You realize that world population is going to grow by 1% in a year, right? Congratulations, your 'optimization' was just undone. As were those of the previous 80 years.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many above-average intelligent people are moving quickly yet don't seem to wonder about where they are actually going. I guess they're just not as lazy as I am. Me personally, I'd rather have enough idle land and unpolluted water for free range beef and wild fish, but I guess some people set their sights quite a bit lower.

Ah, I thought you were talking about waste in the actual food production process.

But who says I disagree? Suggesting that improving agricultural efficiency is useless because of population growth is just a logical fallacy, a version of a Straw Man. You're suggesting that I don't think we need to reduce population, when what I'm actually saying is that this is independently a big deal. I believe they call this particular version of the Straw Man an "Appeal to Worse Problems".

I think improving efficiency is indeed useless because it does not address sustainability. I don't care if its 99.999 'efficient', you're either depleting the earth or you're not. Something 10% efficient could be 100% sustainable.

And since nearly every post I see on here is about efficiency, and not sustainability, I'm compelled to offer another view point.

Okay. I mean, I agree. But sustainable does need to be defined. I think the common definition is that sustainable means that it will work for the next hundred years, at which point conditions will have changed sufficiently that decisions made now will be poor.

But yes, point taken that work to decrease population in a humane way is very important and underrated by technology driven people.