zlacker

Humans tend to stop multiplying exponentially, though.

>>saagar+(OP)
So do rats with abundant food in an enclosed environment, it doesn’t end well. https://www.gwern.net/docs/sociology/1962-calhoun.pdf

Which isn’t to say the same rules apply to humans, but it’s also critical to get this right.

>>Retric+07
I think that most modern countries are doing a reasonable job.

>>Retric+07
Too many differences.

No awareness; No knowledge; No government; No communication; No money; No faith.

>>saagar+(OP)
You should spend some time researching the estimated carrying capacity of the Earth for humans without fossil fuels.

Last I check most agreements were around 1 billion people. We’ve artificially bumped that up with an unsustainable energy source that we have no viable pathway for replacement.

It doesn’t matter if growth caps off soon, we’ve already exceeded the bounds. We’re in overtime now seeing how limited resources plays out.

>>baron_+0g
Fish and topsoil are also among the resources that are at high risk of being depleted within our lifetime.

Groundwater in many places is running out as well.

>>saagar+s8
No, they are not. They are not treating the problem as the emergency that it is.

Wasteful consumerism is legal everywhere.

>>Retric+07
No not that, there's a very strong negative correlation between birth rate and development. The more a society develops, the lower its birth rate. Down to well below replacement rate of 2.1, for instance in the US (1.7), Canada (1.5), Japan (1.42), Finland (1.41). Without immigration those populations would dwindle in just a few generations. [1]

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Connection-between-the-h...

>>arctic+az
This is not a law of nature, it is history as it unfolded in the twentieth century. We don't know if that'll continue to hold or not.

>>arctic+az
And the more a country develops, the more resources they consume per capita. One individual in a developed country consumes orders of magnitude more than one in a less developed country.

>>mola+BC
Yea, but it’s still an open question when or if this stabilizes. A global population of between something like 100 million to 10 billion could sustain an advanced technical society capable of innovation. But, where slowly oscillating between say 1 and 2 billion people would be fine, regular massive population crashes could represent a great filter which generally prevents interstellar civilizations.

>>Retric+07
> So do rats with abundant food in an enclosed environment, it doesn’t end well

I have a lot of questions about whether that's true of even rats: https://www.gwern.net/Questions#mouse-utopia