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I am not arguing that population growth would be a good thing, the population growth rate has to become essentially zero at some point. A constant plus or minus one percent per year means extinction within less than 2000 years. Overpopulation will resolve itself by starvation or resource wars, underpopulation seems actually more dangerous in the long run. But I am relatively sure that we will manage to avoid extinction due to a bad fertility rate.

And the population structure will probably become something like a rectangle then, almost everybody becomes 80 or 90 or whatever and dies within a relative narrow window. Setting aside radical changes like getting hit by an asteroid or discovering the key to eternal life.

I really only wanted to point out that it is not absolutely certain that increasing wealth surely leads to a decreasing population. If all work is done by robots and nobody is at risk of a shortage of good and services, what would people compel not to spend some of their years raising three children?




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