18 replies to this topic

[Medical Time Travel]

Everyone interested in immortality and global catastrophic risks should be working for Optimal Population Trust

http://www.optimumpo.../opt.media.html

We are already too many people on earth.

Edited by Medical Time Travel, 16 January 2010 - 03:47 AM.

[orion602]

We are already too many people on earth.

time to move beyond Earth and colonize space
what number is too many? it depends on technology and utilization of resources. I can imagine planet of the future with billions more people living in just couple of gigantic megacities and with 75%+ of the surface being wilderness, as well as a planet with most of the biosphere destroyed supporting far less people than now.
maybe the problem is that there are too many uneducated people.

in any case one planet is not enough.
just as Stephen Hawking and others suggested: "The human race must move to a planet beyond our Solar System to protect the future of the species"
even limited population living in paradise-like conditions won't help much as 99.9% of all the species that ever evolved on Earth are already extinct.[replaced]

[EmbraceUnity]

I am definitely in favor of non-coercive methods to control population, especially in the developing world where overpopulation is causing so many problems. Providing condoms, sex education, and so forth is all great. However, there are other more indirect methods.

People often comment about the correlation between education, especially education of women, and low fertility rates. It is speculated from a feminist perspective that educated women see more opportunity in life, feel less pressured to submit to men, etc, thus leading to lower birthrates. While I think there is something to this, there are almost certainly other reasons for the correlation.

Universal and compulsory education is considered a hallmark of "modernity" and thus demographers like looking at other modern systems like the Soviet Union to see if the same things apply. Being influenced by communism, the Soviet Union also had universal and compulsory education. Before the communist revolution, tsarist Russia had almost the exact same population level and fertility rate as India. Yet, today Russia had just over 200 million people, whereas India has over a billion. One might think, considering all the hardships that the Russian people have endured, that the disparity is a result of war, famine, stalinist purges, and so forth. However, this ignores the exponential nature of fertility rates.

Even considering all of what demographers would consider "excess deaths" the population of Russia today, had their tsarist-era fertility rates remained, would be over 900 million. (see: Farm to Factory)

Thus, their more manageable population levels can be credited to their fertility rates, which in turn could be credited to "modernity." This is ironic considering they thought the more communist babies the better, and even gave out Mother Hero medals to mothers who had more than 10 children... and similar incentives and media frenzies occurred in the US as well as the Axis powers.

Yet, was it really education that caused the low fertility rates?

Under capitalism, universal education could be considered to go hand in hand with the abolition of child labor. Both policies take children out of the labor pool, and thus there is no immediate financial incentive for having children. Under communism, while universal education and child labor laws both existed, it seems that these would have absolutely no effect on the financial incentives. Communism itself already obliterates financial incentives of virtually every kind. While counterfactuals are by definition impossible to prove, I would venture to guess that a communist country would have the same low birthrates regardless of universal education or child labor laws... even though no such country has ever existed.

Knowing that it is the removal of the financial incentives of child labor which contributes to low fertility rates is great, but it doesn't tell us how we can go about doing that. It is easy to say, "lets have universal education and abolish child labor in Africa," but that is far easier said than done. Perhaps there are methods that are easier to enforce. Furthermore, compulsory education can be rather tyrannical anyways, and I prefer more student-centered education.

Nevertheless, the population crisis is urgent in the developing world, and it must be solved by removing the financial incentive for child birth. It all is interrelated, and the need for child labor is less when poverty is less. Even disease can affect it since disease and poverty can form vicious cycles, and in what amounts to one of the ultimate cosmic cruelties... the more devastated a region is the higher the fertility rates go. So any solution would need to combat many aspects of the problem. Yet - and perhaps this is just my economics bias showing through - I hope that people do not ignore the financial incentives.

Edited by progressive, 16 January 2010 - 11:29 PM.

[Cameron]

As I've said in the past, some form of forced method of population control is necessary. A group religious or otherwise could easily take advantage of low-birth rates and generate more indoctrinated|brainwashed voters in favor of whatever causes they favor. In a democracy groups who exert excessive reproduction will in a few short generations eclipse all others and thus take all political power from all opposition. Unless one forces such to leave the planet, or limits reproduction, there will be more citizens of whatever group reproduces the fastest(which may not be the more rational one.).

A second eventuality is the fact that with advanced enough technology we simply don't need most of the work force. So people have no work to do and must be maintained by the state. Clearly resources are limited, and once again we cannot allow groups with unnaturally robust reproductive lifestyles to usurp most of the planet's resources.

[mike250]

We don't have too many, we have too few people on this earth. Imagine a world where everyone could potentially have a personal, exclusive doctor, personal tutor for their children, personal tech support, hell, even a family geneticist whose only job is to examine a single family's genetic makeup to look for potential issues. That can only happen with more people.

but it seems 'population control' nutters are popping up more these days and we have some of our own on this board

[VictorBjoerk]

IMO the last thing the world needs is children, what the world need instead is people who start to value the lives of currently living people. Also even if resources are available to feed and create more children, what about wildlife? having enormous uninhabited areas for outdoor life and national parks is a very good thing. forget the 2.1 children each thing, zero deaths (which is the only acceptable number) must mean zero kids or eventual ecological breakdown.

When interstellar travel has been shown feasible it's of course a whole other story.

[SiliconAnimation]

I am definitely in favor of non-coercive methods to control population, especially in the developing world where overpopulation is causing so many problems. Providing condoms, sex education, and so forth is all great. However, there are other more indirect methods.

People often comment about the correlation between education, especially education of women, and low fertility rates. It is speculated from a feminist perspective that educated women see more opportunity in life, feel less pressured to submit to men, etc, thus leading to lower birthrates. While I think there is something to this, there are almost certainly other reasons for the correlation.

Universal and compulsory education is considered a hallmark of "modernity" and thus demographers like looking at other modern systems like the Soviet Union to see if the same things apply. Being influenced by communism, the Soviet Union also had universal and compulsory education. Before the communist revolution, tsarist Russia had almost the exact same population level and fertility rate as India. Yet, today Russia had just over 200 million people, whereas India has over a billion. One might think, considering all the hardships that the Russian people have endured, that the disparity is a result of war, famine, stalinist purges, and so forth. However, this ignores the exponential nature of fertility rates.

Even considering all of what demographers would consider "excess deaths" the population of Russia today, had their tsarist-era fertility rates remained, would be over 900 million. (see: Farm to Factory)

Thus, their more manageable population levels can be credited to their fertility rates, which in turn could be credited to "modernity." This is ironic considering they thought the more communist babies the better, and even gave out Mother Hero medals to mothers who had more than 10 children... and similar incentives and media frenzies occurred in the US as well as the Axis powers.

Yet, was it really education that caused the low fertility rates?

Under capitalism, universal education could be considered to go hand in hand with the abolition of child labor. Both policies take children out of the labor pool, and thus there is no immediate financial incentive for having children. Under communism, while universal education and child labor laws both existed, it seems that these would have absolutely no effect on the financial incentives. Communism itself already obliterates financial incentives of virtually every kind. While counterfactuals are by definition impossible to prove, I would venture to guess that a communist country would have the same low birthrates regardless of universal education or child labor laws... even though no such country has ever existed.

Knowing that it is the removal of the financial incentives of child labor which contributes to low fertility rates is great, but it doesn't tell us how we can go about doing that. It is easy to say, "lets have universal education and abolish child labor in Africa," but that is far easier said than done. Perhaps there are methods that are easier to enforce. Furthermore, compulsory education can be rather tyrannical anyways, and I prefer more student-centered education.

Nevertheless, the population crisis is urgent in the developing world, and it must be solved by removing the financial incentive for child birth. It all is interrelated, and the need for child labor is less when poverty is less. Even disease can affect it since disease and poverty can form vicious cycles, and in what amounts to one of the ultimate cosmic cruelties... the more devastated a region is the higher the fertility rates go. So any solution would need to combat many aspects of the problem. Yet - and perhaps this is just my economics bias showing through - I hope that people do not ignore the financial incentives.

Unfortunately, by depending on such incentives and education systems, successful and responsible regions will be overwhelmed by the unsucessful, whimpering and failed hoards of the uneducated, unwilling and irresponsible. In some instances, a restrained fertility rate can create a virtual genocide of a population hosting the incentive programes.

While I would rather have no more than 7 billion people on the earth, the existing means of reducing fertility levels is rather one-sided and certian groups are taking on a burden that cannot be balanced for the lack of will in others who refuse to stop breeding at any cost.

