[Flozzin]

Something not discussed is the why. Why would we want more or less people. The less people, the less pollution. The more people, the more ???.

One way we have been able to have this many people, are modern farm practices. But those rely heavily on chemicals. Which is not ideal(dead ecosystems, poisoned water). Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

[somenameforme]

Culture, art, technology, science, growth, exploration, communication, and so on. Basically advancement in nearly every measurable way of every aspect of society.

Food is not a limiting factor. China is a net exporter of food in a country of 1.4 billion on about 1.1 million km^2 of arable land. For context, the United States has about 1.6 million km^2. And the quantities of arable land can be expanded somewhat dramatically everywhere.

[formerkrogemp]

> Food is not a limiting factor.

Food and more importantly, as you would know if you googled depleted aquifer, water are limiting factors. Always. You will always need those two. Most of our agricultural practices are unsustainable across multiple measures, especially water.

> China is a net exporter of food in a country of 1.4 billion on about 1.1 million km^2 of arable land.

Saudi Arabia used to be a net exporter of wheat until about 5 years ago. Our arable land, the topsoil so vital to it, and the fresh water we overuse so much faster than it can be replenished worldwide are all hitting bottlenecks in the coming years. Egypt and Jourdan are fighting over the Nile. The Sahar and deserts in China are expanding despite great efforts otherwise. China is imposing its will in Thailand and Vietnam over their control of the headwaters of the Mekong. The Europeans are worried about the Po and Rhine being lower than usual with glacier meltwater being depleted faster and faster with rising temps and milder winters. Aquifers built over thousands or millions of years are being pumped at rates unrecorded for agriculture and residential use. Ogalalla and western US aquifers are sinking the land and running out. Encroachment of freshwater systems by erosion and saltwater from rising sea levels and fierce storm surges are threatening ecosystems and coastal farming. A pernicious side effect of a hotter atmosphere is increased vaporization of water from lake reservoirs causing water loss exceeding water use of cities and populations. The outlook and ongoing crises in places like California are grim, but there's a lot we can do. Price water more closely to its real cost. Build desalination plants. Implement water saving tech into manufacturing and households. Water loss from reservoirs and recording depletion rates of aquifers can give us better data of the scale and rate of the depletion to inform the urgency. More data can be collected. Swale water runoff and improve land management techniques to retain water. Implement drip irrigation and water efficient and drought resistant crops. Build cisterns and modify reservoirs to improve water storage and retention. Chinampas can be built. Many other efforts and policies can be implemented, but they are all costly and take time. Perhaps that's why this issued has been ignored for so long, because we turn on the tap and the water always comes out. Until it doesn't anymore. We've certainly been warned. Hydrologists have been warning about this for almost a century.

[croes]

>Culture, art, technology, science, growth, exploration, communication, and so on. Basically advancement in nearly every measurable way of every aspect of society

I doubt that these depend on quantity and not quality.

[chitowneats]

I much prefer to date a single woman of high quality than to have a bunch of flings and one night stands. Finding that woman is still a numbers game though. Same is true for the Einsteins and Jordans of the world being born.

[theplumber]

So you have a plan to reduce the quantity and increase the quality? Right now it seems that education leads to lower birth rates and slows population growth so it goes the opposite direction someone would want.

[croes]

Is it education or the time and money that is needed to get this education? Not to mention that a costly education runs the risk of becoming useless after parental leave, especially for women. Nowadays many people have to decide between family and career

[dilap]

But it's not like you get that automatically just by having a giant mass of people. There needs to be a certain life-style and culture to create those things. What density of humans is ideal for that?

The calculation shouldn't just be, "what's the maximum # of people we can physically support on earth?" It should be, what's a nice number that makes life pleasant and fulfilling and leaves time for leisure?

And while the earth is very large, the number of places that are truly special is much smaller.

For example, if you look over the whole earth, what fraction of it is at the level of, say, the San Francisco Bay Area, for sheer natural beauty and enjoyability of surroundings?

A small fraction indeed, I would say!

(Of course there is some room for personal preference in here; maybe you're a desert person or whatever. But though squishly defined, the point still stands.)

Today, it's expensive and stressful to live in the Bay Area, because of overcrowding.

But look back at say the middle of the 20th century -- it was still an amazing, beautiful place, but it was much less crowded and much less expensive! This provided fertile ground for interesting artistic and cultural movements, like the beats & their poetry & the hippies & their music.

