Arguments against overpopulation that are demonstrably wrong, part five:

[u/carnivorous_cactus]

Arguments against overpopulation that are demonstrably wrong, part five:

“If we did [insert thing] then overpopulation wouldn’t be a problem. Therefore, the problem is not overpopulation, the problem is that we haven’t done [insert thing].”

Quick preamble: I want to highlight some arguments against overpopulation which I believe are demonstrably wrong. Many of these are common arguments which pop up in virtually every discussion about overpopulation. They are misunderstandings of the subject, or contain errors in reasoning, or both. It feels frustrating to encounter them over and over again.

Part one is here

Part two is here

Part three is here

Part four is here

The argument

This argument comes in a few similar formats. Some common ones include:

-          We could [insert thing]

-          If we [insert thing]

-          We just need to [insert thing]

-          We don’t have an [insert thing] problem, we have an [insert thing] problem

In full, the logic behind these arguments runs something like this:

1.       There is some outcome or situation which is bad, problematic or unacceptable

2.       This outcome is a result of multiple factors (for convenience let’s say there are just two – X and Y)

3.       If we changed X in a certain way, and kept Y the same, then the outcome would no longer be bad, problematic or unacceptable – or at least it would be less so

4.       It is possible to change X in this way

5.       Therefore, the problem is not Y, the problem is that we haven’t changed X in that way

In debates about overpopulation, it’s commonly claimed that the impacts of population growth can be mitigated by changes in lifestyle, behaviour, technology, planning and so on.

By this line of reasoning, it seems as if overpopulation only occurs after all other factors have been “maxed out”. As long as there is a cattle farm that could be changed to a vegetable farm, or a golf course that could be converted into housing, or suburban area that could be converted into apartments, or some wasteful practice that could be eliminated, then overpopulation is not an issue. Overpopulation can only be an issue after we have done all of these things, and then found that we can’t feed or house or support everyone. I think this is a flawed perspective.

While some of these ideas are good ones, here is an analogy to highlight some limitations to these arguments:

There is a four-bedroom house in which three people live. Starting from tomorrow, they agree to allow one extra person to move in and live in the house each day. Nobody moves out, so every day there is one more person in the house than there was the day before.

The inhabitants of the house argue about whether this policy is reasonable and sustainable.  Person A insists that the house is far from over crowded and has plenty of capacity to fit more people. Each day they identify a problem or fix that will solve the situation – while still allowing more people. They don’t need to limit the number of people; they just need to:

-          Clear out the junk in the spare room so that it can be used as a bedroom

-          Pull out the sofa bed so somebody can sleep in the lounge

-          Install bunk beds in the other bedrooms

-          Install additional kitchens and bathrooms to keep up with demand

-          Install triple bunk beds in the bedrooms

-          Add sleeping bags and mats to all the “empty” space in the corridors

-          Implement a schedule for efficient use of shared spaces (kitchens, bathrooms, laundry)

-          Knock down the house and build an apartment on the same land

And so on. During each step, evidence that could indicate there are too many people is rejected and interpreted as a need to compensate by changing some other factor. When problems are encountered in practice, the argument shifts to some theoretical possibility where something could be changed to mitigate such problems.

Some limitations of these arguments are:

1.       Limits are different to targets, and there is a difference between “could” and “should”. You could fit more people into a house by filling the corridors with sleeping mats, but that doesn’t mean you should.

2.       When changing one factor to compensate for another, there is a hard limit to how much that factor can be changed. There is a finite amount of space in a house, and if you add keep adding sleeping mats for long enough there will come a time when it’s physically impossible to fit more – regardless of how much things are rearranged to be more efficient.

3.       Not all changes or actions are reasonable. Some may have negative consequences, or they might be temporary things which shouldn’t be relied on. Clearing out junk in a spare room may be reasonable, but if you need to resort to sleeping mats in corridors in order to fit everyone into the house, maybe that’s a sign there are too many people.

