[fractallyte]

Why would you assume the population cap is arbitrary? There's a calculable limit to the population an area of land can sustain. (Yes, some agricultural practices can mitigate that, but that should also be weighed against culture and history, and how much change is acceptable.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity

[lukan]

Ok, so how to calculate it for switzerland in a non arbitrary way?

(Btw. I believe switzerland is not trying to be self sufficient anyway, but donimport lots of stuff, like most other countries do)

[fractallyte]

This is covered in the linked article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity#Mathematics

Other variables to factor in would include cultural/esthetic ones: how much would a population tolerate a reduction in the idyllic/scenic nature of their landscape, merely to accommodate crops for a rising population?

(This is what I referred to as "quality of life" in another post.)

[lukan]

That math is about animals in a fixed climate who don't do trading. Swiss people do.

And that "how much would a population tolerate a reduction in the idyllic/scenic nature of their landscape" is a very arbitary factor that will strongly depend on who you ask.

[fractallyte]

You're basically reluctant to accept the fact that such a calculation is possible. That says more about you than the competence of mathematicians and ecologists...

[lukan]

Can you bring one claim of "mathematicians and ecologists" that their calculation would not be arbitrary?

Those things ain't absolutes and human society is not made up of numbers and not calculable. So you can make approximations. And they can be useful or not. But you cannot calculate the perfect size of a human society. That is just arbitrary.

[ninjagoo]

> There's a calculable limit to the population an area of land can sustain. (Yes, some agricultural practices can mitigate that, but that should also be weighed against culture and history, and how much change is acceptable.)

Ah yes, folks fighting the good Malthusian fight since 1798, and yet to see a win. LoL. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism#Criticism

[fractallyte]

I counter you with soil degradation, which is gradual (over decades, even centuries), and extremely difficult to reverse (millennia).

We may yet discover that Malthus was right.

Then what??

https://eu.boell.org/en/SoilAtlas-soil-degradation

https://earth.org/95-of-the-earths-soil-on-course-to-be-degr...

https://www.fao.org/about/meetings/soil-erosion-symposium/ke...

[ninjagoo]

> We may yet discover that Malthus was right.

We may also discover that einstein-rosen bridges exist [1] or that aliens exist or that magic is real or that astrology works. Hopefully none of these things are keeping you up at night.

Also, broken clocks, twice a day right, etc etc. Clocks still broken.

> Then what??

Plenty of dystopian sci-fi available for your reading/viewing pleasure. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature

[fractallyte]

And precisely how is that relevant to soil science?

You're ridiculing subjects you clearly don't understand.