> If extraordinary ability is a function of a percentile of the population, then a smaller population will have fewer geniuses and prodigies in art, literature, science, and politics

I doubt it is, but if so, and education just "exposes" natural talent, I wouldn't be worried. We already have a lot of natural talent in the developed world that's untapped. India alone should have 4x more geniuses than the USA.

> A smaller population leaves us poorer and less capable.

I'd like to discuss this with HN. Less capable to do what? We won. Nature won't kill us any more, we have no predators, we know how to produce more food than we need [1], transportation is so easy we get access to things from all over the world and communication so seamless we can stay in touch with anyone.

What do we need more people for?

Our largest existential enemy right now is unsustainability.

> There's no reason our current (or a larger) population isn't sustainable by changing how we generate energy or dispose of waste.

I don't think anyone really knows this to be true, and in fact I suspect it might apply to small communities, but not to the world at large.

Even if we could continue growing for now, eventually we'll reach a limit. But in any case, why do we want to keep growing?

[1]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/world-hunger_n_1463429

>Our largest existential enemy right now is unsustainability.

When has 'unsustainabilty' ever caused the destruction of a large portion of a human population? Seriously. Can you think of any?

The two existential threats -- the two things that can, have, and will -- wipe out millions are War and Disease.

Everything else -- asteroids, climate change, sustainability -- are speculative. But, evidence-based analysis clearly points to War and Disease.

The destruction of the Western Roman Empire due to enormous migrations comes to mind. Those migrations were due to 'unsustainability'.

The Late Bronze age Collapse and the Classic Maya Collapse as well.

Slate Star Codex recently did an analysis of technological progress and income growth and found that the most correlated variable was population growth.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/04/22/1960-the-year-the-sing...

> Nature won't kill us any more

I wouldn't be so sure about that ;) Everything seems to suggest that we're about to have a bad time.

If it's a function of a percentile of the population, then sure, there would be fewer geniuses and such. But a shrinking population seems to coincide with a better educated population. An educated, stable, slightly shrinking population can realize its full potential more than a growing population competing for finite resources.

2b people in Asia/Africa with no access to education don't give many geniuses.

you can have less people but everyone educated.

Nonsense, what a strange metric to focus on. You completely ignore the added pain and suffering of a larger population to crank out one more beethoven.

If we keep the planet sustainable, we also have time on our side, and that beethoven will still be born, just later.

>There's no reason our current (or a larger) population isn't sustainable by changing how we generate energy or dispose of waste.

I'll believe that when I see it. Organizing disparate groups of people is quite difficult.

There's a lot more to society than energy. Take food, for example - a huge portion of the world's food is grown in the American midwest. That food is powered by fertilizer (petroleum) and aquifers that are being depleted far faster than they're being refilled. Or seafood, which is being depleted rapidly. More people require more resources - wood, minerals, you name it - and there simply isn't enough to go around arbitrarily.

>There's no reason our current (or a larger) population isn't sustainable

What methods are you using to know this is true?