Executive summary: Scaling down humans to half their current median height over 300 years could have immense benefits for resource abundance, animal welfare, global poverty, and climate change, making it a promising new cause area to explore.
Trillions of farmed animals could be spared from suffering due to reduced meat consumption.
Increased resource efficiency and land availability could help tackle global poverty and climate change.
Scaling down should be done incrementally over a few generations to avoid friction and allow infrastructure to adapt.
Research into the science of scaling humans down and advocacy for this cause are recommended next steps.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Scaling down humans to half their current median height over 300 years could have immense benefits for resource abundance, animal welfare, global poverty, and climate change, making it a promising new cause area to explore.
Key points:
Shorter humans would require fewer resources (food, space, materials), effectively “doubling” resource abundance.
Trillions of farmed animals could be spared from suffering due to reduced meat consumption.
Increased resource efficiency and land availability could help tackle global poverty and climate change.
Scaling down should be done incrementally over a few generations to avoid friction and allow infrastructure to adapt.
Research into the science of scaling humans down and advocacy for this cause are recommended next steps.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.