Molson Hart

Hypothetically, would it be better to triple the number of humans to have the resources to build sustainable technology to save the planet, or would it be better to cap/limit the number humans in order to slow the damage we are doing? Discuss

If you triple the number of humans, you triple the number of @elonmusk's. Not all humans are created equal both in their potential to be Elon Musk and their carbon emissions. For example, most of the world's young are in poor education, low-carbon emission Africa.

The limitation is that were not tripling the resources on Earth. Everybody would have less because resources would be more scarce. Maybe Tesla would not have gotten the support it has in this alternate reality. When you mess with parameters, you get unintended results.

Agree with your point re: unintended consequences. If the extra 14 billion people weren't airdropped on us tomorrow and instead were slowly introduced proportionate to our current geographical population density, we'd be fine. For example, if USA had China's pop density...

Yeah we'd need lots of concrete to build adequate megacities to house people and energy to power homes/businesses/industry. We'd definitely need to start changing the way we live. Not sure if we can support this population in the long term with current tech.

Depends on many variables. At the density of Manhattan we could fit 21 billion in the country of Turkey (313,000 square miles) or, roughly, Texas plus Lousiana. It's worth noting that a lot of manhattan's buildings are commercial and for people who don't live there full time.

Would need to rapidly expand infrastructure and services then. Housing is probably the least complex if in the case everyone is happy living in an apartment. Need trains, busses, hospitals, shops, etc