Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
The real problem, as always, is going to be making sure that all 9 or 10 billion humans get an appropriate amount of resources to ensure they live reasonably happy and healthy lives.
If we can't do that now, what makes you think we can do it when the population grows exponentially?

I think the real problem is that humans are really good at manipulating "hope", but we suck at factual risk-based analyses. Cognitive Dissonance seems to be a global phenomenon these days. It's not an effective coping mechanism for individuals, but it's even worse when entire nations have that mentality, and use it to make political decisions.