Doesn't matter, past is past and technology has brought changes both positive and negative to production, then there is the factor as population increases they require space that is taken away from ability to produce food, so the issue is also one of compounding. The Earth has the ability to sustain half a billion humans as hunter gatherers, that was the stable world population until we became an agrarian society then it went up to 1BB and stayed there as we developed into a technological society. We finally came into fruition as a technological species in the mid 1800s with the what I consider the 2 defining moments, the steam engine and the small pox vaccine. When these two factors came into play, we were then solidly and forever a technological society.
These 2 factors acted symbiotically to grow the population through increased food yield and reduction of childhood deaths and both technologies have grown simultaneously, and gene splicing technology is a natural progression in these regards, growing the population.
However one factor in all this we have been ignoring is the fresh water required for sustained growth. We are already stressing nature's ability to supply, which appears to be around 7BB people's needs and are in deficit. We need to apply the same technological innovation on this front as we do on medicine or food production, but we don't; the reason we don't is because it will reduce profits if we do it one way, or it is too expensive if we do it the other, either way, there is no profit in it yet. In 10 years there will be, and then we will choose the expensive energy wasteful method because it is the quickest to implement and show a profit by the end of the quarter, the consumer will pay, they have to; but they won't be able to, and the revolution will begin.
By arguing every argument on the wrong points, we stay on our path. We need to look for the root cause of the issues and eliminate them.