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Comment by badminton1 | Hacker News Reader

This planet has finite resources, and a population that went from 2.5 billion in 1950 to now 7.4 billion people, and counting.

By growing we have increased our consumption of fish, arable soil, oil, freshwater, lumber... everything. I think we will need to also get used to the idea that we will need to downsize our population to a level in which it is sustainable.

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Downsizing has already started. Most of the population growth from now on is simply young people growing up and having their 2 children.

Further downsizing is not gonna happen without war, which is not something that will make any of the problems related to overpopulation any better.

Basically, what we have to do is make this planet work with 10 billion people (a stretch, but not impossible), and from there on it should only get better.

Unless we discover a way to revert aging.

This isn't all that relevant to UBI though.

Probably in select countries but not in all regions. It is still growing fast and we might hit 9 billion in a couple of decades.

Then, life expectancy and live births are growing, meaning people stay here longer.

My religion tells me you are completely irrational. I'm having 8 children and when they in turn grow up they will all have 8 and so on.

Downsize all you want. We will take over.

You are correct. Here's a map (a nod to the future) of the 'we'. http://globalfertilitymap.com/#-13.410994034321702,48.867187...

If we extrapolate, the final population count of the world before population stagnates will be:

America: 1 billion Europe: 1 billion Africa: 2 billion Asia: 5 billion

https://twitter.com/hansrosling/status/270835563802791936

2 billion in Africa is not that bad considering its size.

We also continue to more efficient at consuming, pricing, and allocating those resources.

Like producing very cheap plastic bottles and nylon bags that then are dumped everywhere?

Whenever I bring this up my inbox explodes.

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