What size of human population can earth sustain?

[LennoxLewis]

I won't dispute that our current growth rate and state of technology far outstrips that of the the Middle Ages. However, that's when the foundations were laid that would allow the later growth to occur. Technology appears to progress almost exponentially, so we could expect this kind of trend to be the norm. Barring the collapse of civilization, I would hardly be surprised if 500 years from now our current progress is seen as being at a snail's pace.

I guess you are right. The struggles of the middle ages, i.e. disease, poor distribution of wealth in developed countries, high farming needs and wars made for a ton of years to build the foundation on which a good level of education for the new generation could be implemented, with all its rich consequences.

For some reason, the idea of 500 years old of additional technology sounds scary to me. Maybe because i like my current way of living. I love our current (western) society, where most people can attain a good level of education, live under good circumstances and reach a lot of goals after hard work.

For instance, what if 200 years from now they invent a safe kind of "steroid" pill that makes one look like Schwarznegger without ever hitting the gym? Learning stuff like they do in The Matrix? Genetically modifiying a lot of "negative" genes at or before birth, the ones that make us unique? What challenges in society would there be? Then again, they would probably look at our time and consider it boring, primitive and dull.

Hell, i can't for the life of me remember how i spent my time before there was Internet, how relatively primitive that is, yet I've lived like that more than half of my life.

 

[Negatron]

What challenges in society would there be?

Galactic war one and two against nazi space salamanders. Then a natural progression towards universe wars after we bring democracy and western consumerism to the salamanders. After that, inter-dimensional wars. Once we ally with the inter-dimensionals, only then do things get interesting.

 

[OmCheeto]

What are you talking about? Worldwide, the rate of growth is declining:

One would hope so. I plugged the population numbers for the last 12,000 years from wiki into my spreadsheet a while back and came up with the following graph:

Technically, the world could probably support a maximum of 50 billion.

But realistically, to provide a non-miserable standard of living for everyone, the world should be back down to 1 billion or less.

 

[LennoxLewis]

O
But realistically, to provide a non-miserable standard of living for everyone, the world should be back down to 1 billion or less.

Why, did everyone have a good standard of living back in 1820 when the population was one billion?

 

[OmCheeto]

Why, did everyone have a good standard of living back in 1820 when the population was one billion?

I'm sure they didn't. But we've advanced technologically to the point where I think everyone could have my standard of living, if there were just far fewer of us. You don't see boatloads of people from the US trying to escape to Haiti do you? And are Germans and Brits flooding into Pakistan?

People have always migrated to less crowded, more hospitable lands. Unfortunately, I think we're seeing the end of that.

 

[Pythagorean]

Me and five friends and twenty womens could live comfortable on the whole Earth. Anything more than that is elbows and assholes.

 

[LennoxLewis]

I'm sure they didn't. But we've advanced technologically to the point where I think everyone could have my standard of living, if there were just far fewer of us. You don't see boatloads of people from the US trying to escape to Haiti do you? And are Germans and Brits flooding into Pakistan?

People have always migrated to less crowded, more hospitable lands. Unfortunately, I think we're seeing the end of that.

I think we could provide the entire world of a decent standard of living, but irreversible corruption stands too large in the way. I do agree that the living standard in Africa and Asia wouldn't exactly suffer if 70% of their population suddenly vanished, but still...

 

[tchitt]

I think we could provide the entire world of a decent standard of living, but irreversible corruption stands too large in the way. I do agree that the living standard in Africa and Asia wouldn't exactly suffer if 70% of their population suddenly vanished, but still...

Agreed. There's no reason all seven billion of us couldn't have a substantial meal every day... It's just that the powers that be have other things in mind.

 

[OmCheeto]

I think we could provide the entire world of a decent standard of living, but irreversible corruption stands too large in the way. I do agree that the living standard in Africa and Asia wouldn't exactly suffer if 70% of their population suddenly vanished, but still...

Agreed. There's no reason all seven billion of us couldn't have a substantial meal every day... It's just that the powers that be have other things in mind.

Well, not having lived in every community on the planet, I can neither agree, nor disagree, with your opinions.

True, we could provide the whole world with a better standard of living, but for how long? Resources are already running out. And distribution of food from surplus nations to deficit nations is going to be problematic with the worlds shrinking energy supply. Nations really need to take on the Indian model of local, population sustaining farms within the next 100 years. If their farms can't sustain their populations, then they'd better have something to sell, or put birth control rules into effect.

And "powers to be" just sounds like an easy answer to a complex question. Google "Failed States" and "Civil Wars", and try to determine what they have in common. Why is Somalia at the top of the Failed Nation list? How did it get there? Who caused it? Did any individual cause it? Did inside or outside forces cause it? What were the triggers?

I don't have the answers to any of these questions. But until we can determine the solution to the current problems, I'd say the original question should be rephrased as; "What size of human population can the human population sustain?"

But I believe we've already gone off topic enough to the point where that actually is what we are arguing.

 

[binzing]

I once had a moron on our local newspaper's discussion forum try and tell me the Earth could support 50 BILLION people. Needless to say he refused to give me any links when I asked.

 

[Negatron]

I once had a moron on our local newspaper's discussion forum try and tell me the Earth could support 50 BILLION people.

Not bad, but a far cry from my Trillion Quadrillion. I would like to have the honor of being the next moron you speak of on discussion forums.

 

[OmCheeto]

I once had a moron on our local newspaper's discussion forum try and tell me the Earth could support 50 BILLION people. Needless to say he refused to give me any links when I asked.

Hey! I said 50 billion also...

Technically, I do think it's possible.

But remember the goop they were eating in the movie "The Matrix"? I think we'd have to get used to eating something very similar. Probably a mixture of pee, minced dead people, and dirt. And maybe some lichens for dessert.

And we wouldn't need all of these space consuming homes anymore. We could just huddle like penguins when it gets cold.

 

[Tibarn]

Supporting 50 billion people would be difficult, but might not be impossible. I think there's enough space to pull it off. Loads of people would have to live in the desert, on ships, or even underground in order to clear up enough arable land to support the amount of farming needed to feed everyone. It should be possible to produce enough food. Here's where genetically engineered corn would come in handy.

Water could be a problem though. For that, we'd need a cheap energy source that would enable us to efficiently desalinate seawater. Waste management would be another problem, but with proper planning I think it can be pulled off.

Our technology isn't up to speed yet to manage 50 billion people, but by the time the population grows that big it could still catch up. Note that this would require cutting down more forests and maybe a few mass extinctions to free up land. It won't be pretty and life won't be very fun.