It actually is considering that the root cause of our environmental problems is human activity and that billions of people are still poor.
For instance, when we're told we need to eat less meat, we'll it's not so much that meat production is a problem, it's that meat production for billions of people is a problem.
So all the constraining measures we're seeing either being suggested or enforced "for the environment/climate" are constraints to fit so many people on the planet.
Similarly, there are groups who encourage people to go vegetarian or vegan for the climate, which makes some sense, but considering how few people do so long-term we might be better served by encouraging people to treat beef, dairy, etc. as a treat (or at least not something you need 365 days a year) than forgoing these things completely.
For what it's worth, I would be delighted to live on a planet of 10 billion people who have found a way to live in a way that can persist for millenia, but we don't seem to have done so. Although, living in a well-insulated flat made with renewably-grown timber (a great carbon sink!) walking and biking distance from all of my daily needs where my meagre energy needs are met with 100% renewable energy (when I lived in San Diego I worked from home and our apartment's average load was 100 Watts so this can be done!) on a mostly-vegan diet and working 20 hours per week or less sounds pretty nice to me.
I haven't said anything about "the wrong kind of people having babies" and have been pro-immigration in another comment so I don't see how this has anything to do with what I said.
Would 15 billion people be too many? 20 billion? Are we to imagine that Earth could support an infinite number of people? Because that seems like magical thinking to me. Though a different lifestyle (vegan, low energy consumption, etc.) would probably allow the current number to get by fine.
The world can sustain the current number of people many times over in terms of food supply. Indeed based on sustainable (vegetarian/vegan) food.
Talking about how many people can be sustained by earth is talking about the wrong thing. It only leads and HAS only lead to the eugenetics part. Because it's always poor people in different countries who gets sterilised.
The real topic is that capitalism and consumerism is 100% unsustainable, right from the start. That is the real debate to be had. That this world is not about human well-being and happyness, but about GDP and growth, making a tiny number of people wealthy at the expense and misery of the majority.
Unfortunately this site - Hacker News - and everything related to it, Ycombinator, Paul Graham, is only fueling the capitalist game.
If we must all become vegeterian/vegan then to me that proves that the planet is currently overpopulated. In my view a sustainable population level is one that does not require drastic measures because ultimately we want the best quality of life we can have and not live like in a dystopian movie.
Going vegetarian/vegan is about the environment, not about the number of people. Even with half of the world population, meat-based diets are unsustainable.
Why do people insist on making this an eugenics talking point?
I still don't see how my comment specifically relating to reductions in the birth rate in the US (a rich country) perhaps becoming a trend for all humans is remotely similar to sterilizing poor people in different countries.
> and gradually find equilibrium at a more sustainable population.
You talk about "sustainable population", there's nothing not to understand about this. Sustainable implies it's now unsustainable, but that notion isn't true.
