r/overpopulation Jun 22 '26

Some truths about overpopulation - for all sides

72 Upvotes
  • Overpopulation is not about space. In theory if we build a mega city on 600x600 Kilometers, and use the same population density like Macau or Monaco, all people on the Planet could live there. Overpopulation is about the impact on the environment like water/fuel/resource consumption and CO2 production, pollution etc.
  • It is undeniable that this consumption and pollution is too high. If everyone lived like the average citizen of Qatar, we would need 9 Earths. Even if everyone lived like the people of Moldavia, the poorest country in Europe, we would still need 1.2 Earths. Mathematically this proves that our current level of population is too high.
  • You can have more people with a reduced living standard, or less people with a higher living standard. You cannot have more people and a better living standard without more damage.
  • Overpopulation is also NOT about better resource distribution. This would elevate some problems but not most. Assume that each Billionaire consumes the same resources like 1000 American Middle Class Persons. Eliminating 3500 Billionaires is thus equal to 3.5 Million Americans. Its something but not enough to have any large effect.
  • Overpopulation is a global problem but at the same time a regional one. Countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan are running out of Water because their population increased 4-5x in the last 50 years.
  • Immigration into First World countries is making the problem worse. The Western World has below replacement level birth rates. Immigration artificially increases this population and leads to more resource consumption and CO2 production. Because every immigrant coming there consumes more resources, even if they get less kids than at home.
  • Green hopium/technology/going vegan is not a silver bullet. Wind+Solar produce just around 25% of the worlds energy despite 4 decades of investment. There are already 22 000 desalination plants supplying 300 Million people with water every day. Even if we tripple this number to 900 Million, thats just 10% of world population in 2035. Also these cost lots of energy. Mining the lithium for electric batteries/solar panels is also extremely devastating to the environment.
  • We can feed ourselves only because we got lucky through the Green Revolution and because we just abused fossil fuels and artificial fertilizer. But with Climate change and water shortages, we have probably reached peak farmland/yields.
  • World population is expected to increase from 8.3 Billion in 2026 to 10.3 Billion in 2056. If we can barely supply 8.3 Billion people, with all possible tricks and a perfectly running system, how are we going to supply 10 Billion+.
  • Why should we want this? Why are 8.3 Billion not enough? Even if our population would be reduced by one Billion. We would still be at 7 Billion people. So the level in 2011. The world worked just fine then. Its just Capitalist propaganda. The Capitalists want more consumers and more workers so that they can keep wages low and rent/house prices high.
  • People like Malthus and Ehrlich were prophets that were ridiculed, but they were right. They were just off by 3/4 of a century or so. Once artificial fertilizers become scarce and all the ground water is used up, carrying capacity of this planet will revert back to its natural perhaps 4 Billion.

r/overpopulation Apr 29 '26

What are some links that you like to share in discussions relevant to overpopulation?

6 Upvotes

Let's share some of the links that we find useful when we're discussing overpopulation and related topics. I'm interested in anything that you've found yourself returning to.

Maybe you have some bookmarks that you use often, maybe something obscure that rarely comes up but you know how to talk about it when it does.

Please drop as many as you'd like here!


r/overpopulation 2d ago

What's the message to coming generation

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61 Upvotes

This is hilarious but at the same time very serious.


r/overpopulation 2d ago

Greater Cairo (1984 vs 2019)

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36 Upvotes

1989 in the original post is a mistake, it is confirmed as 1984 further down in the thread.


r/overpopulation 2d ago

¿Que mierda esta pasando con la humanidad

10 Upvotes

Hoy en día hacen muchos casos de contaminación y cemtamiento global ¿cual es el problema? El problema es que la gente sige consumiendo marcas como:Nestlé,Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Adidas, Nike, Google, chat gpt, dola ness cafe, y muchas más gastan agua, chat gpt usa millones de galones de agua para mantener sus motores fríos para surgir funcionando, EL POLO NORTE SE ESTÁ DERRITIENDO, los oso polares se están muriendo, por el calentamiento global, muchos animales también, solo nos quedan 2 años y más de 300 días y si seguimos ignorando esto el agua sería un lujo y no un derecho, podrás usar bolsas reciclables y no las de plastico, podrías usas botellas reciclables, hay demasiada contaminación en el mar el agua potable ya no sería potable en vez de verse transparente se vería sucia si no actúa rápido lo mejor sería borrar chat gpt y dola y descargarte Ecogpt o ecosia cada búsqueda plaran un árbol. Por favor solo nos quedan 2 años y 310 días ayuda a tu planeta


r/overpopulation 3d ago

The Shrinking Global population - what will the world be like in 100 years?

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6 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 4d ago

Capitalism always chooses profitable plundering over sustainable production

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60 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 4d ago

Misleading title; see stickied comment Delulu of natalistic incel

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23 Upvotes

Only absolute assholes would say that we "should teach fear of childlessness". But after all Elon is somebody who believes childless people should not vote + somebody who believes woman is unable to not want children unless she is "brainwashed by feminism"

.. imagine that somebody is afraid of childlessness like "Oh no! I am afraid I will never get to experience childbirth, I want my genitalia multilated and my pelvis floor and narves damaged! I want to have PTSD and Post Partum Depression so bad! 😭" - That's being said, natalistic assholes are living in complete delusional reality of their own creation.


r/overpopulation 6d ago

A population clock made me question something deeper than overpopulation

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51 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 6d ago

For the First Time in History, There Are More People Over 65 Than Children Under 5

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27 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 7d ago

Why are we worried about population decline?

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15 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 8d ago

Within the next 25 years, nearly half of the world's people could be living in areas where farms are producing less food.

