Lets not crowd the Earth simply because we can...

After reading Wolf’s essay Population and Environment, I’d have to say that I most strongly identify with the Condorcet side of the Condorcet-Malthus debate on how to handle rising populations – and, in general, I agree with Wolf’s analysis of the debate overall. I should start by saying, however, that I don’t agree with Condorcet’s view that an increase in knowledge or scientific understanding will necessarily get us closer to approaching perfection. (I’m not one to believe in individual human perfection or perfection of the human species as a whole – my view here, I think, is commonly held, far less naïve, and not without plenty of support simply by the general absence of perfect beings – therefore I’m going to take this premise without further argumentation, though I’d be happy to hear any claims that can support the opposite.) I do, however, agree with Wolf/Condorcet’s conclusion that educating the poor and creating social and economic equality for woman (and in general) would be the best way to implement policies for fertility reduction. Concern for human development and education seems to be a more humane way to deal with population and fertility issues rather than waiting for a Malthusian "misery" in which overcrowded populations die out from starvation.

On the Malthus side, I don’t agree that helping the poor would necessarily increase the rate of reproduction, if only because I’m given no real reasons why that would be the case. It seems possible that Malthus might argue that helping the poor creates better conditions for reproduction – that well-off people are more likely to reproduce – but I’m not really sure I see how he fills in the logical jump. Why would it necessarily increase?

I agree with Malthus in that I think there is a carrying capacity for the amount of humans that can survive on earth. I do not, however, think it is stable (because of technological changes) nor do I think we should go anywhere near it. Debates about whether there really is a carrying capacity seem to stem from the view that the word “resource” is ambiguous and that therefore we could consider human rationality, ingenuity, and creativity as a resource, and that if humans kept reproducing we would keep gaining resources and thus not have a need for a carrying capacity. This, to me, is wrong. First, while human ingenuity is a resource it undoubtedly has limits and can’t grow infinitely. Overestimating the degree to which we can aggravate population problems and assume will be able to slip our way out of trouble over and over is imprudent and bound to fail. Second, there are some resources our ingenuity or creativity probably can’t find substitutes for such as space, oxygen, etc.