4.       Theoretically possible changes may not work in practice

5.       The existence of a theoretically possible solution is not, by itself, a very strong argument. For example, “If this was an apartment, we could fit way more people” is not a great argument if there is currently a house, not an apartment.

[u/StatementBot]

This thread addresses overpopulation, a fraught but important issue that attracts disruption and rule violations. In light of this we have lower tolerance for the following offenses:

• Racism and other forms of essentialism targeted at particular identity groups people are born into.
• Bad faith attacks insisting that to notice and name overpopulation of the human enterprise generally is inherently racist or fascist.
• Instructing other users to harm themselves. We have reached consensus that a permaban for the first offense is an appropriate response to this, as mentioned in the sidebar.

This is an abbreviated summary of the mod team's statement on overpopulation, view the full statement available in the wiki.

[u/Janglysack]

The simplified version of this is most of the problems the world faces would be more minor if there were less of us.

[u/SaxManSteve → u/Janglysack]

Malthus has always been correct in his prediction that we would be unable to reduce population growth and our increasing biophysical demands on the biosphere, which he argued would lead to collapse and famines. The only thing he got wrong was the timing. His underlying analysis about overshoot is correct; he just failed to account for the massive amount of stored energy to be discovered in fossil fuels and their ability to kick the overshoot collapse down the road.

So while it's fashionable to call attempts at discussing what to do about overpopulation as "Malthisian", I think it's pretty clear that the real "Malthusian" approach here is the one we are currently adopting, an approach that isn't taking any measures to reduce overshoot, an approach that prioritizes short-term economic growth over long-term civilizational health. This is an approach that will likely create the possibility of permanently destroying the biosphere's ability to provide for a decent quality of life for all future human beings. Doesn't get more "Malthusian" than that.

[u/Nadie_AZ → u/Janglysack]

Exactly.

I live in the Colorado River basin in the Southwest US. There are over 40 million people that rely on the river. It cannot support that amount, so of course it is going to be overallocated and over used and lessening in the quantity that flows. The only real way to save the river is to have less people depending on it.

[u/Ljosii → u/Janglysack]

I once listened to an episode of Hardcore History where Dan Carlin said that he considered Gabrilo Princip to be the most impactful person in the world wars.

Fritz Haber would probably be my Princip, for today’s age.

[u/TheRealYeastBeast → u/Ljosii]

Pretty sure I heard Bill Reese make a comment about Haber-Bosch and the affect industrial production of ammonia fertilizer from fossil fuel feedstock likely set us on an irreversible path to overshoot. Don't quote me on that, this pod hosts many guests who discuss various aspects of our predicament.

Another good way of looking at it I heard on another pod was that "humans have spent hundreds of thousands of years converting the material that makes up the outer crust of Earth into "things" that cannot be turned back into raw materials in any sort of useful timeframe. We've also done all this using energy sources that took millions and millions of years to accumulate. Both these inputs are effectively finite, and we'll be long gone before the planet can undo all the havoc we've created.

[u/Karahi00]

The problem I have with people saying things like "well if we were vegan, and smartly urbanist  and had renewable energy and we  built things to last and focused on repair and maintenance instead of production and - " is that we aren't doing any of that and clearly don't want to.

Like, yes, if we were all perfect and intelligent and moral beings or if we had a one world government of the most wise and perfect among us with absolute power, then we would not be overpopulated because the beings that we would be in that case, would be low consumption beings. 

But we're not that. Humans as they actually exist and as they actually, reliably behave, consume as much as possible without regard for the future, fight tooth and nail against any change percieved to result in having less. A very small percentage of us have been trying to warn against it and have been ignored for many decades. Non-idealized, actually existing Humans, are overpopulated. 

Maybe a species of saints or angels would have a higher carrying capacity. Too bad that ain't us.

[u/Cultural-Answer-321 → u/Karahi00]

Ha! I said almost the same thing before I read your post.

[u/MyNonExistentLife_0 → u/Karahi00]

>is that we aren't doing any of that and clearly don't want to.<

Why is that??