Matters of population control are most likely going to be overlooked until a problem occurs which drastically affects the livelyhood of the major control centers of the world. Much like the famed frog on a hot plate, the situation seems quite bleak. Living conditions around the world are most likely going to devolve into 3rd world environments with space per capita rapidly shrinking. I can already sense the response of our future leaders, "Crowded living conditions? Third world poverty, crime and quality of life? You need to have a more positive attitude, my dear citizen. Be a part of the solution." - To which there shall be none.

Edited by SiliconAnimation, 19 January 2010 - 06:48 AM.

[EmbraceUnity]

We don't have too many, we have too few people on this earth. Imagine a world where everyone could potentially have a personal, exclusive doctor, personal tutor for their children, personal tech support, hell, even a family geneticist whose only job is to examine a single family's genetic makeup to look for potential issues. That can only happen with more people.

but it seems 'population control' nutters are popping up more these days and we have some of our own on this board

The more people we can sustainably support, the better, though not because it would provide a larger labor pool. Simply because filling the universe with happy life forms is a noble goal.

In fact, almost all jobs nowadays are either irrelevant or replaceable by automation. Even much of the tasks that are currently done by professionals like doctors could be easily automated. There are already machines on the market that can analyze genomes, and they are rapidly coming down in cost. Then the data could be anonymously collected and filtered by computers to look for patterns. It would be outright silly to have humans doing this enormous task. You could do similar things by continuously monitoring vital signs and blood markers with cheap monitoring devices and stream the data to the Internet.

Agriculture was automated away a long time ago. The technology to automate manufacturing is already here, and even despite cheap labor abroad we can now produce things like cars with very minimal human oversight. ATM Machines, vending machines, and washing machines have long eliminated the need for laborers. Self-checkout lines and more efficient bagging systems like Wal-Mart has are eliminating thousands of jobs, not to mention all the jobs they have already eliminated in the back end by more efficient logistics and warehousing. Food service, construction, janitorial services, and such are next on the chopping block. Think about roomba, etc. Why should we assume that even relatively skilled jobs won't go the same route? Tech support and all other sorts of telephone support is already being replaced by automated systems that are continuing to improve both their voice recognition and artificial intelligence engines.

Humans shouldn't be forced to be like robots. We should reorganize our society so that the fruits of our automated systems, which have been bequeathed to us by the collective genius of humanity, can be distributed in such a way that every individual can obtain the necessities of life as a birthright. Whether by stimulating the Technological Commons or providing a Basic Income. If we don't we will just forever have people toiling away in sweatshops trying to compete with the cheap and efficient machines, and others not even lucky enough to have such miserable jobs.

Unfortunately, by depending on such incentives and education systems, successful and responsible regions will be overwhelmed by the unsucessful, whimpering and failed hoards of the uneducated, unwilling and irresponsible. In some instances, a restrained fertility rate can create a virtual genocide of a population hosting the incentive programes.

While I would rather have no more than 7 billion people on the earth, the existing means of reducing fertility levels is rather one-sided and certian groups are taking on a burden that cannot be balanced for the lack of will in others who refuse to stop breeding at any cost.

Matters of population control are most likely going to be overlooked until a problem occurs which drastically affects the livelyhood of the major control centers of the world. Much like the famed frog on a hot plate, the situation seems quite bleak. Living conditions around the world are most likely going to devolve into 3rd world environments with space per capita rapidly shrinking. I can already sense the response of our future leaders, "Crowded living conditions? Third world poverty, crime and quality of life? You need to have a more positive attitude, my dear citizen. Be a part of the solution." - To which there shall be none.

This is a standard malthusian argument, and as such falls prey to the standard malthusian fallacy. That is, the underestimation of technological progress's capacity to create abundance. The costs of providing a decent standard of living are constantly falling, which is why there is now a lower percent of the world's population in poverty then ever before. Of course the population is also much larger than ever before, and so the total number of people in poverty is also larger than ever before. Whether that is good or bad depends on your perspective.

A country doesn't need to become incredibly rich in order for the fertility rates to level out, it merely needs to rise above the sort of extreme poverty which characterizes the regions with insane birthrates (afghanistan, somalia, the congo, haiti, etc). Yet, the essentials of life are not that hard to provide once you have the correct mindset. Usually aid from developed nations is in the form of supplies. Yet, it makes no sense to ship water, which is quite heavy, thousands of miles. That is why decentralized solutions like LifeStraw or perhaps Dean Kamen's new invention the Slingshot would be far better alternatives.

