[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.