zlacker

Alternatively, we just don't worry about it.

We are a planet trying to find the resources for eight billion human beings and we already know the backbone of our global agriculture solution is an unsustainable fossil-fuel-based phosphate cycle.

People choosing to not have replacement-number of children is one of the more humane ways to balance the cold equations for subsequent generations.

>>shadow+(OP)
Although I disagree with the malthusian view on the world I still think there is a more important quantitative argument against this viewpoint. A fertility rate significantly below 2 results in an exponential decline in the population with a lag. In other words, fertility rates close to 1 (as seen in japan and korea), result in a sharp population decline a few decades later that could destabilize the society. Even if I concede the anti-human argument I don’t think the environment would benefit from a destabilizing population collapse. A slow gradual fall with rates close but not quite 2 seems like a much better alternative.

>>Primal+s5
> I don’t think the environment would benefit from a destabilizing population collapse.

Hard to predict. The resulting chaos could cause outsized environmental damage. On the other hand, the environmental damage caused by wars tends to be short-term (in contrast to the damage caused by, say, fossil-fuel-based energy production and agriculture, which is perpetually-increasing damage to feed the needs of a society with a stable population and status quo).

But you're making an excellent point. I'm certainly not advocating for societal collapse. I, for one, think the risk of such is a bit overblown (societies tend to adapt, not implode, even in the face of demographic turbulence).

Besides, automation's supposed to make up for much of the labor shortfalls anyway.

>>shadow+(OP)
malthusian bollocks, earth can sustain tens of billions of human beings, the downside that 10 acre mcmansions and huge pickup trucks will be unaffordable for the "middle class". We produce already enough resources, we waste them on allocation

>>kwere+Kn2
How do we handle the fundamental need for fossil fuel to create the phosphates that underpin modern agriculture?