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Discussion Of Population - Moved From Popular Science And News Thread


ErlyRisa

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Moderation note: the first part of this post is in the Popular Science and News thread "Lets Talk About Solar Freakin' Roadways!" The rest of it and replied to it were moved to this thread, because they are about a social science subject, not the solar roadways.

 

We all keep forgeting, don't account for the current population, account for 3Billion - just in the US, 70Billion in China, same India, same Africa, Eu

 

::rememmber end of the century figures are 700+ billion people, Earth --> sorry to scare Ya's, its just basic Fibbonacci rabbit population.

 

True, in Suburbia for 'Now' trying out new tech is great... but I would be trying to think semi permanently, much like Germany did, and that didn't last long enough either (60/70 years for thought)

 

 

One major grip I have about housing developments of the 70's till today is the convoluted "one entry/exit" ,enclosed living setup --> this is going to be a huge headache, no-one thought ahead with:: we were all thinking in a segregative manner, a typical stance that the elderly white man loves to think in :: you know "always looking to protect themselves" ... it creates more traffic and more segregation and confusion.

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We all keep forgeting, don't account for the current population, account for 3Billion - just in the US, 70Billion in China, same India, same Africa, Eu

 

::rememmber end of the century figures are 700+ billion people, Earth --> sorry to scare Ya's, its just basic Fibbonacci rabbit population.

The technical term for this assertion is as follows: bollocks.

 

Fertility rates are dropping worldwide. Several first world countries are facing problems of birth rates that fall below the replacement level. OVerall the population growth is flattening out and should peak towards the end of this century. Your numbers are too high even if we divide them by ten.

 

Unlike rabbits*, humans are influenced by economic factors.

 

 

*Or to a greater extent than rabbits.

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The technical term for this assertion is as follows: bollocks.

 

Fertility rates are dropping worldwide. Several first world countries are facing problems of birth rates that fall below the replacement level. OVerall the population growth is flattening out and should peak towards the end of this century. Your numbers are too high even if we divide them by ten.

 

Unlike rabbits*, humans are influenced by economic factors.

 

 

*Or to a greater extent than rabbits.

 

And that's when boredom sets in...

 

If there is no death, and all you do is "mature" and take in info... ageing: without reproduction...

 

WHAT IS THE POINT TO LIFE THEN!

 

We may get to the point of VReality living - and slowly progress too becoming nothing more than WiFi signals ourselves... then what was the point to biological evolution?

 

The Goal: as set forth by GOD - is too, go where no man has gone before: we need to leave the planet (as ourselves) ADN F like RAbbits! - otherswise the Aliens have got us beat.

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And that's when boredom sets in...

 

If there is no death, and all you do is "mature" and take in info... ageing: without reproduction...

 

WHAT IS THE POINT TO LIFE THEN!

 

We may get to the point of VReality living - and slowly progress too becoming nothing more than WiFi signals ourselves... then what was the point to biological evolution?

 

The Goal: as set forth by GOD - is too, go where no man has gone before: we need to leave the planet (as ourselves) ADN F like RAbbits! - otherswise the Aliens have got us beat.

Could you mention in what universe your post above is a meaningful reply to my correction of your errors?

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We all keep forgeting, don't account for the current population, account for 3Billion - just in the US, 70Billion in China, same India, same Africa, Eu

Fertility rates are dropping worldwide. Several first world countries are facing problems of birth rates that fall below the replacement level. OVerall the population growth is flattening out and should peak towards the end of this century. Your numbers are too high even if we divide them by ten.

And that's when boredom sets in...

This seems a bizarre non sequitur reaction to Eclogite’s response to your claim that the world population in 2100 will exceed 700,000,000,000, ErlyRisa! Are you saying that reproducing at near replacement level – having 2 or 3 children – is boring, while having more children is not?

 

If there is no death, and all you do is "mature" and take in info... ageing: without reproduction...

Though it seems so obvious it doesn’t need to be stated, reducing the fertility rate of a population doesn’t result in immortality.

 

While I find assertions that biomedical science will discover therapies to allow people to live forever (for example, those assumed in Ray Kurtzweil’s “live long enough to live forever “, “bridge” approach) interesting, unlike Kurtzweil, I’m far from convinced they will be available soon, or ever. A complete understanding of biology is still far off, Drexlarian nanotechnology IMHO nearly all hype and hardly any science, and uploading your mind into a computer a very difficult challenge.

 

We may get to the point of VReality living - and slowly progress too becoming nothing more than WiFi signals ourselves... then what was the point to biological evolution?

The term “virtual reality” usually refers to the use of computers to create artificial environment that are nearly or completely indistinguishable from the real world by living humans, not replacing biological organism with computer programs.

 

The “nearly indistinguishable” kind of VR has been a reality for more than 10 years. To the surprise of many of its proponents, it’s not been as popular as expected. For example, while, with the addition of equipment costing nor much more than a high-performance gaming PC or console, nearly any popular video game can be played in very immersive 3-D video and audio with motion/position capturing input devices, the majority of people seem to prefer the game in high-quality 2-D video with a familiar hand-held, multi-button/joystick controller. I have a 3-D-capable wide-screen TV, and a few video games capable of being rendered on it in good-quality 3-D, and a small stable of innovated motion-capture game gadgets. For the most part, they work well. Yet, after playing through a game in such a “maximum immersion” mode, I found that I went back to the old 2-D and controller mode, my gadgets and nice electronic 3-D glasses gathering dust on a shelf.

 

If there are some day people who are computer programs rather than biological organism – which I don’t think anyone can at present say with much valid certainty will or will not happen – it doesn’t follow that such people will not have finite lifetimes, reproduce, and evolve in a manner similar to biological organisms. An IMHO smart and wonderfully written, though fictional, exploration of this can be read in Greg Egan’s 1997 novel Diaspora, which I recommend highly to anyone interested in the subject.

