Seems like a bunch of hogwash nothing words that politicians use to trick people into doing whatever it is they want done at the moment. The simple fact is that more people require more resources, and we're already bleeding the planet for all it's got.
It really is just an argument from people who assume that they won't live to see the consequences of their actions. They care about today, and today the dropping population in many countries hits the bottom line of some very rich people and organizations.
Counterexample: the sudden population reduction of the Black Death produced progress by encouraging exploring high-productivity paths instead of following tradition and just throwing more people at various problems.
Obviously some populations are too small (eg the N=6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family spent their lives with an ever-dwindling tech tree) but at 8 billion the slope is a long way from being slippery.
Billions of people are denied the chance to do just that, so instead of "increasing headcount" like a bad manager, maybe our species should look into better utilization of the "human resources" we already have.
"Billions of people are denied the chance to do just that," Yeah that's a huge problem, never saying its not, we need as much stem as we can get. Billions of people are trapped in a state that doesn't really want to do anything hard. Japan was a big steel producer, but they saw that wouldn't last and went to making electronics. China is kinda split, because of perverse incentives in state supported steel/cement. Otherwise they would focus on electronics because economics are better. If all the MFG going to vietnam, mexico etc doesn't spur the state to do long term planning to build off of it, it will be a really wasted opportunity.
The argument made does not hold up under even trivial scrutiny.
> We want a much larger population because then we can solve problems.
> resources are not a problem thanks to technology.
1.
Most people today consume very few resources.
Not out of choice but due to the highly selective resource allocations.
So the first goal then should be to even out the resource allocations
for all the 8 billion people on the world today.
This could go some way to validating the argument.
I dont think this will happen but if the author can make it happen it
would be impressive to say the least.
Good luck on that.
2.
According to the argument we also have a large surplus of geniuses that
never have a chance ot achieve their optimal utility.
Again, fix that in the world today, to prove it will work with a larger set.
3.
The argument is severely flawed.
Ok, we will be happy with more humans.
Now we are 8 billion or so walking around on the planet.
After some time, we have 16 billion.
Ok, we will be happy with more humans.
After some time we have 32 billion.
Ok, we will be happy with more humans.
Obviously, that doesn't work.
The immense lack of resources would curtail any such increase.
We cannot be permanently convinced that creating a larger population is
beneficial.
Thus the argument requires a somewhat defined limit.
The author mentions arguments made that the optimal population
size is less than 2 billion people.
Then rejects it.
However was proven above the author will have to come up with an
optimal population as well.
Since it is absurd to believe that we can grow in all infinity.
Towards the end there will not be enough land for every person to
stand up, and people are packed like sardines.
Can the author agree that 100 billion people would be a problem?
1000 billion?
Presently there is a hypothesis that the global population will soon
stabilize and then decrease naturally. ¹
""
Projections by the United Nations suggest that the global population could rise to around 10.4 billion in the 2080s, after which it may stabilize or begin a gradual decline.
""
Is this then a tragedy as far as the author's arguments go?
Personally, I am not that worried about population growth.
It appears to be a long-standing pattern that something epically bad
will happen that will drastically reduce the population, in some scenarios
even wipe it out.
War (Nuclear, biological) , meteor(s), consequences of climate change,
a plague (that will make covid seem like a minor cold), or something else
catastrophic, AI (never understood this one myself),
