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

[hkhenson]

At 02:52 PM 7/1/2008, you wrote:
>On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> 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.

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

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