2480. What if we are like all other species?

Simple logic: we breed till we overstep our food supply. (Including overusing the resources to make more food).

The details are in need of scrutiny. Obviously humanity cannot put more people on earth than the sq. meters will allow. But the food limit is much less because you need room for people and for food. . And what stresses the food is population. And what presses on population is sexuality. Is there any possibility of cutting births below a no-ggrowth level? (or less because we seem to have already broken through sustainability.) Social pressure? On what? Teenage sexuality? Unlikely but possible but it would have to work at the individual level, requiring a powerful culture. Seems unlikely. Contraceptive pills in the world’s water supply?

If we don’t control sexuality and produce enough food we, like all other species, reach a limit. Other species have predators that keep a balance despite their best effort to keep expanding. Humans have been smart enough to eliminate our serious predators (Covid may be a breakthrough).

Hey, some say, we have been here before with Malthus and the Club of Rome. But they were not wrong on the logic of the dynamics, just short on the emerging time scale. But the logic cannot be avoided. Stop population or starve. Is there a way?

Our problem is worse because we have other aspects to this existential crisis.

We have to face the fact. If we face the facts we might come up with good ideas. If we don’t face the facts we are relying on chance which is even less likely to produce solutions to those facts. A failing humanity is likely to lose the capacity for innovations at scale, from replacing the grid to new forms of governance.