The human population for the

[Jonathan Bailey]

United States of America should never exceed 1 million for the sake of the ecology and for the sake of the health and wellness of all living things therein.

I figure no more than 1 man, woman or child per section (640 acres, one square mile) of arable (farm-able, cultivable) land in the US is sufficient for that cause.

We need serious immigration reform and serious birth control measures to meet this goal.

According to the US Census Bureau's population clock, the estimated 2019 United States population (August 2019) is 329.45 million. This is a bit higher than the 329.06 million estimated by the United Nations.

Furthermore, the human race should never ever be so many in number that stacked (2+ story) dwellings are necessary.

I say no more than one man, woman or child per one section (640 acres, 1 square mile) of arable land in this world is sufficient for the human cause.

 

[Quintessence]

While you are correct that human overpopulation is the most dire issue facing this century and the biosphere as a whole, on what basis do you arrive at the figure of one million individuals on the United States?

 

[Jonathan Bailey]

While you are correct that human overpopulation is the most dire issue facing this century and the biosphere as a whole, on what basis do you arrive at the figure of one million individuals on the United States?

I figure that would be just enough people to support a modern civilization whose technology peaks with with air-conditioners, frozen pizza and Toyota Tacoma trucks while making desirable real estate affordable to all Americans with such low numbers of people.

I want no more people in this world than is absolutely necessary to make me healthy, comfortable, long-lived, peaceful and happy. Perhaps even a cap of 50 million people could even make all that I wish for attainable.

I realize also too few people could make me uncomfortable as well so I seek an ideal happy medium.

I want pleasant company but not a menacing crowd.

The human race should not outnumber its ability for all of its members to live long, comfortably, peaceful, healthy and happy. When human numbers get big, resources get tight, desirable real estate gets limited and expensive and people get very cross about it.

Furthermore, the federal government should take such drastic birth control and immigration control measures to ensure health and happiness for each and every one of the law-abiding American people.

 

[Quintessence]

I figure that would be just enough people to support a modern civilization whose technology peaks with with air-conditioners, frozen pizza and Toyota Tacoma trucks while making desirable real estate affordable to all Americans with such low numbers of people.

I want no more people in this world than is absolutely necessary to make me healthily, comfortable, long-lived, peaceful and happy.

It is understandable to come up with a number out of thin air that centers around one's own desires and preferences, but if any meaningful policy is to be made that cannot be its foundation.

The sciences - specifically population ecology - provide a much better foundation. Just as it is possible to create sophisticated models of our planet's climate it is possible to create sophisticated models that predict population demographics. This has already been done by a number of scientists, though the results we get depend on assumptions we make about the world. Most critically, the carrying capacity for humans on this planet depends heavily on consumption/affluence and whether or not we bother to respect the right of non-humans to flourish. See here - What is the Carrying Capacity of Earth? How Many People Can it Hold? - for some basic info on the carrying capacity issue.

Considering we are in a sixth mass extinction event right now, it's probably safe to say humans have already overshot the carrying capacity for the planet and that a population crash is inevitable. If we use the estimated population of Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans as a baseline, we could expect the population in the Americas - and this is for both North America and South America - to settle somewhere between 10 million and 100 million.

 

[Jonathan Bailey]

It is understandable to come up with a number out of thin air that centers around one's own desires and preferences, but if any meaningful policy is to be made that cannot be its foundation.

The sciences - specifically population ecology - provide a much better foundation. Just as it is possible to create sophisticated models of our planet's climate it is possible to create sophisticated models that predict population demographics. This has already been done by a number of scientists, though the results we get depend on assumptions we make about the world. Most critically, the carrying capacity for humans on this planet depends heavily on consumption/affluence and whether or not we bother to respect the right of non-humans to flourish. See here - What is the Carrying Capacity of Earth? How Many People Can it Hold? - for some basic info on the carrying capacity issue.

Considering we are in a sixth mass extinction event right now, it's probably safe to say humans have already overshot the carrying capacity for the planet and that a population crash is inevitable. If we use the estimated population of Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans as a baseline, we could expect the population in the Americas - and this is for both North America and South America - to settle somewhere between 10 million and 100 million.

The question is not how many people the earth can hold but how many can it hold comfortably, healthily, happily and long-term-sustain-ably for each and every living thing.

If there were only two persons in the entire world, life likely would be very primitive and short. Two persons alone can't:

-build their own modern automobile
-farm all their own food
-build their own house
-make their own clothes
-make their own home electronics
-make their own furniture
-make their own guns to hunt game
-build their own powerboats to fish
-treat their own decayed teeth
-doctor their own cancer
-make their own symphony music
-make their own Hollywood entertainment
-make their own fuel and electricity

Everything material I buy, consume and own regularly from toothbrushes to computers, from combs to coffee, and every service I use from medicine to transportation, requires a certain degree of manpower to make possible. Modern human living is still a team effort.

 

[RabbiO]

@Jonathan Bailey -

In 1783, when the Revolutionary War ended, the U.S. population was already somewhere around 3 million and by the time your beloved 1960s rolled around the population was over 200 million.