 

The Goal: as set forth by GOD - is too, go where no man has gone before: we need to leave the planet (as ourselves) ADN F like RAbbits! - otherswise the Aliens have got us beat.

I don’t believe in the supernatural – ghosts, God, etc – but nonetheless strongly agree that we humans should colonize space and other planets, because if we don’t, we have all of our culture’s eggs in one basket. Genocidal aliens seem a less likely threat than natural catastrophe, especially an “extinction level” giant body impact with Earth.

 

If you’re truly worried about genocidal aliens, you should be aware of and advocate for avoiding the “babe in the woods/what happened to the native Americans” scenario cautioned against by such science luminaries as Stephen Hawking, which cautions that our exploration of space should be as stealthy as possible, so as not to be discovered by any. I’m a near lifetime fan of the STrek line “to boldly go”, but agree it would be smarter “to stealthily go” until we have a very good understanding of what is out there. Not being driven desperately by out-of-control reproduction seems a necessity of such stealth.

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This seems a bizarre non sequitur reaction to Eclogite’s response to your claim that the world population in 2100 will exceed 700,000,000,000, ErlyRisa! Are you saying that reproducing at near replacement level – having 2 or 3 children – is boring, while having more children is not?

 

Though it seems so obvious it doesn’t need to be stated, reducing the fertility rate of a population doesn’t result in immortality.

 

While I find assertions that biomedical science will discover therapies to allow people to live forever (for example, those assumed in Ray Kurtzweil’s “live long enough to live forever “, “bridge” approach) interesting, unlike Kurtzweil, I’m far from convinced they will be available soon, or ever. A complete understanding of biology is still far off, Drexlarian nanotechnology IMHO nearly all hype and hardly any science, and uploading your mind into a computer a very difficult challenge.

 

The term “virtual reality” usually refers to the use of computers to create artificial environment that are nearly or completely indistinguishable from the real world by living humans, not replacing biological organism with computer programs.

 

The “nearly indistinguishable” kind of VR has been a reality for more than 10 years. To the surprise of many of its proponents, it’s not been as popular as expected. For example, while, with the addition of equipment costing nor much more than a high-performance gaming PC or console, nearly any popular video game can be played in very immersive 3-D video and audio with motion/position capturing input devices, the majority of people seem to prefer the game in high-quality 2-D video with a familiar hand-held, multi-button/joystick controller. I have a 3-D-capable wide-screen TV, and a few video games capable of being rendered on it in good-quality 3-D, and a small stable of innovated motion-capture game gadgets. For the most part, they work well. Yet, after playing through a game in such a “maximum immersion” mode, I found that I went back to the old 2-D and controller mode, my gadgets and nice electronic 3-D glasses gathering dust on a shelf.

 

If there are some day people who are computer programs rather than biological organism – which I don’t think anyone can at present say with much valid certainty will or will not happen – it doesn’t follow that such people will not have finite lifetimes, reproduce, and evolve in a manner similar to biological organisms. An IMHO smart and wonderfully written, though fictional, exploration of this can be read in Greg Egan’s 1997 novel Diaspora, which I recommend highly to anyone interested in the subject.

 

I don’t believe in the supernatural – ghosts, God, etc – but nonetheless strongly agree that we humans should colonize space and other planets, because if we don’t, we have all of our culture’s eggs in one basket. Genocidal aliens seem a less likely threat than natural catastrophe, especially an “extinction level” giant body impact with Earth.

 

If you’re truly worried about genocidal aliens, you should be aware of and advocate for avoiding the “babe in the woods/what happened to the native Americans” scenario cautioned against by such science luminaries as Stephen Hawking, which cautions that our exploration of space should be as stealthy as possible, so as not to be discovered by any. I’m a near lifetime fan of the STrek line “to boldly go”, but agree it would be smarter “to stealthily go” until we have a very good understanding of what is out there. Not being driven desperately by out-of-control reproduction seems a necessity of such stealth.

 

YUP - on reproduction...personally I would have multiple children so that they can be my CNC machines, I would run them on rice and crackers: It's cheaper than electricity.

 

Aliens: An intelligence beyond our own wouldn't kill us, they would play games with us; they are bored too.

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TV said today, by 2050 we have petered at 10bill, the max for earth.

What’s your source for this, ErlyRisa? “TV said” is a bit too vague for our “back up with links or references” site rule!

 

Back in 2007, we had some discussion that touched on the maximum possible population of Earth. Here are a couple of my posts on the subject: In this one, I calculated a upper limit on the maximum, assuming only Earth resources, of 1,750,000,000,000,000 (1,750 trillion, about 250,000 times the current population). In this one, I estimated using current agricultural efficiency to get a maximum sustainable population of 63,000,000,000 (63 billion), and assuming improved agricultural efficiency similar to the best present-day high-intensity methods, about 10 times that (630 billion).

 

There are many reasonable ways to estimate the maximum world population. 10,000,000,000 (10 billion) seems a reasonable one, but only if we can see its underlying assumptions.

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In todays day and age, and in my old age, I make it a habit too not trust ANY source, even if it came from Stephen Hawking himself.

 

I say with excel its alot easier to just make up your own estimates with your own guesses on the data, half the time you'll be more accurate based on "your" assumptions, and not "doctored" figures created to pluck whatever reaction the intelligent want out of the masses.

 

Hence:

 

TV Said.

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I think the question should be how many humans can exist alongside the BioDiversity of the Planet??

 

Maybe we can sustain a 20 Billion Population, but how great is that when there are no Tigers, Bears, Wolves, Giraffes, Whales, etc...??

When you have to tell your kids, about the animals that used to be before Human Interuptus??

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