Thirty seconds to live

[Rassah]

Easy: continue to make our technologies more energy efficient, as we have been throughout our existence. Our cars went from 5 miles per gallon to 50, or lightbulbs went from 100 watts to 10, our computers went from taking up buildings and using up kilowatts of power to fitting in our hands and using a fraction of power, etc. And we have yet to start seriously using our natural gas reserves, nuclear power is still practically in the "dirty coal-powered stream engine" stage, solar is still only beginning to be explored (I like where advances in solar stirling engines is going), and we have yet to tap into fusion power. We still have a very long way to go.

[molecular]

It's disturbing reading posts from people who think our current reproduction rates are sustainable in the long term. I would prefer giving everyone the right to have one child, along with the ability to sell the rights to someone else. It would decrease poverty as well. If we wait until nature does it for us, there won't be much nature left.

Now this, my man, is an idea worth thinking about.

[Schleicher]

There are going to be serious issues even if we transition to solar right now, because it costs more energy to build a solar panel using today's technology that will be realized by said solar panel in it's lifetime.

No, that's not true.
Energy payback time is less than 2 years for european panels. For chinese panels a little bit more.

[hashman]

...the hell they will have to go through of being forbidden to reproduce.

Eh?  I think most people would disagree with you about "that hell", though of course "forbidden" is never a nice thing.   

Remember the ultimate punishment described for original sin: go forth and multiply.
Notice also that birth rate tends to drop in places with higher consumer surplus. 
Other than that, yeah this is a discussion worth having.

and advances in chemicals and genetics that allow us to grow much more food from the same amount of space.

I wish you were right about this one.  Unfortunately it looks like the chemicals and genetics are instead often used to keep food out of peoples hands (Terminator genes, desertification, crops requiring more expensive chemical purchases) in the usual attempt to "make very rich people even richer".  American agricultural science thousands of years ago was more advanced. 

[rudrigorc2]

advances in chemicals and genetics that allow us to grow much more food from the same amount of space.

I am sure using this has HUGE drawbacks but I just cant explain it. and sooner or later the nature will charge us very bad because of this unbalanced techniques. especially if by genetics you mean transgenics.

[wachtwoord]

Nature isn't a living entity, it cannot charge or do anything  . Transgenesis is great and all genetic modification sciences could have been much further along if it wasn't for big influential groups (primarily religious) in the western world that lobby to slow it down. They use bogus arguments like yours. These groups piss me off.

[foggyb]

There are going to be serious issues even if we transition to solar right now, because it costs more energy to build a solar panel using today's technology that will be realized by said solar panel in it's lifetime.

No, that's not true.
Energy payback time is less than 2 years for european panels. For chinese panels a little bit more.

It is very likely that solar panel efficiencies will continue to improve. Along with other energy technologies.

I believe global cheap electricity is coming soon.

[Richy_T]

Colonizing other planets is not a solution to population problems (real or imagined) on earth.

Not that it's not a good idea for other reasons.

[The Fool]

The carrying capacity of the earth is not static. Technological advancements continually expand it. We aren't living in a glass bottle, but a rubber balloon.

+1

On that one, I'm fully with Myrkul !

Technology can bring the carrying capacity of the earth well beyond we think possible.

You had me right up to here.

The monetary system and corrupted values that it promotes make the actual "beleived carying capacity" !

Now, when you say "monetary system," do you mean the debt-as-money the world runs on now, or sound money, as well?

Capitalism puts breaks on technological advancement, and whitout those outdated-capitalist constraint, we could have 100x more effectiver solar panel, lab grown meat that is exactly the same as the actual meat we eat, cure for cancer... etc..

Capitalism drives progress. Every time capitalism is suppressed, progress is stagnated.

Remove $ and we can more than double the carrying capacity of the earth.  We are not short on space to live, we are short on food and energy, because of the $ system.

Could you please explain how money limits food and energy artificially?

I agree, that technology can increase the carrying capacity of the earth. But that is in fact my point -- technology has (and may continue to) increase the carrying capacity of the earth.

But technology requires energy. For example take some supercomplex cryptography algorithm where brute force is written off because solving it would take more energy than exists in the solar system. It's like that. How can we use technology to solve the world's ills when there is not enough energy to apply that technology all over the world? There are going to be serious issues even if we transition to solar right now, because it costs more energy to build a solar panel using today's technology that will be realized by said solar panel in it's lifetime. The reason why it feels cheap now, is because of the reliance on fossil fuels which are a diminishing resource.

I don't know how to solve this problem.

You increase the productional output of one watt of electricity. You make things more efficient.

[vokain]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM
Mouse utopia

[leen93]

Stop me if you've heard this one. There are a bunch of bacteria in a bottle and they double in number every minute. The bacteria are really small of course, but the bottle is expected to fill up after just 24 hours of growth. So one bacteria says to the other, "ahh, there's so much room in this bottle. Why, I look around me and I see that there is so much free and open space! Why, for every manbacteria womanbacteria and childbacteria in our bottle, there is enough land for ten!" and the other bacteria says "yes, that's true. What a wonderful place to live. Oh, I'm late for work, what time is it?" and the first bacteria says, "it's 11:56 pm.. four minutes before midnight".

Now, it should be mentioned, each bacteria only lives for one minute. After their minute is up, they shuffle off their mortal coil.

