> But fewer people in future will mean it has more living space, more arable land per head, and a higher quality of life, says Eberstadt. Its demands on the planet for food and other resources will also lessen.<p>Different day, same Malthusian bullshit. These people can only think of humans as net negative parasites on the planet, rather than individual agents with a positive expected value to society. Density is GOOD — it leads to cross-pollination of ideas and the advancement of the world. Yes, the planet is on a path that will require us to eventually get smarter about resource consumption. Advocating fewer people on Earth is the most harmful & naive way to solve that problem.<p>If your life raft is sinking, do you try to patch it, or do you throw someone overboard? Your instinctual answer says a lot about the type of person you are.<p>[edit: I'd remove the last paragraph if it weren't intellectually dishonest to do so. I feel like it's causing people to miss my main point. It was written more out of anger than reason. Please ignore.]