Thanks for the update. We've been trying to kill the world for centuries, why stop now?

That's some dark stuff, Dan.

It's the age of the dead-enders.

Those wales used to be good hunting. Should we just go back to that?

@4:

I doubt people living in Cardiff and thereabouts would take too kindly to that.

Eh, forget about all this and take a lovely LGBTQ-friendly honeymoon with Delta Airlines!

Threat from ancient microbes is minimal - we haven't been able to develop immunities to them, but they also haven't been able to develop immunities to antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, etc. The bigger threat is still novel mutations of existing microbes that make them resistant to both our immune defenses and the drugs we've developed to aid immune response.

We still do have vastly too many people. I keep wishing the homophobes were right and the only thing preventing nearly everyone from opting for gay sex over straight sex was laws and social norms condemning queerness. We could solve many human problems (except tribalism, though less resource competition would reduce the pressure) if we achieved and maintained half net replacement rate reproduction rates for the next fifty years, dropping the global population down to around 1 billion. This is about what it was in 1800, and around half of the global surface area was curated by humans to suit our needs at that time, with the other half still 'wild' i.e. primarily inhabited and curated by non-human species (do we really need our species to dominate the planet's ENTIRE surface?). With increased urbanization and advanced technologies, we could likely leave much greater swaths of the planet 'wild' than in 1800 and still supply everyone with a very good standard of living in a much more sustainable way (realistically, we could do much better than we are now with the current population, and populations above 1 billion are also sustainable; I just don't see why anyone thinks more and more people is in any way an inherently desirable thing now that human labor can be massively amplified and in some cases completely replaced by automated systems).

@6 FTW

sounds more like those fucking whales are eating our stuff again.

This is the truth. The planet needs a massive decrease in human population accompanied by restoration of large portions of the planet to as wild a state as possible. The only question is if it will be planned or unplanned.

Are all those people moving to Seattle?

@10:

At the rate we're going I'd characterize it as an "unplanned plan". It's not like we aren't aware of what we're doing, it's just that too many of us don't seem to give a shit, presumably because we'll be dead before things get really bad, so it won't be our problem to deal with by then.

@12 true. Population growth control is, unfortunately, a taboo subject.

Articles like this don't help when they don't even mention the option of having 0 or 1 children.

Check out E.O. Wilson's "Half Earth" project. https://eowilsonfoundation.org/

@7,10 -- The "Georgia Guidestones" recommend a world human population of 100,000,000.

But maybe somewhere between 100 million and a Billion is a good compromise.

Now about how to get there... hmmm...

I propose a progressive but drastic change to the entire climate, which would curtail food production, and would be followed by various local wars over key resources like water and salt. Half way through we should definitely see about summoning a "Carrington Class" solar flare event to knock out all our electric/electronic infrastructure (like the near-miss in 2012), which should definitely help things along. Then once we're all on our knees, we could add some airborne communicable diseases, perhaps mutated by mixing their DNA with ancient viruses & bacteria, and amped up by failing waste management plants, and then lard on a general complex chemical pollution toxicity level, with maybe some radioactive isotopes scattered gently into the mix. Stir thoroughly, flood coastal cities, and bake for 5000 years at about 37 degrees C.

@13 - Not to the Chinese it's not.

..And now Steven Hawking is opining that we have only 100 years left on Earth. *pout*

So get to colonizing other solar systems, people!

The Deep State would get to population control a lot easier by throwing out free IUD's and encouraging all bisexuals to just be gay already.

@19
Because the thought of being held culpable is the only reason to care. Right.
What a sad little world you live in.

So obviously I did this planet and everyone of us just lucky enough to be here a big favor by remaining childless. Thanks, Dan. I have been trying to keep my ecological footprint as small as possible for the sake of future generations.