Even ignoring AI, current expectations are that world population will peak in ~60 years at a population of ~10 billion. This seems totally workable with relatively incremental improvements in technology for resource management, energy extraction, and habitat preservation. This is only bolstered by much of our future energy supply growth coming from non-extractive solar rather than fossil fuels, which we continue to find new sources of regardless.
When you add on the fact that almost all population growth in the next 50 years is due to occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is plentiful land and the only limiting factors are energy supply to tame it, we’re actually pretty well situated re: overpopulation concerns.
Do these expectations take selection effects into account? I’m also thinking longer term than 60 years. A Malthusian equilibrium is the natural state for a population of organisms to be in. We’re currently out of equilibrium, but the obvious expectation is that we will at some point settle back into a Malthusian equilibrium unless we somehow choose not to or otherwise go extinct.
Even ignoring AI, current expectations are that world population will peak in ~60 years at a population of ~10 billion. This seems totally workable with relatively incremental improvements in technology for resource management, energy extraction, and habitat preservation. This is only bolstered by much of our future energy supply growth coming from non-extractive solar rather than fossil fuels, which we continue to find new sources of regardless.
When you add on the fact that almost all population growth in the next 50 years is due to occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is plentiful land and the only limiting factors are energy supply to tame it, we’re actually pretty well situated re: overpopulation concerns.
Do these expectations take selection effects into account? I’m also thinking longer term than 60 years. A Malthusian equilibrium is the natural state for a population of organisms to be in. We’re currently out of equilibrium, but the obvious expectation is that we will at some point settle back into a Malthusian equilibrium unless we somehow choose not to or otherwise go extinct.