Re: Homo sapien or Homo plumbeus?
"So all we need to do is come up with a technology that allows us to screw with gay abandon (or rather, with heterosexual abandon) without having lots of children as a result. That technology was developed in the 1960s, in the form of a pill - perhaps the most important invention in history, and so important it is simply called 'the' pill."
That's assuming (1) women are willing to take the pill, which may not be culturally acceptable and (2) evolution doesn't find a way to subvert the subversion. Some women have become pregnant even with the pill.
"Wherever the pill is available, and women are moderately well educated, to the point of being able to make rational choices rather than be browbeaten by the agents of superstitions exported from the bronze age, fertility rates are below replacement levels. This situation is so widespread that, even with demographic lag, we can expect population to stabilise in the next few decades at around the 10billion mark - well within the carrying capacity of the planet."
I wonder if that's less to do with the pill and more to do with women's lib which makes women voluntarily forgo sex for careers and such. Is there a way to separate the two? Furthermore, where's the evidence that 10 billion humans is still a sustainable population, especially as people seek higher technological levels which increase the per-human total costs of living?