Here is a great example of a community tech workshop in Afghanistan. Open source designs can be tailored to any region. Their FabFi wifi system is constructed out of wood and some cheap off the shelf technologies, and this is allowing internet connectivity even in remote regions of Afghanistan. Mix this with projects like OLPC, and I'm sure you can see the possibilities. Once you have Internet connectivity, the sky is the limit. You have access to knowledge bases like wikipedia... access to weather reports and news... communication between farmers to facilitate trade and efficiency, etc.

Speaking of farmers, there is already a project in the works to produce open source farm implements like tractors that are orders of magnitude cheaper, and far more standardized. They have also developed a Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) press that can make bricks from local clay at a fraction of the cost of proprietary machines.

Cheap housing can take a number of forms. CEB is just one route. You could also go for something like the HexaYurt, UtiliHab, ReconHouse, or even refurbished shipping containers seeing as there are 30 million unused ones just lying around.

Looking at the open source tractor, CEB press, etc in combination with cheap decentralized manufacturing tools like the RepRap, the Multimachine, or even just an Afghan Lathe.... and you can suddenly see how it would be possible to leapfrog not just cellphones but all the fruits of civilization for peanuts.

Sure this stuff is still in early stages, but if prizes were created for these sort of open source projects, then these technologies could be advanced for a tiny fraction of the cost of our current aid projects that try to apply band-aids to problems after they've occurred and often create dependence in the process.

Edited by progressive, 19 January 2010 - 07:07 PM.

[s123]

IMO the last thing the world needs is children, what the world need instead is people who start to value the lives of currently living people. Also even if resources are available to feed and create more children, what about wildlife? having enormous uninhabited areas for outdoor life and national parks is a very good thing. forget the 2.1 children each thing, zero deaths (which is the only acceptable number) must mean zero kids or eventual ecological breakdown.

When interstellar travel has been shown feasible it's of course a whole other story.

Yes, we don't need more children, especially not if they are made in the natural way. People made in a natural way have a genome full of errors, before we learn how to correct these I find it very inappropriate to make more.

[EmbraceUnity]

IMO the last thing the world needs is children, what the world need instead is people who start to value the lives of currently living people. Also even if resources are available to feed and create more children, what about wildlife? having enormous uninhabited areas for outdoor life and national parks is a very good thing. forget the 2.1 children each thing, zero deaths (which is the only acceptable number) must mean zero kids or eventual ecological breakdown.

When interstellar travel has been shown feasible it's of course a whole other story.

Yes, we don't need more children, especially not if they are made in the natural way. People made in a natural way have a genome full of errors, before we learn how to correct these I find it very inappropriate to make more.

Very true, but gene therapy can be applied after a person is born. Also, there is a little problem that if we all stopped breeding society would collapse. We need to deal with the imperfect humans we have now in order to develop the tech to improve ourselves.

[s123]

IMO the last thing the world needs is children, what the world need instead is people who start to value the lives of currently living people. Also even if resources are available to feed and create more children, what about wildlife? having enormous uninhabited areas for outdoor life and national parks is a very good thing. forget the 2.1 children each thing, zero deaths (which is the only acceptable number) must mean zero kids or eventual ecological breakdown.

When interstellar travel has been shown feasible it's of course a whole other story.

Yes, we don't need more children, especially not if they are made in the natural way. People made in a natural way have a genome full of errors, before we learn how to correct these I find it very inappropriate to make more.

Very true, but gene therapy can be applied after a person is born. Also, there is a little problem that if we all stopped breeding society would collapse. We need to deal with the imperfect humans we have now in order to develop the tech to improve ourselves.

Gene therapy only inserts new genes, it can't be used to delete genes. Furthermore the genes are inserted in a random way in the genome. Changing the genome in vitro is much easier and allows you to do much more.

[SiliconAnimation]

We don't have too many, we have too few people on this earth. Imagine a world where everyone could potentially have a personal, exclusive doctor, personal tutor for their children, personal tech support, hell, even a family geneticist whose only job is to examine a single family's genetic makeup to look for potential issues. That can only happen with more people.

but it seems 'population control' nutters are popping up more these days and we have some of our own on this board

The more people we can sustainably support, the better, though not because it would provide a larger labor pool. Simply because filling the universe with happy life forms is a noble goal.

