Civilization and Its Discontents?  

You seem to be expressing a profound distaste for vast numbers of your fellow human beings.  Are you a fan of Arne Naess and the Deep Ecology concept of 'humanity as a global disease'?

Population trends suggest that the global load of Human Beans may level off between 9 and 10 billion in the latter half of the century.  Technically, we can already produce enough calories to feed that many people, and technically, we already have enough known resources of the Top 10 industrial metals to support them at modern levels of technology.  This is a vast advance over assumptions of Dearth, Deprivation, and Decline that were popularized only 20 or 30 years ago.  The key to maintaining the run will be a supply of abundant cheap energy - and the Stanford engineers can already see ways forward that don't include mostly fossil fuel energy.  That ought to cheer you a *little* bit, I should hope.

Thanks for the convo; it's been interesting.