Ideal number of humans

Yes, unfortunately the brain of the humans species doesn't have many inbuilt algorithms in place that connect actions in the present with consequences that project far into the future.
 
spuriousmonkey said:
There is no limit of energy?

Where does energy come from?
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Energy comes from matter, light, sound, just about anything that has movement has energy. Time is a reflection of change, and change requires energy too, the whole universe is energy, possibly infinite energy, the void in space itself is energy, black holes have energy, antimatter and dark matter have energy.

Energy is possibly infinite, the problem is we don't have the tools to access it. Just because it's there it does not mean we can capture it. Thats why theres an alternative energy industry.
 
draqon said:
thinking for future helps.
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I'm thinking about the future where humans don't exist, thats the most likely future.

A species either fights for it's existance or it dies, humans fight each other, and ignore everything else.
 
There is plently of water and food to go around.
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for now, yes. but we are drasticlly impacting the biomass of higher-level species (ie, the species we eat), most notably in the oceans.

So while there is enough food for everyone today, it certainly appears that we hyave it at the cost of food availableility in the future.

In otherwords, No, we do not have enough food or *potable* water to nurish the current human population on a sustainable basis.
 
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TimeTraveler said:
I'm thinking about the future where humans don't exist, thats the most likely future.

A species either fights for it's existance or it dies, humans fight each other, and ignore everything else.
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umm...even though I can like give countless arguments against your accusation that humans ignore everything else, let me tell you one word, which proves humans dont ignore everything else at all.

ready?

ok, here it goes...

NEANDERTHALS
 
On topic:

The 'ideal number of humans' is pretty difficult to determine imo.

What I can say is that with better politics and intellectual development of the masses, the current value of 6.5 billion could enjoy a pretty comfortable standard of living, with plenty of competition.

There are several factors that prevent today's populace from enjoying its potential, including the Bush regime, capitalism and the corporate elite, tendency to focus on trends in engineering research, among others.

A high population is good for competition and rate of development.
A low population is good for a very high standard of living.
 
Well, let's look at this scenario. Let's suppose a disease would whipe off half of the humans living today in a year. It would kill evenly distributed among all ages, sex, races and nations.

Would the world be a better place with half of its previous population? I think the answer is a definite yes...
 
There is a SLIGHT difference between then and now. Back then nature's resources weren't used up with an alarming rate and there were no energy wars. Today there are...There were no cities accomodating 10+ million citydwellers, today there are...

But sure, disasters always create ample opportunities for the world renewing itself. And remember, in my disease the killing is indiscriminate, thus stupid and evil people die too...

P.s.: More people you have, more people are killed by any upcoming disease,disaster,war...This is the nature of life....
 
I think that humans will start to migrate towards the ocean and settle there. I mean inside the ocean in pods or what not. The weather will be uncontrollable, I gather that our polluting the environment accounts for just a fraction of the effects of global warming. Its cyclical. We will need to adapt our technologies and adapt our minds. Animals are evolving physically, we need to adopt mentally. Our brains are our main feature. We will need to sync our brains with computers, when our full capacity is utilized, when the need will arise. As for the population yea, it scares me when NASA posts on their website that they haven't a clue when the next comet will strike, "it may hit tommorow". So I feel that the population question will take care of itself. You musn't worry. If you hold everything at a constant, not including the rarities, then I'd say we will go deeper into the ocean, where I believe there is more stability.
 
Syzygys said:
Well, let's look at this scenario. Let's suppose a disease would whipe off half of the humans living today in a year. It would kill evenly distributed among all ages, sex, races and nations.

Would the world be a better place with half of its previous population? I think the answer is a definite yes...
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the only problem is...who gets to be that other half, cause I am sure aint going to bend before anyone.
 
Syzygys said:
The way how we are wasting resources tells me that we have either too many people or too many idiots. Probably both. I think 7 billion humans is pushing it. Poor Earth...

My estimate for a decent carrying capacity is 4 billions people. That could be sustained without energy wars, food shortages or lack of drinking water.

What is your estimate?
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Your thinking is too provincial. The ideal number of humans is infinite. Spread across the solar system, and then the galaxy.
 
Clockwood said:
Two billion men and women worldwise sounds about right to me. Two thirds of every continent should be left completely untouched by man. The remaining third should be split between agricultural use and cities.

In my opinion, the carrying capacity of the planet isn't really the issue. We could support ten billion or more without too much of a problem. The issue is that, with such a load, the entirety of the planet would be devoted purely to keeping us alive. The wild would be dead. On top of that, every time you double the population you halve the wealth available to each person.
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I completely agree with all of that. It would be so much more fun traveling.
 
madanthonywayne said:
Your thinking is too provincial. The ideal number of humans is infinite. Spread across the solar system, and then the galaxy.
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Absolutely, but we don't have the technology to travel the universe freely. The space we have is in the ocean. This is our uncharted world. A world we could inhabit in the time being. This is what I stated in my previous post.
 
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