What would be the ideal population for Earth?

[McTurbo]

Resources. (also works for water) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

In 1997 it was speculated that a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (0.99 mi) contains more than $20 trillion USD worth of industrial and precious metals.[6][27] A comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) could contain more than two billion metric tons of iron–nickel ore,[28] or two to three times the annual production of 2004.[29] The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 1.7×1019 kg of nickel–iron, which could supply the world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also be precious metals.

Farming. http://www.verticalfarm.com/more
Advantages of Vertical Farming

Year-round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
VF greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface
VF converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of
evapotranspiration
VF adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible
parts of plants and animals
VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)
VF converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
VF creates sustainable environments for urban centers
VF creates new employment opportunities
We cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on
earth
VF may prove to be useful for integrating into refugee camps
VF offers the promise of measurable economic improvement for tropical and subtropical
LDCs. If this should prove to be the case, then VF may be a catalyst in helping to reduce or even reverse the population growth of LDCs as they adopt urban agriculture as a strategy for sustainable food production.
VF could reduce the incidence of armed conflict over natural resources, such as water
and land for agriculture

Production
3d Printing
http://www.explainingthefuture.com/3dprinting.html

Living area:
Oceanic Cities
http://weburbanist.com/2011/06/16/th...island-cities/

[Togarox]

random guess at 12 billion.

[Kurioxan]

you also have to think about limited resource

We are hardly using that many resources just yet, sea mining just started, with correct planning, recycling and forsight we can make what we have accessible with current tech last a long time still, and then we will care techs such as mantle mining, deep ocean dredging and maybe more efficient ways to extract what we need from zones that nowadays arent considered viable, and by then maybe, just maybe we have enough tech to transmute, we can already transform lead into gold albeit the process is really costly so not worth it right now, with new power sources it might be one day.

The current problem is not overpopulation at all, its horrid planing and no idea how to deal with such populations.
Huge waste, little re usability, little recycling too much energy put into things that dont matter and too little on the ones that do.
We can improve a lot just by general education and if education fails due to lack of good will, through legal enforcement.

So many ways, so many ideas, so few are used due to bureaucracies, conflicts of interest and monetary values

[Pull My Finger]

The Earth isn't overpopulated at all.

[Purlina]

oh Master Asia, why you don't realize that Humans are part of nature.

Look, the East is burning red!

[Grizzly Willy]

Well, it's rather obvious that humans are part of nature, we're all animals, aren't we. I just find that our species tends to destroy the "nature" that we are a part of. If the majority of our species was actually concerned with the welfare of the earth they inhabit, then my view would change.

Saying that we destroy nature is saying that nature destroys itself, given the, well, nature of humans.

[Knight Gil]

The ideal population would be 7028490115

Just because I say so

[Deleted]

9 Billion all Borg.

[Deleted]

I'd say 5 billion would be perfect.
Why? Because it's about how much we had in 1990's. And current population is way too big in many areas.

I'm not even talking resource wise now, talking about space, how crowded some areas are etc.

[Kurioxan]

I'd say 5 billion would be perfect.
Why? Because it's about how much we had in 1990's. And current population is way too big in many areas.

I'm not even talking resource wise now, talking about space, how crowded some areas are etc.

And how empty some areas are tbh, lots and lots and lots of space in many places...
Just bad planning and people crowding to same cities

[Sodka]

I think a healthy population that can sustain itself would be 1 billion.

[Beefhammer]

This made my day. thanks xD

OT: I think the population is only an issue in certain areas of the world. As a whole, the earth can probably handle more than it already does. We as a species just need to discover new resources through tech or what have you,and use the resources we currently have more efficiently. If you divided the entire land area of the earth up amongst the population, everyone would have a 5-6 acre parcel of land to live on (a lot of it isn't really habitable but that's not the point). When I think over population I think specific area, where population density is way too high (Areas in Asia in particular). The west throws out much of it's food, and if it were used in other areas of the world instead of being wasted we'd probably be fine.