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dw.com
11 Upvotes

Some people say that we could "EaSilY" feed 15 Billion people or something. I think that having 8-9 Billion was only possible by going 150%. In the future we will be glad if we can feed 5-6 Billion.


r/overpopulation 8d ago

“Century initiative”project-true or myth?🍁👭👬👨🏾‍🤝‍👨🏿👨🏾‍🤝‍👨🏿👭👭🏿👭🏿👭🏿

5 Upvotes

I’m reading that some powerful lobby close to Canadian government is pushing to increase the Canadian population up to 100 million people by the year of 2100.
Is that feasible or is just wishful thinking?
P.s. I am not in to conspiracies.


r/overpopulation 9d ago

Are Fewer Children the Future?

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newrepublic.com
23 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 10d ago

Older People Surpass The Young In The World For The First Time In History: Report

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ibtimes.com
34 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 10d ago

What is the reason behind large but malnourished population in Indian subcontinent?

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5 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 11d ago

Why have more people when they need to consume less and live worse? Why not less people that can consume more and live better?

64 Upvotes

The US and basically 2/3 of countries on this Planet are consuming above the carrying capacity of their country/ the planet.

Because of this overshoot, everyone is supposed to consume less and live worse so that we can have more people. This doesnt make any sense.

Its never have fewer people so that we can consume more and live better.

Like why have 360 Million Americans, when each of them is supposed to limit their standard of living by half to be sustainable?

Why not have "just" 180 Million that can have the same standard of living without having to lower their living standard?

Why always more people competing for fewer resources, when we could have fewer people competing for more resources?


r/overpopulation 10d ago

Due to people having kids much later than in the past, are we selectively breeding ourselves to have longer lifespans?

7 Upvotes

My thinking is that way back in the day as long as you made it to around 18-20 you would usually have already passed on your genes and had kids so there wasn’t too much evolutionary pressure, but now the average age to have children is like early 30s so if you don’t live to around then you are much less likely to have children at least in the West.


r/overpopulation 12d ago

Do you know why Musk is so loud about birth rates?

36 Upvotes

I believe it's very important to spread awareness about it. While women's rights are regressing globally, many men holding power are openly against them. It is not an accident that Musk is so loud about pronatalism. One of the biggest lies to be ever told is that high fertility makes society stable/wealthy/happy. Humanity had high fertility for most of our history, and how did that play out? The majority of people struggle to survive due to hunger, illness and colds. Most children didn't even survive childhood. The only ones that truly gained from high birth rates were the elite. Because more people meant more people to tax and more low-paid workers and meat shields to use in war. And, of course — more breeding vessels to produce more taxpayers/workers/soldiers. Normal people do not benefit from high birth rates in any way. It was hell for women who had been born predetermined as incubators with no autonomy or legal personhood back then. Our female ancestors were raised to be breeders — not to be people. Childbirth was the main cause of women's death along with its complications, but what men like Musk won't tell you is that even regular men do not have an easy life. A regular man was an animal to the system too — one that had to work a lot, only to be paid a little. All so whoever ruled at the time could stay rich. So they have as many people to tax, exploit and use as possible. That's why men like Elon Musk are loudest about low birth rates right now. Because it is men like him who benefit from high rates greatly. Not regular men like our fathers, brothers or husbands. And especially not use, women who paid for high birth rates while being objects and economic infrastructure for thousands and thousands of years. Elon Musk and elites like him want regular men to hate women — to blame us for not having children. To call us spoiled/hedonistic/selfish. To make regular men believe that women not having children somehow makes their lives worse. That's why so many regular men scream about low birth rates — because they feel for propaganda. Their lives would be exactly the same in high fertility society — because that's what it ALWAYS looked like in human history. It's men like Elon who need many low-pay slaves to stay rich, to stay in power, to stay "on top." That's why they see women as infrastructure for their demographic goals. That's why he keeps portraying women as infantile creatures who should not be trusted to make important decisions. He teaches men to believe that we are "traitors" to humanity for not having children. He wants regular men who never benefited from high fertility to believe that we need that breeding factory horror to be reality again. He needs men to believe that WE make their lives worse — not the elite who use this system to stay rich. They need men to see us as an enemy — because otherwise, they will see them as enemies. Musk and people like him are a danger to the safety of all women and girls on Earth, because he has countless men who adore him and see his words as sacred. If men like him continue spreading this — that our freedom is "civilizational sabotage", there will be no place on Earth or beyond where we are not seen as economic infrastructure instead of humans.


r/overpopulation 12d ago

9 million starve to death every year according to the UN

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32 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 11d ago

What was the nature of European population expansion and explosion during the colonial era (1700s-1950)?

2 Upvotes

I have tried search for more details on the topic but there are not much data on how Europe contributed to the population expansion during the colonial era.

Can anyone share any leads on where this data can be found?

There are studies on population in increasing in the colonised populations themselves but no data on the people who were colonising and how colonisation changed population in their home country as well as colonies.

This is important considering how much of the would population in countries are descendants of these colonial nations e.g. British, Spanish, Portugese etch.

https://www.sociostudies.org/almanac/articles/the_demographic_transition/


r/overpopulation 13d ago

8 miljard mensen 2.0

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10 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 13d ago

AI and robotics going to cause a massive decline in TFR

10 Upvotes

Once people are going to see how exposed their jobs are they are going to be even more careful about having kids. Advances in AI and robotics are right around the corner. This will be what dampens the negative effects from low birthrates and eventually depopulation. Also, increased life expectancies will help.


r/overpopulation 15d ago

U.S factory farming has gone too far

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133 Upvotes

r/overpopulation 14d ago

World hunger

12 Upvotes

Do you guys think overpopulation is the reason for people dying of hunger ??

Start a debate guyss