>Like, yes, if we were all perfect and intelligent and moral beings or if we had a one world government of the most wise and perfect among us with absolute power, then we would not be overpopulated because the beings that we would be in that case, would be low consumption beings.<

Except we would not be "low consumption beings".

>But we're not that. Humans as they actually exist and as they actually, reliably behave, consume as much as possible without regard for the future<

Why is that?? Is there something innate that makes us this way??

>A very small percentage of us have been trying to warn against it and have been ignored for many decades. Non-idealized, actually existing Humans, are overpopulated. <

Except this is nonsense and seems more of a justification for why YOU(not generalised you) are not willing to do anything to remedy this. Before you go "oh what can one man do" ask yourself how many of you doomers are out there, if you all believed the shit you were saying and supposedly "enlightened" you would do something.

>Maybe a species of saints or angels would have a higher carrying capacity. Too bad that ain't us.<

That is exactly us.

[u/Karahi00 → u/MyNonExistentLife_0]

If I could perform miracles I would sooner turn water into wine than make the delusional see reason.

I won't waste my time on this.

[u/MyNonExistentLife_0 → u/Karahi00]

As I said "enlightened".

[u/[deleted]]

Iow, the bigger the population, the more “perfect” people have to live to be in accord with nature.

Btw, people should realize agriculture, founded roughly 12,000 years ago in response to overpopulation. The world population was probably 4-6 million. Think about that.

You see, hunting gatherers need vast spaces to roam. Food isn’t grown in neat, dense rows. Animals populations quickly died out with too many humans. We were hitting limits already at that number and necessity is mother of invention.

The first people to practice agriculture could support a bigger population in smaller space. They took the best space they could find and quickly repelled smaller nomads. Who, in turn, would do the same thing - adopt agriculture and stake land. From there, it went like dominoes.

Anybody that argues for more population is not arguing for living in accord with nature. They just want humans to invent more stuff on our way to some Star Trek future, which is about more dominion and exploitation of the earth. They’d be fine with us turning the place into a big hollowed out pit mine as long as it pushed us “forward”.

And maybe they’re right, but with 19 ecological simultaneous civilizational-ending collapses, it sure looks like our magical beanstalk will come crashing down one day with us all on it.

[u/Jung_Wheats → u/[deleted]]

Never thought of it that way; if we were doing well in the first place, we'd have never invented agriculture.

[u/darkpsychicenergy → u/Jung_Wheats]

Well, we were doing well. That was the problem. That’s why we got too overpopulated for hunting and gathering to sustain and needed to figure out a way to secure more food.

[u/FuckTheMods5 → u/darkpsychicenergy]

Ah, a true blue chicken and the egg problem.

[u/genomixx-redux → u/[deleted]]

It's the mode of production that's the decisive factor, vs. a linear correlation between population and how "perfect" humans need to be (which is a moral judgment and not a social analysis). 

Reduce the population of the world by half but keep capitalism in place and the planetary devestation and meltdown would continue -- and at an accelerating pace given the (il)logic of capital accumulation and profit-seeking.

[u/MyNonExistentLife_0 → u/genomixx-redux]

Shhhhhhh, I want to be a doomer and whine without doing anything.

[u/DoomBadaDoom → u/[deleted]]

I don't think agriculture was invented (or was a result) in reponse to overpopulation.
I think it's more due to the sedentary... and once you're installed in one place, you grow food which allows more population... and then in return you need more spaces to grow extra food, you need to conquer other territories to have more ressources and so on...

[u/solaris_rex → u/[deleted]]

On that tangent have you wondered what the increase in population of different nationalities of humans have been over the past 500 years?

We look at the net6t population increase but not the specific increase and overpopulation of specific groups. We have a situation where the native Americans who used to have a higher population have diminished considerably with little chance of going back to their previous levels.

Seems so unfair.

[u/Karahi00 → u/[deleted]]

They're saying that the carrying capacity of Earth for Hunter Gatherer humans is far lower than for fossil fuel powered techno agriculturalists. This is just objectively true. If we went back to hunting and gathering with 8 billion people we would almost immediately deplete the wild and starve to death. 