An ideal number though for everyone on earth to be comfortable with resources and space? Probably 3-4 billion max, but that's just a guestimation.

Crowding is a problem in only a few areas and lack of local or immediate resources is a problem for a few areas as well. But as we continue to eat through non renewable energies and disposable products the resources will become an issue for the rest of us. Right now we tear down forests faster than they can be replaced, and yes there are many many millions of acres of untouched forests but if we continue at the rate we are going s a population and our use of carbon emitting energies the lack of forests cannot replace the CO2 with O2 fast enough.

Right now we might have a minor inconveniences with crazy weather but it will get worse. And hoping for a climate cycle to go back to normal is not the proper way to look at things. Two things need to happen. Population control and we need to rely more on renewal energies. If you look at birthrates around the world, some of the most stable and prosperous nations and economies have close to 1 child per family. Things usually worsen for income disparity, uneducated women and children, poverty, pollution as the birth rates rise.


With the energy to quicker we can move on to renewables the quicker our atmosphere can recover which would mean the planet could safely support more people

[Deleted]

Since we're considered overpopulated and only growing, when would it be considered balanced and not over or under?

Earth isn't overpopulated. At all.
Certain regions are overpopulated perhaps. Like China and India. But take a look at Siberia, plenty of room over there.

Or do you mean that there are only a certain number of resources? Well, we can always find more. Can you imagine how much of the planet we're overlooking? How much oil, minerals, etc are still waiting to be found by us? And what about food production & consumption? We can definitely improve on that if we're taking a more effective approach. By the time all Earth's minerals have been spent we could probably start harvesting asteroids in space.

The only problem we have for now, is a big difference between rich and poor. And along with the good aspects of globalization come the negative aspects.
Now more than ever are the poor willing to become as rich as the west. But it can't be done in such a short amount of time, we don't have the resources for it (now).

That's the only real problem we have for now. It's a negative side-effect of the exponentially increasing science discoveries in the world. Everyone wants in on it. Our global population isn't compatible with our pace. Either we reduce it, we maintain big differences between rich and poor (which can very well result in war) or we take a scientific leap ahead and get our resources elsewhere.

I guess we'll probably end up somewhere in the middle of all of those options.

[-Skye]

Two. Scarlett Johansson and myself.

edit: dang, just noticed someone already made this joke :$

Let the inbreeding begin!

[Layam]

Let the inbreeding begin!

That doesn't sound like MY problem.

[zerocoolhack]

I read a article on slashdot at one time that said the earth could easily support 10billion. We would have plenty of resources for eternity if we were not so wasteful, just look at phones and how much precious materials go into those and we just throw them away every year or so. Look up planed obsolescence which is a big problem.

[DEATHETERNAL]

There is no set number as it would depend on the level of technological advancement. Also, the planet is NOT overpopulated currently.

[MrWolly]

Saying that we destroy nature is saying that nature destroys itself, given the, well, nature of humans.

Nature does destroy itself, all the time. Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Diseases, Famine that kind of thing. If a population of deer grows too large for their environment, the plant life becomes more sparse, some deer starve, and the problem solves itself. That doesn't seem to be happening to us. Humans just destroy on an extreme level, but there's nothing stopping us from doing it.

[Gamdwelf]

Nature does destroy itself, all the time. Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Diseases, Famine that kind of thing. If a population of deer grows too large for their environment, the plant life becomes more sparse, some deer starve, and the problem solves itself. That doesn't seem to be happening to us. Humans just destroy on an extreme level, but there's nothing stopping us from doing it.

Because we are not like most creatures who are adapted to a certain environment or area, we literally adapted to change itself.

[MrWolly]

Because we are not like most creatures who are adapted to a certain environment or area, we literally adapted to change itself.

Obviously, we adapted on a scale superior to any single species on the planet, but we adapt, and force adaptations upon the environment, which can be destructive.