Hi Joshua. Great analysis. I also like to add an extra dimension to this question. Nothing wrong with this, but discussions like yours focus upon the impact upon individual humans and their well-being. And death is often mentioned, which of course is very frightening. From a spiritual perspective, I assume that we both believe in an afterlife, in which case death is not really such a big deal; it’s just part of the nature of the cosmos.

More importantly, if we believe that the Earth is a superorganism, along the lines of Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, then perhaps the question might become, what is the optimum population from the point of view of the planet, or even from the point of view of the universe? Perhaps we need more people in order to increase the consciousness, the brain capacity of Gaia, even if some of them die unnecessarily, or don’t always get enough to eat.

I hope this doesn’t sound too crazy. Do you have any thoughts about this?