[mrbuzer]

We can talk about the psychological factors or we can simply tell it the way it is which is that economic growth increases the need for energy. Most production of energy and production of things cause by-products that are not a natural part of the system, in another words pollution. Pollution interferes with the natural functioning of the system. If we did not need to support such a large population or economic growth we would not be creating all this pollution. Therefore we could as a species inhabit the planet much longer (there are obviously natural sources of pollution that work on much longer time scales). Because we don't act responsibly and instead of taming our psychology we have let it loose on the world in the name of economic growth (and power of the current ruling elite) we will as a matter of course cause more and more pollution which will at some point start reducing the carrying capacity of the planet which will lead to smaller and smaller population until our species goes extinct. That's the natural course of humanity. Many people believe that more technology will save us, but is life really worth living being hooked up to a respirator with a miserable polluted planet barely capable of supporting life? Many people in the third world seem to think so, they keep producing even more misery.

[stiff]

I am with you up to the moment you talk about people in the third world, where I completely don't understand what you are up to, care to explain?

[mrbuzer]

In the third world there is lots of pollution, over population, lack of food... But all of that does not keep people from producing yet more people. In a similar way the entire world does not stop and reconsider what they are doing instead it just keeps going hoping that technology will come in and save us from whatever problems we have created for ourselves. In fact that's really all humans do on the planet, create problems. They are problem engines.