[ExI] Wondering if we'd be Better Off with Fewer People

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Wed Jul 2 04:20:06 UTC 2008


Keith writes

> Stefano writes
>> [Lee wrote]
>> > I'm with those who think the world is vastly underpopulated,
>> > and hope that various breakthoughs in coming years make
>> > it really obvious to everyone that many, many more people
>> > can be sustained than at present. Before colonizing space,
>> > humans could colonize the ocean bottoms, and before doing
>> > that, colonize antarctica and the deserts, and before that,
>> > the swamps.  The only problem is that living in these places
>> > is just not as much fun, and that's why in the U.S. many of
>> > the middle states are losing population.
>>
>>I am inclined to agree. My main concern, however, is what produces and
>>is produced by the lowering of demographic pressure. A longevist
>>society should not, and hopefully need not, be a society of the old.

I would look forward to population growth the traditional way
(at least at first). Of course it would be great if it became
fashionable to take eugenic concerns into account.

> You can't avoid it.  Exponential growth, even linear growth, will 
> fill any finite carrying capacity.

Malthus himself made this point, of course, and was entirely correct,
but *only*, ironically, up to the very time in which he lived. Ever
since, human standard of living has easily outpaced population
growth, except in some places suffering from an inequality of
capitalism and freedom. It's "merely" a matter of energy.

Even forgetting a singularity, people won't need to be uploaded
or become physically smaller for still a very long time. If we
got to Trantor's population density (which I'd put at around
10,000 people per square mile - less that San Francisco's),
then since the surface of the Earth is around 200,000,000
square miles (counting the oceans), we could get to
10^4 * 2*10^8, or around a couple of trillion before
some people would have to be living on the surface of
the oceans and some on the floors, and before we'd have to
pack 'em in Manhatten style.

Lee

> At that point the birth rate and the longevity become mathematically 
> coupled.  The math is in the Gregory Clark paper I have posted 
> pointers to a number of times.
> 
> Keith 




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