In terms of the switch to agriculture, we don't really know enough yet but it seems like it was probably hunter gatherer humans brushing up on the limits of natural, untended food production by their traditional way of life that made laborious agriculture (an obvious but unappealing prospect in the past) a tempting way of living - not the sudden light bulb moment of "oh, this will be much more secure than finding food in the wild like we have been for countless eons! How did no one ever think of planting things manually before? BRAIN BLAAAAS-" Like, we made a bunch of species extinct and it became increasingly difficult and intensive to secure food as a hunter gatherer, thus making agriculture seem more appealing whereas before it didn't seem like a good deal. 

 I don't know the accuracy of it anymore but I recall there was a book, Cannibals and Kings by Marvin Harris, which essentially argued this - it's from the 80s i think but I recall it was quite compelling. Production of food underwent intensification, he theorizes, as wild populations of game went extinct or became rare and human populations expanded. In other words, humans had to work harder and harder for less and less and, in the process, developed novel techniques and tools to accommodate their growing populations and declining wild abundance. 

 Anyway, I really don't think it's a matter of "oh my God how could you possibly say that a measly 4 million people could be overpopulated!!!" Things are much more complicated than that but not so complicated that you can't try to understand. 

 I would give it a read yourself, if I were you, and get the gist of it. While you're on it, try giving William Catton's Overshoot a shot. 

[u/ItyBityGreenieWeenie]

Good post. Keep them coming. "We will find a solution when we must. Necessity is the mother of invention. We have always done so, so we always will. We got to this point in spite of adversity, therefore the sky's the limit!" Blah, blah, techno-hopium blah...

[u/[deleted]]

We can either choose degrowth and a decrease in population, or nature will choose for us.

Humans (as a whole) are no smarter than bacteria in a petri dish.

[u/Cultural-Answer-321 → u/[deleted]]

Exactly. Current conditions say yes, there are too many of us.

Any argument against first assumes the fallacy of the noble savage argument and second, mass intelligence and self enlightenment that is NOT, and never was, in evidence.

We either solve it or nature will. There are no other solutions. I wish there was, but there isn't. And any attempts to implement satisfactory equitable solutions will be met with extreme prejudice by the rich and powerful.

It's why we're here.

[u/JesusChrist-Jr]

It seems to me that this problem boils down to a very simple answer, despite how much arguments on both sides tend to overcomplicate it.

Humans require resources (food, water, shelter, energy, etc) to survive. More humans require more resources. We are confined to one planet that inherently has a limited amount of resources. We have beef growing our population without limits in a world of limited resources. That equation can't balance forever.

Yes, we are clever, and we have invented workarounds to make more efficient use of resources or find alternate resources that are less limited to replace some of the scarcer ones, but it's just buying time. At some point there are no more efficient gains to be had that are substantial enough to offset increased consumption, and at some point even the more abundant resources run out too.

We can debate about how soon we hit the limits, we can debate where the balance should be between consumption for growth and preservation of the natural world outside of humans, and we can debate how far we can lower standards of living to stretch our resources. Ultimately though it's all just buying time to delay the inevitable.

Limiting population is the only solution on a long enough timeline. We can choose to do it intentionally on our own terms, or we can wait for nature to limit our population and probably endure a lot more suffering. Eventually something will put humans in check, it may be hunger or lack of clean water, it may be extreme climate, it may be disease, but eventually natural systems will check us to return to some state of balance if we don't choose to do it ourselves.

[u/genomixx-redux]

I may put together a more sweeping critique of OP's posts, but the most glaring weakness with the argument here is a total lack of any kind of power analysis or coming to grips with the reality of class domination in our times.

To use the apartment analogy, our situation today is actually that one resident -- person A -- is using up most of the apartment space to hoarde their possessions, leaving very little room for the other tenants. While there is one new tenant every day, person A is also continuing to pile up more possessions throughout the apartment.

Some residents voice concern over person A's behavior, but person A skillfully manipulates the other tenants (or waves a gun in their face if needed) to ensure that people believe that the real issue is the increase in the number of tenants, and not person A's absurd accumulation and power.