In fact, almost all jobs nowadays are either irrelevant or replaceable by automation. Even much of the tasks that are currently done by professionals like doctors could be easily automated. There are already machines on the market that can analyze genomes, and they are rapidly coming down in cost. Then the data could be anonymously collected and filtered by computers to look for patterns. It would be outright silly to have humans doing this enormous task. You could do similar things by continuously monitoring vital signs and blood markers with cheap monitoring devices and stream the data to the Internet.

Agriculture was automated away a long time ago. The technology to automate manufacturing is already here, and even despite cheap labor abroad we can now produce things like cars with very minimal human oversight. ATM Machines, vending machines, and washing machines have long eliminated the need for laborers. Self-checkout lines and more efficient bagging systems like Wal-Mart has are eliminating thousands of jobs, not to mention all the jobs they have already eliminated in the back end by more efficient logistics and warehousing. Food service, construction, janitorial services, and such are next on the chopping block. Think about roomba, etc. Why should we assume that even relatively skilled jobs won't go the same route? Tech support and all other sorts of telephone support is already being replaced by automated systems that are continuing to improve both their voice recognition and artificial intelligence engines.

Humans shouldn't be forced to be like robots. We should reorganize our society so that the fruits of our automated systems, which have been bequeathed to us by the collective genius of humanity, can be distributed in such a way that every individual can obtain the necessities of life as a birthright. Whether by stimulating the Technological Commons or providing a Basic Income. If we don't we will just forever have people toiling away in sweatshops trying to compete with the cheap and efficient machines, and others not even lucky enough to have such miserable jobs.

Unfortunately, by depending on such incentives and education systems, successful and responsible regions will be overwhelmed by the unsucessful, whimpering and failed hoards of the uneducated, unwilling and irresponsible. In some instances, a restrained fertility rate can create a virtual genocide of a population hosting the incentive programes.

While I would rather have no more than 7 billion people on the earth, the existing means of reducing fertility levels is rather one-sided and certian groups are taking on a burden that cannot be balanced for the lack of will in others who refuse to stop breeding at any cost.

Matters of population control are most likely going to be overlooked until a problem occurs which drastically affects the livelyhood of the major control centers of the world. Much like the famed frog on a hot plate, the situation seems quite bleak. Living conditions around the world are most likely going to devolve into 3rd world environments with space per capita rapidly shrinking. I can already sense the response of our future leaders, "Crowded living conditions? Third world poverty, crime and quality of life? You need to have a more positive attitude, my dear citizen. Be a part of the solution." - To which there shall be none.

This is a standard malthusian argument, and as such falls prey to the standard malthusian fallacy. That is, the underestimation of technological progress's capacity to create abundance. The costs of providing a decent standard of living are constantly falling, which is why there is now a lower percent of the world's population in poverty then ever before. Of course the population is also much larger than ever before, and so the total number of people in poverty is also larger than ever before. Whether that is good or bad depends on your perspective.

This interpretation of a 'malthusian' arguement is a pretty standard fallacy as well. Each time technological progress solves a problem, it creates another one. "Bridging the technological gap" achieves nothing because the centers propagating technological advancements develop faster than the bottom level of the market which makes it's way into impoverished areas. There will always be impoverished regions. During the 20th century everyone was excited about the third world getting gasoline and tractors to farm the lands and things have actually gotten quite a lot worse since as the improvements have made population levels explode.

There is no evidence that progress is being made even in the first world, especially if you're using the economy. The United States with the largest GDP in the world is now nearly 14 Trillion dollars in debt, the United Kingdom is all but bankrupt with the family jewels being sold off, gasoline prices are 300% what they were in the 90's, and unemployment is at 10% in the USA. Sure, we have a few more gadgets around but, overall the living conditions haven't improved all that much globally. The first world is headed toward third world conditions.

Alternatively, you could enforce that all technological power-regions divulge their progress to impoverished areas so they stay up with the curve but, this would be both unfair and destructive to the economy.

[EmbraceUnity]

This interpretation of a 'malthusian' arguement is a pretty standard fallacy as well. Each time technological progress solves a problem, it creates another one. "Bridging the technological gap" achieves nothing because the centers propagating technological advancements develop faster than the bottom level of the market which makes it's way into impoverished areas. There will always be impoverished regions. During the 20th century everyone was excited about the third world getting gasoline and tractors to farm the lands and things have actually gotten quite a lot worse since as the improvements have made population levels explode.