Now it's much harder to have those kind of cultural and artistic movements in SF, because just basic physical survival is much more of a struggle.

[concordDance]

Note that this assumes the new people are statistically just as likely to contribute in those ways as the average person today/40 years ago but we don't know this is true (and indeed there's some weak evidence it's false)

[somenameforme]

I don't disagree with this in the least, but I would say that people are contributing less per person today not because there are more people but because of other reasons. There's no doubt that in at least some instances the next [insert really cool person here] instead just got sucked in a vapid world of social media, or endless self indulgence with entertaining videos, or other "niceties" of today.

The point of this though is that it's all still on a distribution. We've lowered the mean but a higher quantity still means more outliers, which are those that ultimately do neat stuff for all of us.

[kken]

>The more people, the more scaling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects#Wrigh...

This is what brought us scientific and engineering progress.

The problem is, of course, that growing inequality stalls these mechanisms.

[__alexs]

This is what bought us the rate of progress we've become accustomed too. Why should we want it to be faster?

[skeeter2020]

Oh the hubris, to think that it has anything to do with what the individual wants! Humans are unique in their belief that we master the universe and conform everything to our desires.

[MonkeyMalarky]

Because we're going to to have to science and engineer our way out of the climate change hole that's been dug.

[__alexs]

We already have the technology to do that. We just don't have the political will to do it.

[daniel-cussen]

The last 500 years's scientific progress is much less impressive when you adjust for the number of people it took to make all that progress.

[OJFord]

I think it depends on the country - substitute society, area, whatever as you prefer, an organisational unit - some would be advanced by more people; others would likely have an easier time advancing with fewer.

I think this is one root of colonialism: more people and land with which to expand our already developed ideas, processes, et al. - and also perhaps (though often/typically problematically, controversially, etc.) benefit them in doing so, bring our developed ideas, processes, et al. to them, saving them the development, a jump forward for them.

The most obvious example I can think of for this (the general idea, not colonialism) in the modern world is Canada: lots of land, well developed, few people; promoting net immigration.

(The UK has roughly double the population while Canada has about 40x the land area. I don't see many ads but something I've occasionally seen all my life is 'move to Canada' - like the colonial example they're helping us too, eh?)

[monkeywork]

In Canada however that positive net migration (I believe second highest in western world) and high immigrant percentage of population (forth highest I believe) comes at a massive cost when you realize Canada has not been matching population growth to housing and infrastructure.

Prior to pandemic we were building fewer than 0.4 new houses per person nationwide (down from 0.7 back in 2010), our healthcare system is very stressed with lowered population provinces (example Maritimes) having massive waits to get family doctors causing ppl to use ER for simple things adding major stress and delays there.

Most of the talk about Canada's RE market gets pushed to secondary causes or really reactions and symptoms of the core issues. Foriegn money, private investment, greedy landlords etc are all results of a basic supply and demand problem that the government could fix via zoning reform and immigration reform but seem to deflect away from instead giving ppl boogiemen to hate on instead.

Net migration into Canada is great and we benefit greatly by those who choose to come here however if it's not balanced by the government spending to support it Canada is heading for disaster in the next decade.

[OJFord]

Absolutely, I didn't mean to suggest that everything is being done right for that plan, just that it is 'a plan', a deliberate action for the benefit of the nation, not just an arbitrary choice some countries (or parties) like immigration and others don't.

Aside from housing, it's healthcare that really surprises me - I've seen second-hand (I'm not a doctor) the lengths citizens have to go to, and how competitive it is, to get a residency spot at home; even more so apparently if they studied abroad (even if somewhere similar, e.g. US/UK/EU).

[pcthrowaway]

> I've seen second-hand (I'm not a doctor) the lengths citizens have to go to, and how competitive it is, to get a residency spot at home; even more so apparently if they studied abroad (even if somewhere similar, e.g. US/UK/EU).

This sounds similar to the crisis facing intern-level and entry-level software workers, where everyone is too shortstaffed to hire on inexperienced people they'll need to train/supervise. Though perhaps with medicine there's less of a concern of the trainee jumping ship immediately once they're "up-to-standards" (or through residency).. I don't know much about the medical industry

[OJFord]

I think that is a concern too - especially in more rural areas (more people, even disproportionately, want to work in major hubs, in the GTA, etc.) since in the Canadian system you rank hospitals/programmes and they rank candidates, and then you 'match' somewhere (or don't). So possibly, likely even, you don't end up in the area you actually want to be (e.g. where you're from/family lives) so you apply to transfer mid-residency to, or simply for a job afterwards, where you actually want to be.

