You've just put me in mind of an different quote about impoverished geniuses:
"""I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.""" - Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History, 1980
World population has increased 60% since then, while extreme poverty decreased 66% in absolute (not relative) terms.
So, what I think would happen with more space, is that we would find the next limit, while mistaking the growth that improved conditions lead to as the natural state of affairs.
"""I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.""" - Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History, 1980
World population has increased 60% since then, while extreme poverty decreased 66% in absolute (not relative) terms.
So, what I think would happen with more space, is that we would find the next limit, while mistaking the growth that improved conditions lead to as the natural state of affairs.