There is no evidence that progress is being made even in the first world, especially if you're using the economy. The United States with the largest GDP in the world is now nearly 14 Trillion dollars in debt, the United Kingdom is all but bankrupt with the family jewels being sold off, gasoline prices are 300% what they were in the 90's, and unemployment is at 10% in the USA. Sure, we have a few more gadgets around but, overall the living conditions haven't improved all that much globally. The first world is headed toward third world conditions.

You are very correct that technology is a double-edged sword, but your bleak outlook doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny. Entertainment is cheap and abundant. One can be considered "poor" in the US and have heating and air conditioning, television, cell phones, laptops, and Internet access. We are witnessing the early stages of a number of emerging technology industries from 3D Printing to biotechnology to nanotechnology.

Market forces alone can compensate for the high gas prices, especially in the long run, but even in the short run. We move to denser and walkable areas, telecommute, use public transportation, reduce travel, carpool, buy fuel efficient cars, and purchase alternative sources of energy. Companies engage in similar cost-cutting practices. Demand is surprisingly elastic, for how car-dominated our society seems to be. In fact, the majority of New Yorkers don't even own cars, and the same is true of other dense regions.

Also, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. We are seeing a revival of local production, gardening, frugality, and so forth. Numerous community hackerspaces are sprouting up. Adoption of open source software is growing thanks to Ubuntu, Android, netbooks, and the frugality mentioned previously. People become more industrious in response to hardship.

Alternatively, you could enforce that all technological power-regions divulge their progress to impoverished areas so they stay up with the curve but, this would be both unfair and destructive to the economy.

This is absurd. Was it "unfair and destructive to the economy" when the United States aided Europe under the Marshall Plan after World War 2? Or did it in fact help create stable economic partners with which we mutually prospered for the past six decades? Furthermore, nearly all the areas that are in desperate poverty in the world have been ravaged by colonialism, be it the Conquistadors, the Monroe Doctrine, the Scramble for Africa, or the proxy wars which comprised the Cold War. Thus, not only is bridging the technology gap fair, it is our duty.

Granted, a confluence of other factors are also to blame from geography to climate to culture, but that doesn't exempt any of our actions.

Things can turn around. We have seen nations rise and fall hundreds of times. Not just post-war Germany and Japan. Ireland's potato famine left the country in a dire condition, and now they are one of the more prosperous places on Earth. The ancient empires which used to dominate the globe such as Egypt, Persia, China, and Greece had all been reduced to footnotes as far as political and economic power goes, but of course now China is rising again and the future is hard to predict.

This being the case, I think it is fair to say that prosperity cannot be taken for granted, but neither can poverty.

Finally, I wasn't even arguing that we should spend extra on aid. The foreign aid from the developed world is more than enough in quantitative terms to accomplish most of the objectives I outlined. Even more conservative approaches, such as those outlined by Jeffrey Sachs in The End of Poverty could be accomplished for less than 1% of the developed world's GDP. Of course since our aid is so misappropriated, many of the best projects are severely lacking in funds, whether from the open source perspective I have been arguing or the cost-effectiveness perspective of Jeffrey Sachs.

[valkyrie_ice]

I still say, find a way allow women to do away with periods, unless they actively choose to seek to get pregnant. Find a way to allow men to be actively infertile, unless they deliberately choose to get a women pregnant.

That way, there is no way to "entrap" anyone into an unwanted child. It will mean sex is divorced from child making. It will require conscious choice and active participation by BOTH parties to enable reproduction.

It will not prevent all abuse, no. But it will eliminate all unwanted children in developed countries, and as more countries become developed, slow down and probably eliminate procreation outside of established relationships actively seeking children.

There is no simple single step means to completely control population growth. But sensible, personal control over one's own fertility, for both sexes, will create an environment where accidents cannot happen, and as longevity treatments make the "biological clock" meaningless, the pressure applied socially to procreate will also lessen. It's a multi step process, but I think our population will more or less stabilize as the driving factors for population growth cease to exist.

[valkyrie_ice]

IMO the last thing the world needs is children, what the world need instead is people who start to value the lives of currently living people. Also even if resources are available to feed and create more children, what about wildlife? having enormous uninhabited areas for outdoor life and national parks is a very good thing. forget the 2.1 children each thing, zero deaths (which is the only acceptable number) must mean zero kids or eventual ecological breakdown.

When interstellar travel has been shown feasible it's of course a whole other story.

Yes, we don't need more children, especially not if they are made in the natural way. People made in a natural way have a genome full of errors, before we learn how to correct these I find it very inappropriate to make more.

