Well, i originally wanted to make this RD, (edit: i did anyway, read on 
).
The question is what sort of size an 'ideal' human society would have.
It is my view that part of the problems with humanity is that the earth is way too massive next to humans (unless we are some sort of feeding ground using a matrix
).
Reading works created in the 1940s (eg Exuperry's "The land of men") i note that the global population at the time (merely 70 years ago) was estimated to be around 2 billion people. Now it is around 4 times that.
Aristotle had claimed that an ideal Polis (city-state) should be little over 10K people, but he had in mind a far more politically active community in a very direct way taking part in common matters. Classical Athens had (according to estimates) up to half a million people (obviously not all citizens of Athens) in the era of the Delian League.
-I tend to think that maybe if the world was much smaller (or much less of it used anyway), a bit like an average Euro country, it would still in theory function with up to 50 million people. It would be a utopia, obviously (as in a topos/place which cannot exist), but maybe 50 million people in peace could even produce a better level for all. The current level of misery all around the planet (and moreso in places of pretty much endless war) is not really allowing the optimism that it will be replaced in the future with anything considerably better.
Please do note that this thread is in the spirit of a hypothesis. It in no way urges you to think about an actual development of our own world to one where the new society would be manifested. The scope of the thread is not about global over-population anymore than the scope of a science fiction novel is about promoting a newly-founded theory; science serves as the backdrop, and here global erosion serves as the urging to dream of a better state.
).
The question is what sort of size an 'ideal' human society would have.
It is my view that part of the problems with humanity is that the earth is way too massive next to humans (unless we are some sort of feeding ground using a matrix
).Reading works created in the 1940s (eg Exuperry's "The land of men") i note that the global population at the time (merely 70 years ago) was estimated to be around 2 billion people. Now it is around 4 times that.
Aristotle had claimed that an ideal Polis (city-state) should be little over 10K people, but he had in mind a far more politically active community in a very direct way taking part in common matters. Classical Athens had (according to estimates) up to half a million people (obviously not all citizens of Athens) in the era of the Delian League.
-I tend to think that maybe if the world was much smaller (or much less of it used anyway), a bit like an average Euro country, it would still in theory function with up to 50 million people. It would be a utopia, obviously (as in a topos/place which cannot exist), but maybe 50 million people in peace could even produce a better level for all. The current level of misery all around the planet (and moreso in places of pretty much endless war) is not really allowing the optimism that it will be replaced in the future with anything considerably better.
Please do note that this thread is in the spirit of a hypothesis. It in no way urges you to think about an actual development of our own world to one where the new society would be manifested. The scope of the thread is not about global over-population anymore than the scope of a science fiction novel is about promoting a newly-founded theory; science serves as the backdrop, and here global erosion serves as the urging to dream of a better state.
