Replying to Avatar David Härer

To me it looks like humanity would go extinct otherwise.

I can relate to the idea of choosing to die when getting old and sick. But I'd still like society to continue on.

This might sound naive, but in general I like humans. I believe there is a path to coexist with nature and that humanity can solve the problems it has created.

Maybe that's also what gives me confidence that having kids is the right thing for me.
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Not my name 2y ago

First, thank you for engaging in a discussion about an emotionally charged topic in a thoughtful and civil manner even though we are clearly on different sides of the argument. Your ability to do that is impressive to me and much appreciated.

And you make a very valid point, even to me. There is no absolute proof beyond history that says I’m right about the ultimate disposition of humans relative to nature. You take an optimistic view, while I take a pessimistic one. I admire your ability to think kindly of humans, and I myself have come across examples of people who surprise me by their kind and thoughtful nature. Yourself included.

Where the sticking point for me still lies is in the general direction that humanity seems to be headed in. The appropriate sustainable human population (at least ecologically) seems to be between 50-100M. This means that at some point (maybe your children’s generation) there will need to be a massive culling of humanity, whether through war, famine, or disease. At current population levels that means that 7.9 billion people will need to die and not be replaced just to get things back to where they stand a chance of reaching equilibrium.

In the meantime though, we have impressive systems in place to resist such changes from occurring gradually, like governments and corporations locked into the notion that perpetual growth is sustainable. Their incessant need to kick the can down the road simply removes any hope for me that humans will make it through this without tremendous suffering.

I wouldn’t burden my worst enemy with the possibility of that future, let alone something that I would be biologically driven to love more than anything.

Hopes and dreams do not a rosy future make I’m afraid.

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David Härer 2y ago

Thank you for your kind responses! I also much appreciate our discourse on the topic and I'm genuinely interested in your positions and where you are coming from.

Do you know how the 50-100M has been calculated? I think it depends a lot on the way of living (energy sources, waste management, land use, ...). So I can imagine 50M humans turning earth into a wasteland but also 8B humans living sustainably and preserving vast areas of untouched nature.

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Not my name 2y ago

There is a LOT of debate in this area as it introduces many difficult and potentially dangerous topics.

The simplest way though is to take the square miles of livable land (about 25M sqm) and determine how much is needed on average for sustainable food and industrial production per person. The second part is tricky because many people want to figure out the maximum population instead of the ideal one, and there are many variables, such as climate change, which may drastically reduce the number of livable square miles in the years to come.

After spending a generous amount of time researching this topic though, I can say that well-founded high end estimates for sustainable populations for humans is 2B. Still 6B away from current levels and 8-9 billion away for current estimates of year 2100 population estimates.

If you want to find the human population that is sustainable for all species though, that is closer to the 50M-100M that I quoted before. That is to say, the population of humans that would no longer cause lasting damage to other species on the planet. Not surprisingly, this requires an order of magnitude less than even that which I describe above. It’s about 0.25-0.5 sq. miles of livable land per human.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously