More population stuff

Some people are suggesting our standard of living might be higher with less people:

So the Malthusian logic that says that higher levels of population is a disaster no longer applies. But I’m still not at all convinced that the reverse logic that says that lower levels of population is a disaster does apply. True, lower population will lead to lower measured GDP, but the relevant issue is GDP per capita. We’ve moved away from a strictly resource-based economy, but resources are still pretty darn important. If Canada had only 30,000 inhabitants instead of 30,000,000 citizens, then it seems to me that those 30,000 Canadians could be fabulously wealthy. Conversely, if Alaska had as many inhabitants as California, then Alaskan oil revenues wouldn’t be nearly the boon that they currently are. And if the United States had 200 million citizens instead of 300 million, surely our commute times would be much shorter and patterns of residency would be more driven by where there’s demand for workers and less by where there’s affordable housing.

Also, if their were less people we probably would not have issues with climate change, and if you believe that the wars we are fighting are at least partially about resources(I happen to think they are all about resources) we would probably not be embroiled in so many conflicts.