this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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People understand the concept of, "no infinite growth on a finite planet," but then refuse to accept that that holds true for us as well. The world population has more than doubled in my lifetime. Obviously we can't do that forever. Especially in the context of a climate crisis that is making less land livable over time. For completely practical reasons we are going to have to set up some kind of system that can function in equilibrium rather than requiring growth.
This is true but people focus so hard on the population they miss the wider issue. Its not the number of people thats the issue right now, its the massively uneccesary amount of resources each person uses.
The world can accomodate a lot of people IF we shift the way we do things. If we all live like the world is an endless piggy bank, it wont work.
Without considering the way we live and the system we've built, people begin sliding into borderline eco-fascist ideas of population control because its an easy thing to understand and latch onto. But the situation is much more complicated than that.
So yes, there is a finite human population limit but that doesnt mean we've hit it or are even going to hit it.
so your proposal is to increase the population count, but decrease how much each person has available as resources? Essentially just throwing a lot of people into poverty?
No. And you either know that and are strawmanning or are brainwashed into thinking excessive resource use equates to wellbeing.
well if you think excessive resource use has nothing to do with wellbeing, i'd happily take your excessive resources from you :)
Ok so you have no counter argument. Got it.
There is a MASSIVE middle ground between overconsumption and excess consumerism, and actual poverty.
Pretending that any amount of scaling back consumption inevitably leads to mass poverty is intellectually dishonest, or just genuinely stupid.
Which are you?
hey man, why would you respond inflammatorily like this? can't we just discuss things in good faith?
maybe i'm a bit heated about this topic, but that is solely because i think it's really important for humanity's wellbeing that the statement that "we need more people" doesn't prevail. But i recognize i can't explain that to you'all properly.
Nobody said 'we need more people'. Your failure to comprehend an argument is not our responsibility.
if you get heated you should take a break, come back later, and re-read the thing you're responding to. otherwise you may misinterpret people's intent. your response doesn't match what they said.
That is not implied. Especially if we consider that the resources we waste are through supply chains rather than our own direct use. If my electrical supply comes from from a more efficient source, then my usage can be less wasteful and potentially cheaper. If my city continues to improve public transport, I can actually save money and use less resources in daily transit. Products we consume have serious potential to conserve resources at a mass scale, and often it even saves them money due to paying less for resources needed in production. A lot of waste also comes from overproduction, think of those Dunkin' Donuts end-of-day-disposal videos. We make far more than we need in so many areas.
Furthermore, the most wasteful people are a minority of the mega-rich. You and I probably don't need to cut down much on jet fuel costs. People close to poverty usually aren't (directly) wasteful, hell, some of them actually reduce waste through dumpster-diving and recycling schemes.
It's not about decreasing how much each person has - quite the opposite, actually. It's about increasing the efficiency of how we distribute our resources so that more gets to those who need it because we already have far more than we need but most of it is wasted or artificially made scarce to increase profit.
The US throws away something like 60% of the food we produce annually while kids starve and politicians talk about getting rid of free lunches at schools.
The "overpopulation" fear is really just misdirection from the greedy few to keep the rest of us from questioning why we let them get away with everything.
Not only that, a system that can adapt to changes where the equilibrium might shift over time. We have a lot of work to do to undo the climate crisis, if we even can, and if not, we'll be living in a geologically different planet when we do.
World population will reach a maximum of 9 million and then slowly decline as birth rates have fallen massively everywhere. However, in some countries the birth rate has fallen so much that it will be a huge problem. In those countries young people will have almost no peers while growing up, and in the context of Democracy old people will have a majority. See the Kurzgesagt video for what live will be like in South Korea: https://youtu.be/Ufmu1WD2TSk