[freebeard]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Because that's a fairly common ballpark estimate of the population which the Earth can sustain, while allowing everyone a fairly decent standard of living. If you have a better one, I'll listen.

Thanks for asking. 'Fairly decent' prolly equal to a Western middle-class oil-supported standard.

Bucky Fuller's Design Science Revolution:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_science_revolution

He wrote that humanity was approaching its critical test as a species, in which it would be determined whether or not man was a mistake of nature, or its greatest accomplishment. This sense of urgency for the design science revolution was reflected in numerous writings:

"The Dark Ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear. This prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built of misinformation. We are powerfully imprisoned ... by the terms in which we have been conditioned to think."[3]

"There is now plenty for all. War is obsolete. It is imperative that we get the word to all humanity — RUSH — before someone ignorantly pushes the button that provokes pushing of all the buttons."[4]

Fuller insisted that the key principle of the design science revolution was to recognize nature as technology:

"In its complexities of design integrity, the Universe is technology. The technology evolved by man is thus far amateurish compared to the elegance of nonhumanly contrived regeneration. Man does not spontaneously recognize technology other than his own, so he speaks of the rest as something he ignorantly calls nature."[5]

He stressed that by utilizing these natural principles of technology, industrial civilization could transform from an extractive to a regenerative force within the context of Earth's ecosystems. Operationally, he viewed design science as the integration of natural principles within the utilization of planetary resources to achieve ever-increasing ephemeralization: