The USA could accommodate about 230 billion people if the entire country was the same population density as Manhattan Island (the main part of New York City).
If you dedicated 50% of the country entirely to wildlife reserves you could still accommodate > 100 billion.
If you dedicated 50% of the country entirely to wildlife reserves you could still accommodate > 100 billion.
There are not too many people in the world: there are too few, but also not the best people organised in the best way.
This sounds incredibly controversial, but if you looked at earth 1000 years ago you would draw the same conclusion: too few people, badly organised, uneducated.
This sounds incredibly controversial, but if you looked at earth 1000 years ago you would draw the same conclusion: too few people, badly organised, uneducated.
@Isaac_A_Arthur has a video on Arcologies that would answer quite a few of the questions and objections people have:
In particular:
(1) The physical limiting factor for population on earth is not "resources". It's our ability to reject waste heat; beyond a certain point, you cannot keep the planet cool enough.
(1) The physical limiting factor for population on earth is not "resources". It's our ability to reject waste heat; beyond a certain point, you cannot keep the planet cool enough.
(2) Food production today is very, very inefficient in land, because land is cheap but labor and power are expensive.
In the future that could change
In the future that could change
(3) you can give people a lot more space and have a lot more people by exploiting the 3rd dimension; buildings can be several hundred meters tall, connected by bridges, there can be multi-level parks and recreational spaces lit by fake sunlight, etc.
Finally a few things I'd like to add;
(A) This has nothing to do with immigration. Over a thousand years, native people can gradually grow their nation (by having large families) to the point where countries have hundreds of billions of people.
(A) This has nothing to do with immigration. Over a thousand years, native people can gradually grow their nation (by having large families) to the point where countries have hundreds of billions of people.
(B) Politics and culture: many of our problems and constraints are political, not physical. Contemporary cities suffer from social problems caused by a lack of trust & anonymity, as well as other bad political choices we have made and continue to make. ...
... but I can't address all that stuff here.
The human race and Western Civilization in particular need to move forward towards the stars though, not backwards towards living in caves. That means thinking big, solving problems and winning.
The human race and Western Civilization in particular need to move forward towards the stars though, not backwards towards living in caves. That means thinking big, solving problems and winning.
