Speak for yourself. I'm petrified by the prospect of lack of growth. It is what our economy is built on, and a larger population could result in better science. There is plenty of land in the United States. Even our cities in the rust belt are underpopulated.

The growth-based economic model is flawed. Countries should be rewarded economically/politically by some sort of sustainability index where all of their positive/negative externalities are accounted for.

We do not need more people on this planet. It will only increase the likelihood of a major catastrophe like famine -> war -> nuclear war, which will then put scientific research back decades if not centuries.

> Countries should be rewarded economically/politically by some sort of sustainability index where all of their positive/negative externalities are accounted for.

From which growth-based economies will those rewards be taken? If not that way, then how?

The whole point is a paradigm shift where sustainability is rewarded instead of uncontrolled growth. The reward can probably be political clout, to drive the direction of things moving forward. Essentially that is what we reward uncontrolled growth with currently.

The whole point is that I am assuming there isn't enough incentive on a large scale to deal with environment problem BEFORE they occur. With global warming, once we go past the point of no return, it won't be a quick fix. We will throw the equilibrium out of whack. If we were to pragmatically balance things now/going back a few decades, we could avoid the big swing that will occur.

So basically, the population may fall from 8 billion to 3 billion because of famine/war, etc. Immensely painful things... Or we could just have pragmatic restraint through rewarding sustainability, and it would naturally level out to 5/6 billion or whatever that number is... but without the immense pain of billion fighting/dying.

Let those places grow feral again. We don't need to take up the entire damn planet as a species. Or at least the entire "fertile" bits of it.

I could not be more diametrically opposed to your position. It's clear to me we have far too many people as it is, and the only way out is through population decline. Anything else is ridiculous line noise to argue about. Once you solve the CO2 climate change problem you have about 10 other just-as-bad crises right behind it if population growth continues.

Sure, as you say there could be some more black swan events in science/technology that technically lets us expand in the short term much like modern agriculture has. I don't see that as a positive as it simply delays the inevitable and makes it even more impossible to recover from.

I suppose it's a matter of how much you appreciate human achievement. Detroit could become the realization of a new Metropolis. Hyperloop could be built between Detroit and Cleveland and other cities with much less regulatory constraint. The promise of these mid-western cities excites me much more than the west coast because we do not need to be bogged down by preservation of natural landscapes there. They are the areas that could have delivered millennials from their stagnation if momentum had taken hold.

There is no choice but to grow. People like to travel, conduct scientific research, and face and conquer new technical challenges. You cannot do this without more people and the productivity they provide. Period.

The value of general labor generally decreases with advancements in tools (automation).

There are enough people in the US now, enough children, that our education system could focus better on technological and scientific advances for those who show the aptitude (by increasing opportunity and decreasing inequal access to education and jobs).

Yeah, on this same forum we complain constantly about how automation is going to remove a bunch of jobs. Wouldn't having fewer kids solve that problem really nicely?

Exactly, have you seen these mid west ghost towns? Scary dystopian stuff.

They are ghost towns because there are no jobs, not because there are no people. You got cause and effect backwards.

At the same time, prosperous cities are booming and rents are rising. It's polarizing.

Land isn't the resource everyone is worried about though. Potable water, food, raw materials, survivable habits, etc.

"Small Is Beautiful"

Um, E. F. Schumacher had 8 kids. He was more concerned with how people interacted with each other and not overpopulation.

There's already 7,6 billion of us, tendency rising, I see no good reason why I should contribute to that number growing even faster because it seems already unsustainable enough as it is.

In that context, I see especially no reason to have any biologically related offspring. It's not like there's a shortage of orphans, because adoption might just as well be another option to actualize this inherent need to "leave something lasting behind as to give purpose to our existence", by passing on values and life-lessons.

Too bad the barrier of entry to that is usually very high, I guess for good reasons.