The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year’s Day it will stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.
The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1%. At the start of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau figures.
The growth rate for the United States in the past year was 0.53%, about half the worldwide figure. The U.S. added 1.7 million people and will have a population on New Year’s Day of 335.8 million people.
If you want the population to decline, then there has to be some kind of filter for who gets to live or reproduce. Even if it’s 100% random with no racial/religious/whatever bias involved, you must still remove a significant chunk of people, or at least cause them not to reproduce. That’s the best case scenario. Even trying it is almost asking for someone to co-opt it for their fascist goals; it almost certainly won’t be 100% random, and bias towards specific populations will occur. It almost certainly will devolve into eugenics.
The Earth can support this many people. We know how. What it can’t do is support it with utility monster billionaires around.