[extropy-chat] World population in the year 2300

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Jose Cordeiro <jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=7&u=/nm/20031209/sc_nm/un_population_dc

<rolls eyes>  Ye-awn.  Those predictions aren't worth
the pixels they're printed on.  Even if one ignored
the potential for 300+ year life spans (as they seem
to), what would it matter to anyone presently alive
what the state of the world will be in 2300 years?
And if one does not ignore that (that is, assumes we
will be around to care), but does set aside for the
moment the major skew that gives their figures, how
about fertility treatments, declining child birth
rates for the modernizing world...and how about
genemodded kids or other not-entirely-human-as-we-know
it "people", such as AIs (possibly including uploaded
folk)?

Also, even if human population does go by their red
exponential curve, would that necessarily be a bad
thing?  Humanity is almost guaranteed to have started
seriously colonizing off of Earth by 2300 - by
necessity to support the growing population if for no
other reason first.  (Or are they just tracking
Earth's population, with permanent emigrants counted
equivalent to deaths for this purpose?  That could be
used to justify the blue or the green curve.)