Would decreasing the population allow humanity to solve most of its problems.

Pollution, food shortages/distribution problems, unemployment, poverty.

Couldn't a decrease in population make it a lot easier to solve these problems?

For instance, the amount of farmland it takes to maintain livestock is much larger than the area it would take to feed the human race directly. However, this would put millions of people out of a job where there is already too many unemployed. If we had less people, then we could feed the population without putting people out of jobs.

yes

I think so myself,

But I think population equals labor force, military strength, cultural control.

Why would countries weaken themselves, and allow others to grow stronger.

There's also the issue of what the individual thinks he has the right to do.

Not saying it's impossible, but not easy problem to solve, I'm thinking.

. . .

Besides, perhaps it's not even as much of a problem as I think.

This is mostly a thought experiment. I don't think this is workable as a policy with today's technology or culture, I'm just wondering if there's an important piece I'm missing that would cause this to fail assuming it was supported.

Do you have a particular list of items in mind for the problems caused by an abundance of population?

Overexploitation of non-renewable resources is the main one. A lot of people worry about unemployment rising as automation eliminates more jobs. I haven't really researched this one, but a glance at unemployment rates over the last few decades would suggest that the stimulation of the economy is more corellated than it is to an overall trend of increased automation, so I'm not sure about this one. Deforestation is occurring in developing countries to support the agricultural needs of their growing populations.

I'm not sure that non-renewable resources, are a worry quite.

Only resources a human 'needs, I think is

Food, water, air, and shelter, and not currently at a threat to run out I'd say.

Though 'eventually they would be.

Employment, could be changed by policy.

Communism for example can have a low unemployment rate.

Or even a country such as America could pass laws making unemployment illegal.

(Though unethical)

And deforestation, while unpleasant, and capable of causing negative effects, can again be solved by policy, say if the first world bullied people in the third world to stop modernizing, and use the land as preserves. (Completely unethical)

Not that I'd want such solutions myself, just pointing out options other than decreasing the current population.

Joke link, bit related to conversation.

These are no longer the only resources our societies need to survive. In order to sustain our food distribution to population centers, to run our agricultural machines, to get people to and from their jobs every day, to generate electricity, we are reliant on oil and coal. We also have to be careful with climate change. As you can see from the Montreal Protocol, we are capable of destroying our climate, and capable of mobilizing to prevent its destruction.

I 'think we could find ways to do without oil and coal, though I'm not certain.

And true enough, we can destroy the climate of localized areas 'certainly, world at large as well I suppose.

Personally, I think the way to solve the problems, is to build communities where the needed solutions are set in place, and try to expand them, by showing that they can work.

Though I doubt it'll happen.

It all depends on who lives and who dies. Eliminating the good, motivated and ambitious people and keeping the entitlement minded, lazy, dishonest people wont solve anything.

Would China's One Child policy, be a case of 'intentional eugenics?

Not sarcasm, just curious of your view.

I'm not sure if I would categorize it as eugenics but it certainly didn't end up doing China any favors.

I stopped watching about 6 minutes in, but I did find one of the comments about the video funny.

Reminds me of Elysium (film 2013)

Some parts of life stay with time it seems.

Whether it's locusts or invading armies, the rulers and elites have their stockpiles and castles.

I forgot to skip to the good part,

Hahaha.

Preppers exist in many strata of society.

Well, essenitally, yes. But how would we ethically do that is the question? I think it's an important topic to explore, as you are correct, depopulation would solve a lot of problems, or at least slowing down the birth rate through ethical means. Any ideas?

The only solution I see is governmental force and an organization of 'rights different than the one's 'I like here in 2020 USA.

I'm not sure what the second part is, perhaps, you mean unequal rights? 

If those are the only two options, then one should just discard depopulation as an idea.

Perhaps not 'unequal, but the individual 'losing a lot of their rights.

Your theory has a fly in the soup. Considering all of the world's types of landmass [urban, arable, agricultural, forest, mountainous, desert, arctic, and if you restricted the current world population to living just on arable and agricultural land, and all other types were uninhabited, there would still be sufficient land to accommodate every man, woman and child with over one acre of land. That's not practical as an actual exercise, but it goes to show that there is enough and to spare of Earth's resources to accommodate all of us without decreasing our population. We can solve food shortages/distribution by correcting the latter of that combined problem. Sufficient food is not the problem, but our poor distribution of it is. Sufficient land is not a problem; our poor distribution of its uses is the problem. Poverty isn't the problem, but the lack of ambition, planning, and execution is is.  Unemployment isn't the problem, but lack of the same principles solving poverty is. Why isn't there, yet, an aqueduct from the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi directed to the Southwest? That would provide water to that arid region, and solve the problem of repeated flooding further downstream. Distribution. Why don't we build cheap desalinization plants along our ocean shores, It's a easy as collecting condensation from trapped evaporation. Not a costly process. But we don't.