variable naming guide of matching length?" when looking for the same thing and couldn't find a way to contact you on your profile; is this what you were looking for? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26359214

[oezi]

Thank you! That was very observant of you and exactely the thing I was looking for.

[car_analogy]

> Located in the U.S. where we could double the population without starting to feel cramped.

You're already running out of resources: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-11/californ...

[radicalbyte]

In that case the population is dominated by the suicidally bad water management in CA. You could cut the population by 99% and you would still have a looming water crisis there.

If you build a solar energy farm on the dark side of the moon you shouldn't be blaming the people who want to use the energy, you should be blaming the people who managed the project.

[kolinko]

offtopic - it’s not dark side if moon but far side of moon. Both sides get the same amount of sunlight - 2 weeks of sun and 2 weeks of darkness.

[zeristor]

I assume you mean the far side of the Moon.

A solar panel on the dark side wont be much use.

But then people have discussed landing on the Sun at night.

[PestoDiRucola]

Physical space is not the only issue. Your average US adult consumes more than 100 times than an adult from a developing country. Doubling that number would have disastrous consequences for the planet.

[thomassmith65]

People are like Replicants: we're "either a benefit or a hazard".

If the population increases in a system where there is enough access to good education, and enough economic opportunity, to advance humanity's knowledge, we will be fine.

If the population increases in a system with too much ignorance and destitution, we are in trouble.

[o_m]

Space isn't the bottle neck. Clean water might be the limiting factor.

[kolinko]

Clean water is an issue of energy and resources to build cleanup or desalination plants.

[sascha_sl]

It is, under current conditions, unsustainable.

The root cause of this is not "overpopulation" as often proclaimed, but our mode of production, which assumes endless economic growth is possible and everyone can be lifted out of poverty - all while relying on those in poverty to generate wealth (and more wealth inequality). Steven Pinker can shift the poverty line all he wants, it doesn't make the world less unequal.

I really dislike degrowth arguments, but it needs to be acknowledged that the standard of living for the top few percent is simply impossible to scale. At least with the means we currently have, and I'd rather measure based on those than hypothetical future developments that may or may not come to be.

[tr33house]

I'm with you on this. The world can still house a lot more people and we should stop being worried about the current population.

In terms of energy, nuclear. In terms of food, there are still large swaths of un-farmed areas. We can farm these and still maintain natural parks and not destroy the environment. Opening up immigration will solve labor issues.

We have the technology, we just have to distribute it to easily quadruple the carrying capacity of the earth

[mytailorisrich]

The US produce 14% of global emissions and consume a disproportionate amount of resources in general.

As things stand, doubling of US population would be a global disaster.

[rowanseymour]

I'm sure the US could feed all those people but can the planet survive doubling US greenhouse gas emissions?

[sascha_sl]

Feeding is going to be a lot harder as more land is eroded.

Though the US could cut emissions in the neighborhood of entire developed countries in Europe right now if they just stopped military spending.

[kolinko]

The planet and nature would survive just fine - it’s just that people wouldn’t.

[extheat]

You’re being downvoted, but for rather silly reasons. There are people who wrongly assume less people means higher quality of life for everyone else. There’s simply no empirical data to back such a claim up. The most concerning growth is unsustainable growth, exponential growth that cannot be sustained which causes immediate stress on the local economy. Likewise, there’s also economic stress when the opposite happens as economies are built under the guise of population growth, not just capitalism.

What we see continually rather is a narrative of overpopulation pushed and advanced by seemingly related points about lack of food and water. In reality these are completely orthogonal points which have some correlation to, but are not directly proportional to population growth all.