Very true, but gene therapy can be applied after a person is born. Also, there is a little problem that if we all stopped breeding society would collapse. We need to deal with the imperfect humans we have now in order to develop the tech to improve ourselves.

Gene therapy only inserts new genes, it can't be used to delete genes. Furthermore the genes are inserted in a random way in the genome. Changing the genome in vitro is much easier and allows you to do much more.

No longer true. We've made amazing advances in this field. At the rate things are going, adult full genome surgery may be possible within ten to fifteen years, and not only allow addition and removal of genes, but removal of viral rider junk DNA as well. Full Genome Bioengineering might be possible within 30.

[CerebralCortex]

Everyone interested in immortality and global catastrophic risks should be working for Optimal Population Trust

http://www.optimumpo.../opt.media.html

We are already too many people on earth.

Yes at the moment, but I've never seen a model that takes into consideration the exponential growth in the technology. We're not overpopulated because of the number people but because of resource distribution and availability.

[SiliconAnimation]

Everyone interested in immortality and global catastrophic risks should be working for Optimal Population Trust

http://www.optimumpo.../opt.media.html

We are already too many people on earth.

Yes at the moment, but I've never seen a model that takes into consideration the exponential growth in the technology. We're not overpopulated because of the number people but because of resource distribution and availability.

How would technology fit into this? In the carbon output per capita?

http://www.imminst.o...&...st&p=368566

[robomoon]

Anyone can make a claim with any possible laissez-fair argument that overpopulation doesn't exist. Such claims don't solve the problem of a misguided human population growth which will be followed by rapid decline and a long period of underpopulation or worse. Yet, opponents of the overpopulation argument are pouring out the child with the bathwater by saying that overpopulation isn't solvable due to family planning, but rather due to resource distribution, availability, etc. Well, it's sometimes uneasy to tolerate, but overpopulation requires a good deal of population control instead of fictive incentives.

Nevertheless, proponents of population control must notice the possibility that their policies, if carelessly applied, are leading to an underpopulation among their own society. Such underpopulation spots will turn into a burden for the remaining population in the controlling society. Such burden cannot be balanced for the lack of abilities in others who are breeding more than is good for them. Actually, underpopulation spots have been noticed in most of the very technologically blessed countries where low birth rates stimulate incentives for corruptive ways of immigration from overpopulation spots which do more harm than good to immigrants alike.

So what exactly doesn't work well with the control of overpopulation spots? Answers are ranging from global warming to global cooling, from missing family planning to ethically despicable family planning, from insufficient contraceptives to wrong contraceptives. Nobody knows the whole truth, but everyone is engaged to tell it. A condom crisis at the United Nations can barely be the whole story, so the truth must lay in some hidden documents of rather economic content. Actually, the economic agenda of those nations who are wealthy enough to spend billions of Dollars and Euros in rather luxurious goods hasn't foreseen to spend more money on support for parents if their spouses and children are immigrated from foreign countries. Well, it's rather cheaper to export the cradle to the third world where ten children for the price of one can be raised.

Denial of the truth about family planning serves economists who no longer want to raise more funds for spoiled consumer brats. Later it serves racists who drastically control immigration for the sake of their master race qualities. In the end, it serves the end in the form of economic and cultural collapse. These insights include a very careful study on genetics as well. A recommendable reference which helps to understand the interracial matter should be The DNA Files Podcast http://www.dnafiles.org/podcast where audio and written content are outlined from a neutral perspective. When the truth doesn't wake you up, consider a great number of drastic longevity shortages.

--

Yet, this post includes extracts from other posts in this forum thread. Here's also my own report Vertical Growth http://shintoist.com/vertical.htm to keep looking down on reality from the sky above.

[CerebralCortex]

Everyone interested in immortality and global catastrophic risks should be working for Optimal Population Trust

http://www.optimumpo.../opt.media.html

We are already too many people on earth.

Yes at the moment, but I've never seen a model that takes into consideration the exponential growth in the technology. We're not overpopulated because of the number people but because of resource distribution and availability.

How would technology fit into this? In the carbon output per capita?

http://www.imminst.o...&...st&p=368566

Well for starters energy production, collection and management check this out for example


Also things like genetically engineered food or synthetic food or food alternatives that provide the exact nutrients need to sustain a body etc... Then you think about the proliferation of information technologies which already is having a profound effect on education and wealth distribution throughout the world.