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usefulcat • today at 5:16 PM • 0 replies • view on HN

> Blade Runner where Earth's population is declining because of off-world colonization and replicants are created for labor

The Expanse series (James SA Corey) makes a rather different prediction about the effects of plentiful (or at least mostly sufficient) food coupled with a decreased need for human labor.

In that story, in the future there are far more people than jobs (only on Earth--not so for off-world settlements). As a result, most Earthers are effectively on welfare, including many people who want to have a job. With little or nothing else to do, they start having more children, which results in the population of Earth increasing to ~30 billion.