>Of course another way to see all this is to argue that we need 20% less humans now, so we save any environmental costs those people induce. Seems a bit gruesome to me.
Seems a bit of a straw man to me. Perhaps there's some light between ecosystem literacy ("carrying capacity is real") and mass murder? :-\
A third way (which differs only in timing) is thinking we can support 100% of the people who exist right now, but acknowledge that if you iteratively "add 20% more people" enough times eventually we will exceed the environment's capacity.
If you think any solution that might be proposed to that is "gruesome" (AKA the usual anti-population modulation trope) just look at the cruelties people inflict on each-other when humans blindly exceed the environment's capacity.
Though I suppose such "law of the jungle" ad hoc population control could be preferred by many, since it effects mostly the poor and powerless, whereas intentional population policy would effect all people equally.
Yes, sorry, that was a strawman, didn't quite realise it. On that point, I _do_ believe that there are too many humans. I'm certainly not in favour of taking any drastic measures against that, but in the long run, I think we'd all be better off if there was less of us. Seems like we have a dynamic right now that will see to that over time: demographic transition.
But my main point - which I didn't make very eloquently - is that we humans do have a tendency to keep ourselves busy no matter what, sometimes doing things that are objectively pointless, sometimes doing things to the detriment of our species. I think the majority of what I've spent my life building falls into one of those two categories, unfortunately. Most applications of generative AI I've seen certainly do. And even if we do things that are objectively beneficial, we still spend resources doing so.
I think it's cool that there's research into the magnitude of that. If you want to save money, you start by understanding what you spend your money on, to use an analogy here.
A third way (which differs only in timing) is thinking we can support 100% of the people who exist right now, but acknowledge that if you iteratively "add 20% more people" enough times eventually we will exceed the environment's capacity.
If you think any solution that might be proposed to that is "gruesome" (AKA the usual anti-population modulation trope) just look at the cruelties people inflict on each-other when humans blindly exceed the environment's capacity.
Though I suppose such "law of the jungle" ad hoc population control could be preferred by many, since it effects mostly the poor and powerless, whereas intentional population policy would effect all people equally.