Populate or Perish Insanity (Part 1)

It’s scary but with 6.5 billion people, many are still caught up in the idea that we need population increase. The worst part: this is often driven by the idea that more people are “needed” for the economy. I’m not a fan of Kant’s categorical imperative. But babymaking for the sake of our future pension funds is definitely using people as a means and not an end.

Not to mention that a sane purpose for the economy is to bring comfort to the population not vice versa. Not to mention that customer incubation is a poor business model (a business needing constant creation of new customers for normal function has a big big problem). Not to mention that it’s the ultimate pyramid scheme: for profit, you require more people to come after you than before you.

Of course there are benefits to population growth. If there are enough resources and we want to quadruple the population for profit’s sake, nobody’s actually harmed so it can’t be wrong. It also means faster scientific research. If we’re ever to reach the Singularity (or a more mundane event like space colonisation), we want as many people as possible working on these projects.

Finally, although it’s appalling to have a giant family from hyper-religiosity, sometimes they have a point. Here’s a quote (made up but paraphrased from many religious Jews I’ve read/talked to): “The problem with limiting families for some abstract humanity is that it teaches you to see people as a burden rather than a being of potential”. This attitude does exist and it’s terrible. It’s already contributing to infanticide by parents, forced abortions & infanticide by the state.

But in an overpopulated world, a person is not a valuable resource: they have no freedom to act. Many people don’t realise that even a growth of 1% a year is exponential growth (one of the steepest, scariest mathematical curves of them all). Your savings will keep doubling if you let the interest compound over long enough. It’s the same with people. Only an economist could talk about permanent exponential growth as a necessity. If we have free energy, automated massive food production, underground cities, then sure. Otherwise not on your life.