Is overpopulation and the human breeding the root of all evil on the planet ?

[Person Man]

It is annoying to have to wait in lines, though.

With the population beginning to stabilize and probably stabilizing at 10-11 billion by the end of how long I can reasonably expect to live, I expect technology will allow us to support increased standards of living and a stabilizing ecosystem.

Good policies and better engineering and basic research should be enough. Environmental policies work and as long as there is money going to education and research, I'm optimistic.  If not, I expect things to "sort themselves out".

[Person Man]

Agree with Simfan and Dead0. Malthusianism is idiotic.

Malthusianism would be correct if our engineering and policy capabilities do not adapt fast enough to allow more people to have more stuff without hurting our ability to do those things more so in the future. Its not just about absolute deprivation but relative deprivation as well. I'd imagine if that wasn't the case, the president would be a Republican and have a 70% approval rating right now.

[Person Man]

While a global population of five, six, seven (or whatever) billion is sustainable today (and quite easily: the problem of famine in the modern world is a problem of distribution), a global population of that sort of size in 1314 would not have been. Malthus was fundamentally wrong about several things, but what turned him into the laughing stock of later centuries was one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of agriculture (i.e. the introduction of fodder crops) rather than a flaw in his reasoning. Essentially, his thesis was overtaken - and rendered absurd - by events. Previous population expansions in Europe had generally ended famine. And even today there are parts of the world that are clearly 'overpopulated'.

Having said all that, the answer to the question is obviously a resounding no. Contrary to popular belief, wars are rarely fought for basic material resources, and the worst atrocities almost never. To say nothing of the heinous actions of random individuals on other individuals. Rape is not caused by overpopulation.

More or less this.

Note that the countries that have the highest birth rates aren't necessarily the same countries as those with unsustainable patterns of consumption (which could be addressed, in part, by policies that promoted human need rather than economic growth-but that's some Utopian nonsense apparently...)

In other words, Nix, Bacon King, and Al are right.

The key is economic growth and population growth and the goal is to make sure what is impossible today is what is the status quo 50 years from now.

[Person Man]

What Nix said. It's not the "root of all evil", duh, but just going "lol malthus" is not actually an answer, and certainly not any sort of answer that is conscious of basic science.

And of population history prior to the agricultural breakthroughs of recent centuries...

Yeah.  We've managed to massively up our planet's carrying capacity through better farming techniques and stuff like petroleum-based fertilizer... but that doesn't mean we've negated the concept of carrying capacity, not any more than the Wright Brothers repealed the laws of gravity.

And of course those petro fertilizers won't last forever.

And, even if they did, there's the danger of desertification, sea level rise, aquifer depletion, etc. clawing back many of our gains even in the absence of an energy crunch...

There are probably ways of stretching resources even further that we haven't implemented yet. The problem is if we reach our current carrying capacity without raising it. (sound like a familiar issue?)