Global Population and Resource Sustainability

But in one way or another,

we are so far, globally,

we are so far above the population and the consumption levels,

which can be supported by this planet, that I know in one way or another,

it's going to come back down. So I don't hope to avoid that.

I hope that it can occur in

a civil way. And I mean civil

in a special way, peaceful.

Peace doesn't mean that everybody's happy,

but it means that conflict isn't solved through violence,

through force, but rather in other ways.

And so that's what I hope for,

that we can,

I mean, the planet can support something like

a billion people,

maybe two billion, depending on how

much liberty and how much material consumption you want to have.

If you want more liberty and more consumption, you have to have fewer people.

And conversely, you can have more people.

I mean, we could even have eight or nine billion, probably,

if we have a very strong dictatorship, which is

smart. Unfortunately, you never have smart dictatorships. They're always stupid.

But if you had a smart dictatorship and a low standard of living, you could have it.

But we want to have freedom, and we want to have a high sentence,

so we're going to have a

billion people. And we're now at seven, so we have to get back down.

I hope that this can be slow, relatively slow, and that it can be done in

a way which is relatively equal,

so that people share

the experience and you don't have a few rich

trying to force everybody else to deal with it. Those are my hopes.

I mean, these are pretty pessimistic hopes. But that's.