re: #579 wheatdogg

Here’s some population density data from Wikipedia.

Australia: 3 people/sq-km
Canada: 4
USA: 34
China: 141
India: 382

The thought-experiment would almost be valid if every country in the world had a population density at or below the USA’s. But, facts is facts.

The relevant measure is the world population density as a whole, not the densities of individual countries. That number (52 when you leave out Antarctica) is greater than the U.S. population density (34), but not enough to make a serious difference in the original “argument”, which after all is that you could fit everybody in the U.S. into Plymouth, Massachusetts. It hardly makes a difference to instead assume a population that could fit into 1 and a half Plymouths.

The real problem with the argument lies elsewhere, as allegro has pointed out.