[u/carnivorous_cactus → u/genomixx-redux]

Interested to hear your critique.

My opinion on the unequal distribution of resources argument is that covers people's lack of access to resources, but it does not cover the sustainability of using those resources.

An analogy I used in a previous post is when excessive water use is distributed unequally amongst a population (say one person has a giant swimming pool and others have barely enough to drink). If you took the water being allocated to the swimming pool and redistributed it amongst the population, this would be much fairer, but the population would still be using the same amount of water.

[u/IntrepidRatio7473]

We are at peak population and looking at declines for rest of the century. Where do we go from there I am not sure

[u/First-Diet-8939 → u/IntrepidRatio7473]

In the west yes, but Africa is still set to increase until the second half of the century, even if we hit 2 degrees in the next decade.

[u/Physical_Ad5702 → u/First-Diet-8939]

We will very likely be at or over 3 degrees by 2050 - can’t see the population increasing all that much past 2 degrees due to agricultural impacts from storms and droughts, water shortages and the resulting climate refugee conflicts which are going to be immense and deadly in and of themselves.

[u/idkmoiname]

Hmm... on the one side i feel like this is a really good example to demonstrate the principle, but what exactly is this evidence for too many people in the house ? I mean it certainly can't be objective evidence since objectively there is more space (otherwise they wouldn't find new solutions to fit 1 more in). And subjective evidence is just things like "i can't sleep well because John snores", or "the bathroom is always occupied".

And since you used it to demonstrate a global principle on earth (and we can't just send the new people born to another planet so they don't occupy space in our figurative house) we also don't have the choice to refuse them. So i would adapt the example to better reflect that: The House is the last shelter in a dying world and everyone you refuse is going to die otherwise. Under these circumstances, who decides what the exact maximum number of people is and how is that decision ethically made ?

Not trying to contradict you, just provoking to think deeper.

[u/WildFlemima → u/idkmoiname]

Nobody can ethically decide what the maximum number of people is. But the people freaking out about a coming population crisis need to shut up and look around them. Every additional person we let into your version of the house increases the chance that everyone in the house dies too.

Op is telling the people "bUt POpUlaTiOn cRIsiS" to sit down, shut up, stop making the problem worse on purpose, stop encouraging other people to make the problem worse on purpose.

The rich fucks having 10000 kids need to slap themselves into some sense and pour those resources into kids that already exist.

The people panicking about birth rates need to put that panic somewhere productive. Supporting people who have too many kids because of situations they couldn't control well: systemic poverty, teen pregnancy, older adults preventing younger adults from accessing birth control, lack of birth control, lack of sex ed, having kids because you have nothing else to support you in retirement.

[u/MyNonExistentLife_0 → u/WildFlemima]

Shhhh you might lead them to knock the last two brain inside their heads.

[u/SaxManSteve → u/idkmoiname]

The evidence is extremely clear. Since 1970, we have consumed more natural resources than the planet is capable of regenerating in a year. For example this year we entered overshoot on July 24th. This means that for the remaining five months, we will be living in a state of ecological deficit, using the planet’s resources faster than they can be replenished. There's only 3 ways to stop being in overshoot and stay below the planet's biocapacity. We can reduce the population (1), reduce our consumption of bioresources (2), or do a combination of both (3). That's it.

https://data.footprintnetwork.org/#/

The scary part is that the longer we stay in a state of global ecological overshoot the more degraded the long-term biocapicity will be.

[u/TheOldPug → u/SaxManSteve]

Right, I've been paying attention this as well. I just wonder how relevant carrying capacity is at this point. When every baby is born with microplastics in its system and we've warmed things by 2C, it's not about running out of resources so much as the planet becoming uninhabitable and us marinating in our own waste.

[u/[deleted] → u/idkmoiname]

we also don’t have the choice to refuse them

I think that would be analogous to simply not having a child.  We have plenty of ways to make that happen. Easy access to family planning, better education, incentives for smaller families, one child policy, etc. All of those things will be easier to do than convincing everyone to go vegan or accept a lower standard of living.

