I keep coming back to Wendell Berry's question, "What are people FOR ?" If we don't ask, then why are we putting a population number on it?

Technology lowers the IQ points required to destroy the planet, as does higher populations. The question is, "Why are we trying to destroy the planet?"

The implied counterpoint is, "What aren't we doing to support the planet's systems?"

and finally, whether or not anyone is even asking because none of these questions fit the habits of profits or prophets.

The simplest things can illustrate the predicament. A human can contribute to the living world by urinating on a tree or walking around and feeding mosquitoes. Yet, civilization seeks a mosquito and urine-sanitized artifice that requires massive energy and poisons to maintain the illusion that our lives are not connected to the 'lower' animals.

Almost every analysis fails to seek low energy and low dollar response abilities for humans as part of Nature. We have enough knowledge to be better members of natural places than other animals, yet the ants and weeds outshine our 'brilliance' every day.

Now, we have artificial thinking machines to reinforce our devolved brains in tasks of selfish uselessness.

How lovely for the marketeers.