[zmgsabst]

The more people, the more people.

I view human life as an inherently good thing to have more of — and certainly a higher priority than nebulous problems like “pollution”. You also didn’t give any reason why we should care about “pollution” more than human life.

Human life is beautiful and good.

[paskozdilar]

> You also didn’t give any reason why we should care about “pollution” more than human life.

The only reason anyone cares about pollution is because it endangers human life.

> Human life is beautiful and good.

I'm sure it is, if you only focus on the pleasantries.

[dhzhzjsbevs]

> The only reason anyone cares about pollution is because it endangers human life.

This is simply not true. There are many people who view humans like a plague or a cancer. That matrix line didn't come from nowhere.

These people don't stop to think their feelings through to a conclusion.

They don't even realise it but when you view humanity that way you're essentially advocating for genocide.

> I'm sure it is, if you only focus on the pleasantries.

You can see beauty in all forms of life. It doesn't have to be a pleasantry.

Part of what gives humananity its beauty is its complexity and contradictions. All that yin and yang stuff. You don't have the good without the bad.

[bheadmaster]

You don't really have any argument for humanity beyond "I think it's pretty".

Admittedly, neither do those who view humanity as a plague. But then again, I'd tell the same to them too.

Of course, you're entitled to your opinions and preferences, but it seems to me as if you're trying to represent your opinion (that human life is beautiful and should be preserved) as some kind of objective truth - going so far to claim that the opposite side is advocating for genocide. The anti-natalist movement also considers humans a plague, but doesn't advocate killing of any kind - only voluntary abstinence from procreation. Does that count as "genocide" in your book?

Personally, I don't consider humanity beautiful in itself, I've seen many kinds of evil that humans are capable of doing, and how much of it just passes with impunity. I think that every human being is inherently self-serving and will do everything within their power to assert their own will, and that it's only the fear of punishment that keeps them "good" and in check. If you were to magically remove all punishments from society, humans would start doing all kinds of horrible things, just because they can. Any and all kinds of "altruism" are either indirect self-benefit (e.g. helping friends in need makes it more likely they will help you when in need) or some kind of mental imprint from the past (e.g. being punished in childhood for selfishness can make humans become overly altruistic in order to avoid the inner critical voice).

So when you say "humanity is beautiful and should be preserved", all you actually say is "I feel good when I think about humans, therefore they should be around". That is pure self-interest.

[monkeywork]

To what end? When a population gets to a size where continued growth actively hurts or lowers quality of life shouldn't that be considered.

If you had an arc ship sending ppl to hopefully a new planet. That ship has limited space and resources, at what point do you stop expanding the population of the crew and passengers?

[zmgsabst]

No — I don’t think we’re anywhere near that and I think we lack the judgment to accurately assess.

I think we’ve heard the same end-of-humanity-death-cultism throughout history, and each time, continued growth led to a better humanity.

[Insanity]

Why do you think human life is beautiful and good? And is it more so than life of other species?

[adamisom]

I think you should answer your own questions - with the comment that if you don't think human life is instrinsically good, I'm really curious what the foundation of your ethics is, and if you think anything at all has value.

[kzrdude]

I think using human life as good is a good foundation for ethics. It doesn't follow that we need more humans from that alone.

[adamisom]

Good point.

To me it follows because the aggregation intuition seems right to me--human life good, more human lives more good--and to me things like 'the repugnant conclusion' mean only that more nuanced thinking in how you aggregate is required, but not that aggregation itself is inherently wrong.

I think our likely-common intuition that it's more tragic for an 8-year-old to die than an 80-year-old indicates that it's really hard to just deny that utilitarian aggregation is appropriate and required in ethics. I suppose it's possible to say "it's more tragic for the 8 year old to die only because of the social expectation that they don't, and thus the impact on their parents and society", but I just don't buy it; I think we all have the intuition it's more tragic for the child to die primarily because they're missing out on more of life than the elderly person.

[kzrdude]

I'll put myself at risk here and suggest that it's more tragic for the child to die because we feel empathy for the parents, who cannot bear to lose their child, or empathy in the sense of transferring the feeling to imagining our own children, if we have them, in the place of the dead child.

This is partly tied to social expectation about how close family feels about their children vs their parents.

[ako]

Pollution may destroy the ability for human life to exist, and you may end up with significant less human life if you keep adding more. Earth is like a boat, it’s great for a few passengers, but at some point you have too many and it sinks. And then you have zero passengers enjoying the boat.

[kzrdude]

Every species of organisms has potential for exponential growth - fill their niche. No organism has potential to grow without bound on just one planet, so there is a maximum number of individuals possible in the ecosystem. How many exactly depend on the environment and the other organisms in the ecosystem.

Human life is beautiful. Dolphin and butterfly life are beautiful. They are not in exactly in competition, but they have something in common which is that we can't grow their population size without bound.

[psyc]

Would you mind my asking what decade you were born in? I'm just curious.

Article is light on criteria. My criteria is misanthropy, personally.

[thirdmunky]

This is a reductionist take on a complicated question. More environmental damage may mean fewer people in the future. Is more people now worth fewer people or a lower quality of life later?

Also, consider non-humans: how many additional people would make destroying the Great Barrier Reef worth it? If clearcutting the Amazon rainforest would increase the population cap by N, for what values of N would you do it?

H̶u̶m̶a̶n̶ life is beautiful and good.

[zmgsabst]

Those aren’t necessarily contradictory goals. Nor did I imply it was easy to balance costs.

I was pointing out that more people is a goal in and of itself.

[adamisom]

Life may be beautiful and good, but I'm sure if we probed our respective ethical intuitions--even after subjecting them to reflection--we'd agree that an ant's life isn't as worthy of ethical consideration as a dog's, or a human's. In short, I believe life's value must be correlated with sentience or consciousness, and I also believe that everyone who is honestly venturing forth what they believe (rather than doubting someone else) also believes the same, and I'd love to see a counterexample of someone truly believing differently.

>how many additional people would make destroying the Great Barrier Reef worth it? If clearcutting the Amazon rainforest would increase the population cap by N, for what values of N would you do it?

Just want to say, I think we are all in just as much of a position to have to answer questions such as these as the parent commenter. We can't get away from tricky ethical questions simply because they're difficult.

We can even recognize that something's going wrong if we think we need to answer such stark utilitarian tradeoffs, but that's _still_ not a complete answer. Tricky questions like yours are inherent in the _world_, and it just so happens that the default "answer" to such questions is simply to cover one's eyes and pretend they don't exist.

[BeFlatXIII]

Pollution reduces the quality of existing human life.

[alophawen]

The planet is literally littered by people.

They are starving and out of homes.

[BEEdwards]

We can't take care of all the people we have now and they want to add more and more forever...

[oneoff786]

There’s no particular reason to think pollution is a function of population size. It’s far more dependent on societal factors like industry and energy usage and freight and what not.

[IdiocyInAction]

It's not just less pollution though. It's less people that might fulfill valuable societal roles that scale with the number of people and in many developed countries less people to look after/produce value for those in old age, which will lead to all sorts of unpleasantness.

Also, non-modern farm practices are also not ideal and I think if we were forced to switch to traditional agriculture we would still have a large adverse effect on ecosystems.

[haunter]

>The more people, the more ???

Wealth for the 1%. The rulers need a group of wage slaves who will serve the foundation of capitalism. The whole system is designed so average workers can never get ahead but can be exploited.

[throw_nbvc1234]

Because it's easier to make GDP go up when you have an increasing population.

[wooque]

The more people, the more people. Human experience is beautiful. If you don't think so, don't have children and end your life prematurely. If you are still here, means you are hypocrite that enjoys human experience but don't want others to do so.

[ramblerman]

The more water the more water. If you don’t think so just drown yourself.

I enjoy going for a swim, it doesn’t mean I want there to be no more land.

Why would you simplify such a tricky topic to a binary decision

[carapace]

Overcrowded conditions are not conducive to the good life. E.g. Life in Kowloon Walled City wasn't beautiful

[wooque]

There are plenty of space on the Earth, you don't need to live in New York or London.

[carapace]

> There are plenty of space on the Earth

For now...

What we're finding out as we study living systems (remember that ecology is a science) is that many of the subsystems involved spans quite large areas, e.g the Monarch Butterfly migrations, or the effects of ocean currents on climate.

The point is that unrestricted growth just isn't possible, so somewhere between Yukon and Kowloon there's a "sweet spot".