First off, special thanks to greenish & Roger K for offering an eloquent defense and added context for the ideas I was trying to convey.

RE; the "Luddite" charge, anyone who has followed my posts here or elsewhere knows I am no science-hating Luddite. Nor did I say I wanted "all technological advances stopped". That is a complete fabrication and strawman argument. Far from it, I am a champion of science, and am what the devoutly religious would probably describe as a "secular humanist". I believe (contrary to some regulars here) that nuclear power --along with renewables (solar, wind, wave, geothermal, etc.) can, and probably will, be ramped up to offset most of the decline in FFs... eventually. However, there will be very real costs and unintended consequences of that scale of ramp-up. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Heading Out, you seem to be conflating "technological progress" with "population increases", as though one cannot advance without the other. You also seem to subscribe to the common misperception that technology is the ONLY solution to the problems being caused by overpopulation: soaring food/NRG costs, environmental destruction, and resource depletion. I fundamentally disagree with this view.

I believe we can actually have *more*, not less, technological progress with fewer people than more. In fact, the pace of technological progress can actually *increase* when we are not desperately devoting most of our resources and R&D in a vain attempt to keep up with ever-increasing population growth. Take a look at the most technologically adavnced nations on earth right now. How many of them have a sharply rising population growth rate? No/flat population growth? Falling population growth? Now look at the population growth rates for the *least* advanced nations? See a pattern here?

I am strongly in favor of a higher QUALITY of life, not QUANTITY.