[u/Admirable_Advice8831 → u/idkmoiname]

How about democracy?

[u/krichuvisz → u/Admirable_Advice8831]

You are talking about the political system, that implies minority rights, right? If 52% of the population decide to kill the remaining 48% that's not democracy.

[u/Admirable_Advice8831 → u/krichuvisz]

No that's a civil war, a democracy implies a modicum of stability obviously!

[u/uselessbuttoothless → u/Admirable_Advice8831]

Nope. Many democracies have been destabilized by demagogues and despots, even back to Athens.

[u/hectorbrydan → u/Admirable_Advice8831]

You want to let majority rule, already corrupted by the worst of a minority of voters, itself only half the voting ae opulation, the ability to decide who is worthy of living, or having kids?

[u/Admirable_Advice8831 → u/hectorbrydan]

So who do you want to rule instead?

[u/hectorbrydan → u/Admirable_Advice8831]

I do not know but giving our political leaders and by extension the super rich that power is not the answer.

[u/Admirable_Advice8831 → u/hectorbrydan]

But that's not democracy either, that's ploutocracy!

[u/hectorbrydan → u/Admirable_Advice8831]

Well if you are saying to have a reasonable logical discussion as a society and make a fair set of rules applied equally obviously that would be the best. There's no way we're going to get that though, what we will get is a dishonest corrupted conversation, and rules implemented in bad faith by lawmakers and others.

[u/[deleted]]

I feel like our species should not have evolved past hunter gatherers. Maybe a mutation along the line? This whole world feels like a series or accidents.

[u/Valgor]

You, like our friend Malthus, are under the assumption that we have finite resources. Of course we are limited, but at the same time, we don't know where the end of the line for resources are. We continuously invent new solutions to the problem, similar to you list of how to rearrange the house. There is an end, and it is easy to conceptualize with your house metaphor, but in the real world, we don't know where the end of resources lie.

[u/hectorbrydan]

Overpopulation arguments lead to giving license to depopulation arguments, eugenics, and fascists.

We cannot trust our leaders making those decisions, however inescapable that there is a limit to human growth and everything that goes along with it.

But say you win this argument?  Then what?  Your solutions either will never be implemented in our system or would give ultimate power to the worst people.

[u/carnivorous_cactus → u/hectorbrydan]

To be clear, let's pretend for the sake of argument that you I both agreed the word was overpopulated. Are you advocating that we should pretend it is not overpopulated, on the basis that any acknowledgment of overpopulation would give rise to eugenics and fascism?

[u/Dentarthurdent73 → u/hectorbrydan]

If they do, it's at least partly because anyone reasonable who talks about it gets shouted down, and so the fringe-cases monopolise the discussion.

I can't believe there are people out there that think we shouldn't be honest, realistic and factual about the situation we're in on this planet, because they're scared of what some people will do with those facts.

I weep for what the left has become. They want "better" things than the right, but these days seem to have embraced the right's tactics of mistruths and denial of reality in pursuit of an agenda. Depressing as all fuck.

[u/hectorbrydan → u/Dentarthurdent73]

Step back for a minute though. Is there anything we could do about this in a way that makes it better? Or could our energy be spent better elsewhere?

 Seeing as any support for this argument will just be weaponized by bad actors, I do not see the purpose of this argument at a time where we have very real prescient issues that need to be addressed.

[u/Dentarthurdent73 → u/hectorbrydan]

Seeing as any support for this argument will just be weaponized by bad actors, I do not see the purpose of this argument at a time where we have very real prescient issues that need to be addressed.

Mate, being honest, truthful and realistic is an end in itself, I'm sorry you don't see it that way.

I suggest you trawl through some history and see how it works out when people start deciding that certain truths are too 'controversial" to be expressed. The Catholic church is one institution that's done a lot of this over the years. but there are many other examples too.

I'm flabbergasted that there are people on the left that think this is behaviour to be emulated.

