Outside a train station near Tokyo, hundreds of people cheer as Sohei Kamiya, head of the surging nationalist party Sanseito, criticizes Japan’s rapidly growing foreign population.
As opponents, separated by uniformed police and bodyguards, accuse him of racism, Kamiya shouts back, saying he is only talking common sense.
Sanseito, while still a minor party, made big gains in July’s parliamentary election, and Kamiya’s “Japanese First” platform of anti-globalism, anti-immigration and anti-liberalism is gaining broader traction ahead of a ruling party vote Saturday that will choose the likely next prime minister.
I’m not sure how many people Earth will hold in the future, but we can look at historical data. Source
We know that worldwide human population was around 300 million for most of the medieval age (500 AD to 1500 AD). That was sustainable, i.e. people lived like that for a thousand years without incurring some ecological catastrophe. I’m not sure whether it’s needed to return to these numbers, but it’s certainly possible.
Is it possible there wasn’t much census data between 500 AD and 1500 AD in the regions we’re seeing a big explosion of people?
There’s indeed not much data for the medieval age, at least not in Europe, but we know data from the roman empire and the modern age, and we can interpolate what happened in the thousand years between.