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Too Many People

I will have “made it” when conspiracy theorists decide I am out to kill people.

Almost everybody agrees that there are too many people. Resources are stretched. The planet is suffering. Balance is gone.

There are people who chose not to have kids (which, fundamentally, is their primary function), in protest. That is heavy!

There is however no easy solution:

  • People live for 80 years of so, which means change can only be gradual
  • Limiting the number of kids you can have is authoritarian
  • Killing anyone to achieve a “goal” is of course wrong

It isn’t futile:

  • We can make too many kids economically difficult, via a UBI that caps kids payments at 2 kids
  • The world is having fewer kids anyway – my Peak Population blog documents that.
  • We could see the global population start to decline as soon as 2050

What bothers me is that a subsistent existence (something I actually long for) is too expensive for many people in advanced economies.

I cannot afford 10 acres of fertile land, a modest home, and some animals. The most basic form of existence for several millennia, is now a luxury. That is because of agricultural efficiencies, and the ratio of people to land.

Because of too many people, I have been deprived of living an ordinary life in tune with nature 🙁

I’m not wishing for harm to come to a single person, but if some catastrophe reduced the number of humans by orders of magnitude, the world would certainly be a better place in general, and probably be better for the remaining humans.

Published in Philosophy