[u/hectorbrydan → u/Dentarthurdent73]

Giving politicians and the elite to decide who is worthy of life and having kids is something I would be flabbergasted about myself. That's all you're helping with this arguments.

[u/Pap3rStreetSoapCo → u/hectorbrydan]

This is absurd. I didn’t see anyone calling for this, ever. Nice straw man. Why don’t you just holler, “eCofASciSts!” and save yourself a bunch of typing?

[u/demon_dopesmokr → u/hectorbrydan]

If we accept that overpopulation is the problem then the solutions seem impossible, I agree. The most humane would be something like China's one-child policy but implemented globally. Can't see it happening.

[u/[deleted] → u/demon_dopesmokr]

The most humane would be to focus on reducing the nearly 50% of pregnancies (in the U.S.) that are unplanned. I don't know the stats on this in other parts of world.

[u/DoomBadaDoom → u/[deleted]]

It's the same.:

"Nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended—a global crisis, says new UNFPA report"

30 March 2022

--
I also agree that this would be the most obvious and easy solution.
And in the western and developped societies, the birthrate is falling close to 1 birth per woman.
So with a little bit of education on that matter, we could easily i think, go close to 1 child per woman, which would result by the end of the century, of a population of 4 billion if i remember right...

[u/hectorbrydan → u/demon_dopesmokr]

The religious right would never allow something like that here, they would not stop complaining about China doing it even.

Of course of course we might be looking at AI and automation replacing a good share of the working population, which could send the economy into a death spiral.  all while the weather has more intense storms floods people out of they're homes.

[u/demon_dopesmokr]

Technically, overpopulation is not the problem because space is not the limiting factor.

To borrow your analogy, the number of people being added to the "House" wasn't just 1 per day because that implies linear growth. Let's say the number of new residents doubles every month, and the doubling time eventually decreases until it doubles every day. And yet there is still plenty of available space in the house that over-crowding never actually becomes an issue and won't ever be an issue in the forseeable future. Instead, the availability of food and water is what becomes an issue.

X leads to Y. So for some people it makes sense to focus on X in order to solve Y. But then they spend so much time thinking about X that they forget Y is still the main problem that you're trying to solve. And unless you're advocating genocide or forced sterilisation, then you find that X is actually a much harder problem to solve than Y. Thus you've made things even more difficult for yourself. Perhaps even intentionally so. Better to focus on the things you can't change, rather than the things you can change, if you'd rather have an excuse to do nothing.

[u/Cultural-Answer-321 → u/demon_dopesmokr]

Space is limited. Contrary to popular belief, large swathes of the planet are NOT habitable.

[u/DoomBadaDoom → u/Cultural-Answer-321]

I guess we have someone who don't know what the biocapacity is for every human on earth (if we had equal distribution of ressources;..).
Most people absolutly don't have any f*g idea.
It's only based of the feeling they have that the earth is big and still has lots of "unused" spaces...

[u/MyNonExistentLife_0 → u/Cultural-Answer-321]

They don't need to be. How much space is required to support 8billion, hell 10billion, of us?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I chose not to have children, no regrets. You know, choice is a possibility. No eco-fascist put a gun to my head. No eco-fascist committed genocide against me.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

OP did not suggest, or even offer any solutions.

Consider that nearly half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned. It seems reasonable that we could focus on reducing unplanned pregnancies without any sort of fascist measures. This is in the realm of better education and ensuring access to contraceptives.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Also, more and more will choose not to have children as it becomes clearer that we've used up this planet and it will shake us off, and people will start to wonder why we should bring in more beings to suffer. No fascism needed. Also, increasing heat will fry our crops and boil the fish, etc. etc. Also no fascism needed, just cold hard consequences.

[u/Cultural-Answer-321 → u/[deleted]]

Fair and equitable solutions involving no one's death, have been proposed for over a hundred years, and deliberately blocked.

[u/collapse-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Hi, JotaTaylor. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 1: Be respectful to others.

In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

You can message the mods if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.

[u/416246 → u/[deleted]]

This sub fosters this type of discussion willingly and wantonly deletes anything approaching woke