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Comment by _Tev | Hacker News Reader

> There are two reasons why we can’t: We live within a finite ecosystem of resources and finite systems can by definition not sustain infinite consumption

Yeah this gets thrown around a lot, but people clearly misunderstand what it actually means. It just means that there is _some_ amount of people we can't feed, but it says _nothing_ about what the amount is. It can be 10 billion, it can be 10^27. You just "proved" nothing of substance.

> And we are currently consuming an _unsustainable_ and growing rate of resources. (emphasis mine)

[citation needed]

I am serious, it does not matter how many times people say this, it still is not obvious truth.

> And we are currently consuming an unsustainable and growing rate of resources.

And when you finally claim something that would be easy (I guess, you seem confident in it) to back up by links, you don't do that.

This reads like unfounded hysteria.

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The concept of carrying capacity estimates human consumption versus the planet’s ability to regenerate resources. Have a look at the reports and data cited on the Wikipedia page.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint

I think you are suggesting that earth can carry many more people than 10B. I’d like to understand how you think that is possible.

Furthermore, even at the current population size human activity is causing potentially irreversible climate change. The scientific consensus is that even a small increase of 1.5C will have severe consequences on the planet. Limiting the increase to 1.5 C will require significant action by all of us. Addding many more people makes this much harder.

http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf

I hope the links can help convince you that we are facing a serious crisis that is causally related to the size of the human population.

Carrying capacity of Earth is frequently revised upwards, but I am not paying much attention to research around it, that is why I would appreciate some concrete links / citations.

> I think you are suggesting that earth can carry many more people than 10B. I’d like to understand how you think that is possible.

Because I have not seen anyone argue for the limits in convincing ways, it's all FUD from my PoV.

Intuitively - energy is not (very big) problem, we can make dense nuclear sources, solar & offshore wind is viable in many places, and gas peaker plants / limited enetgy storage should cover the rest.

Hydroponics and similar advanced agricultural methods are showing nice gains in effectivity of produce per sq km, at the cost of (IIRC) energy (see above). EVs are finally starting to be viable. Etc. Etc.

And that's before we get to really long-term solutions like colonizing space.

Where are the real limits?

> Furthermore, even at the current population size human activity is causing potentially irreversible climate change ...

Yeah, we are making a lot of externalities. This is not impossible to solve, see above.

Extrapolating from our past failures is extremely shortsighted and has been proven wrong numerous times, see e.g. WW3 and end-of-humanity scare in 50's/60's. We can learn from our mistakes, and we seem to actually do that a lot! Spreading hysteria is not helping I think.

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