One has been tackled. Birth rates around the world have been dropping for generations and every indication is that the trend is likely to continue. So congratulations!
Per-capita resource consumption in rich countries? Not so much.
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That’s a somewhat disingenuous reading of what I wrote. In any case, the argument is not about whether we should have more equality, but how we should go about that (or indeed what we mean). Simply equalising consumption is not a good thing to do.
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Nobody suggested equalizing consumption. The suggestion was a more equitable distribution of resources.
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Uhm, what is consumption if it isn’t the use of resources?
The way of life most people on the planet currently experience would utterly collapse if the world-wide population was reduced to under a billion.
Ah, now I see your second comment:
You’re just driving trollies here. Or really, really want to return the planet to resource precarious and disease ridden times.
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The ways poor people USE any additional resources allotted to them is less likely to be environmentally destructive than the ways rich people use additional resources allotted to them.
Heck, if more poor people had access to medical care a lot of them might even use it to get birth control.
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[citation needed] (because my understanding is exactly the opposite). Use of birth control is far more complex than simply availability. Sure, I’m a huge advocate of better availability, but let’s not delude ourselves that’s the only problem.
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That is absolutely correct—other factors include economic stability and education (basically, giving poor women other choices in life than sitting at home making babies). Which is even more reason we should encourage redistribution of resources down toward the poorest end of the bell curve.
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It describes every dictatorship. The idea that a select few have the highest quality of life at the expense of the majority of the population. Providing only the barest minimum for both personal need and to avoid revolution.
What Shuck said, and also, more teachers are quitting than are being trained, and the vast majority that are being trained don’t even stick with teaching for 5 years. Because most teachers could make more money doing almost anything else, and we all have at least a 4 year degree, so why not work somewhere that pays more, has better benefits, and more social prestige where you aren’t treated like poo all the time? (It’s the end of the school year, if you would like to know why teaching is great check back with me in September.)
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On the one hand, on generational time scales automation can likely overcome any labor shortage problems (and cause new ones in turn).
On the other hand, unless someone is going to propose genocide of most living humans, there’s no way to avoid eventual global civilization collapse without massive sustained investment in sustainable/clean/etc. technology development and infrastructure spending of some sort or other. Civilization’s capacity for such development increases with population (on the margins, at present, not in a Malthusian scenario). Moreover, for private investment, the value of an innovation depends on its market size, which increases with population.
So, what should I actually hope for, population-wise? On what timescale? Obviously we want to avoid Malthusian catastrophe, but I think there’s more than enough ambiguity and uncertainty in the arguments I’ve ever encountered regarding what ought to happen in the next 10-50 years to discount any firm claims.
As for the OP - truly overcoming the problems cited will take massive changes to the way we think about how the economy works, and I suspect eventually some form of UBI.
Not a joke, just my incipient Alzheimers, thanks for the link! 
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THIS. Seriously. Me a college dropout (mostly hey it was the 90s and I knew a specific bit of software) on my first full time proper job was making more than my mom who was teaching high school chemistry with 10+ years of doing it. That there is just wrong.
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So a net negative? Pics of DT can cause spontaneous abortions? 
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If the TGOP has its way, viewing a picture of DT may soon be the only way to get an abortion.
I don’t even have to look at a picture, just knowing he exists and is president is enough to put me off.
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Gotcha. Glad I read you right. With me being half Aspie, I never can be sure.
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My retirement plan is to fashion Wolverine style claws out of Taco Bell sporks.
On topic, both of my daughters (18 and 25) never intend to have children of their own, and I can’t blame them in the least. The fact they are both also gay means they will likely stick to that decision while avoiding accidental offspring.
Also, you can eat the rich (nods to dommerdoodle). Be sure to decide on a proper wine pairing in advance. I’m thinking a full-bodied red, if you’re having a Harvard man.
If you are saying society makes it possible for everyone to each consume as much as the 1%, I would say you are right; that’s not a good thing to do.
However, if society was to massively reduce the amount the 1% can consume/tie-up by draining off their wealth, and redirect it into the poorest communities allowing them to improve their lives, but not to the point where they are an equal drain as the 1% currently are on things, that would be a good thing to do.
$1,000 means a lot more to a poor family of four than it does to a single rich guy.
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No, no it wouldn’t. It would be the right size for the human population based human energy and resource consumption. 500 million people is more that enough to for the humanity and the earth to continue in relative balance.
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I’d be less inclined to describe that as “slightly different” and instead go for “foolish and racist”.
Firstly, this is the capital of Zimbabwe:
Note the lack of mud huts.
Secondly, the idea that sustainable existence requires global poverty is just plain wrong. It relies upon the assumption that current arrangements represent optimal efficiency, which is clearly false.
Which is why I said the problem is inequality, greed and waste.
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You silly goose! Everyone knows that correct data have an evolutionary just-so story involving whatever type of monkey exhibits behavior closest to what we think humans ought to; plus something about chins and ovulation to explain how they are an eternal truth written into the fabric of biology itself; but incorrect data are the product of feminism, cultural Marxism, feminist cultural Marxism; or cultural Marxist feminism. (Which is somehow strong enough to produce the behavioral distortion being deployed; despite the fact that you can’t argue with biology and the truths that are real truths aren’t just culural constructs.)
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