Somewhat related: this Scott comment on his Substack, in response to a reader asking “wouldn’t it be a valid longtermist goal to bring human numbers in alignment with sustainability” (which sounds to me like it’s advocating for reducing the population somehow):
I think there’s a division on whether we should be funding decreased population (to solve the environmental crisis) or increased population (to solve the fertility collapse / economic crisis).
I tend to think there is no environmental crisis related to overpopulation, in the sense that there are no current famines not related to political issues (ie we can grow the food and transport the food when warlords don’t prevent us from distributing it), plus the history of things like the Simon-Ehrlich wager, plus the fact that non-immigrant population is set to decline on its own everywhere except Africa, and Africa is expected to stabilize soon. I’m also concerned that “fight overpopulation charities” have a really scary history (see https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/galton-ehrlich-buck ) that makes me want to run away screaming.
So I’m not currently funding any population-reduction charities in particular, although I am funding some more generic environmental/sustainability projects. I haven’t funded any increase-population-charities yet either, mostly because I haven’t found ones I like, although some of the IVG related charities I fund might do that as a side effect.
Somewhat related: this Scott comment on his Substack, in response to a reader asking “wouldn’t it be a valid longtermist goal to bring human numbers in alignment with sustainability” (which sounds to me like it’s advocating for reducing the population somehow):