Three minutes and thirty seconds later, the current crop of bacteria are having a meeting. They look around. The bottle is about 75% full. However all the bacteria have started to become nervous because they can see and recognize they are running out of space. A giant effort is launched and the bacteria send out scout ships in the lab and luckily find an entire whole new bottle to populate. Celebrations are made, parties are thrown, and the new bottle is annexed in the name of bacteria-dom. All is good.

Then strangely, in the same generation, the bacteria which were teenagers during the first crisis, now old, see the same crisis repeating only this time it is approaching twice as quickly, and they are at a loss for a solution. It becomes apparent to them that their children will no longer be able to reproduce or the bottles will break and everyone will die. In a panic, having babies is made a crime.

Over the next several minutes, 90% of the population in both bottles dies. Many call the problem resolved, and the ban on babies is removed. But just a few generations later, the grandchildren of all children at the time of the ban being lifted find themselves facing the same problem. This time no one is able to react and there comes a food shortage; and as food is only added to the bottle each minute 99.99% of all the bacteria starve to death. Only a very small fraction is left in the bottle to start civilization anew.

Stop me if you've heard this before. The world population growth rate is just over 1%. Which means that it doubles in the span of one human lifetime. It's been stated that the upper limit on sustainable human population is between 10 and 12 billion. In fact, "According to UN's 2010 revision to its population projections, world population will peak at 10.1bn in 2100 compared to 7bn in 2011." (-wikipedia 'population growth').

So here we are at 7.5 billion people. The bottle is 75% full. But in stark contrast to the bacteria of the bottle most people I talk to have absolutely no idea of the need to find an entirely new planet to inhabit within our generation just so that our children can gnash their teeth at the hell they will have to go through of being forbidden to reproduce. It's either that or we need to put a worldwide ban on population growth now. Failing to do so will cause it to happen naturally (or worse, break the bottle).

I wonder what the UN is planning. A population growth rate of 1% implies a population of 17 or 18 billion in 2100 -- not 10 billion. Their figures do not make sense. The crisis will not come in 2100. It will come in our lifetimes.

we'll not keep that 1%  You'll never see over 10 billion people in your life 

[Spendulus]

The carrying capacity of the earth is not static. Technological advancements continually expand it. We aren't living in a glass bottle, but a rubber balloon.

+1

On that one, I'm fully with Myrkul !

Technology can bring the carrying capacity of the earth well beyond we think possible.

You had me right up to here.

The monetary system and corrupted values that it promotes make the actual "beleived carying capacity" !

Now, when you say "monetary system," do you mean the debt-as-money the world runs on now, or sound money, as well?

Capitalism puts breaks on technological advancement, and whitout those outdated-capitalist constraint, we could have 100x more effectiver solar panel, lab grown meat that is exactly the same as the actual meat we eat, cure for cancer... etc..

Capitalism drives progress. Every time capitalism is suppressed, progress is stagnated.

Remove $ and we can more than double the carrying capacity of the earth.  We are not short on space to live, we are short on food and energy, because of the $ system.

Could you please explain how money limits food and energy artificially?

I agree, that technology can increase the carrying capacity of the earth. But that is in fact my point -- technology has (and may continue to) increase the carrying capacity of the earth.

But technology requires energy. For example take some supercomplex cryptography algorithm where brute force is written off because solving it would take more energy than exists in the solar system. It's like that. How can we use technology to solve the world's ills when there is not enough energy to apply that technology all over the world? There are going to be serious issues even if we transition to solar right now, because it costs more energy to build a solar panel using today's technology that will be realized by said solar panel in it's lifetime. The reason why it feels cheap now, is because of the reliance on fossil fuels which are a diminishing resource.

I don't know how to solve this problem.

A famous economist named Julian Simon studied resources and resource depletion, and laid bets with Paul Erlich on the subject.  He won, of course.

One of his most famous comments, was that the only scarce resource which was in danger of becoming scarcer was human intelligence, talent and skill applied to practical problems...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Simon

[vokain]

In the mouse utopia experiment, with increasing population resulted in less care being given from parent to offspring, resulting in more violent behavior and overall less intelligence (in the conventional sense). It wasn't a lack of resources that led to their undoing, but themselves.

[Nemo1024]

By a strange coincidence, this thread was revived when I was finishing Dan Brown's "Inferno"...

[vokain]

By a strange coincidence, this thread was revived when I was finishing Dan Brown's "Inferno"...

Welcome to the Age of Aquarius

[BADecker]

Is thirty-seconds to live longer or shorter than thirty-thirds to live?  


Science is on the verge of eliminating telomere shortening via activation and replenishment of telomerase. when this happens, nobody will have to die any longer.



EDIT: TA-65 works. There is, however, controversy about how effective it is.

[Wilikon]

Karl Marx saw this exact same problem, when he saw that we do not have enough tractors and enough farmers to produce all the food needed to feed all the people that will soon be born (and the world population was only around 1 billion back then). He saw the exact same issue, and had the exact same concerns as you, and that was one of his main reasons for coming up with the solution he called communism.
Of course, 100 years later we have robotic tractors that require very few farmers to operate, and advances in chemicals and genetics that allow us to grow much more food from the same amount of space. Don't forget, we have barely tapped the power of the sun. Worst comes to worse, we'll all live off solar panels, and eat algae grown in vats in the sun. As others have said, still plenty of space here.

Communism was born thanks to someone with a lack of scientific anticipation and foresight ...

 

[criptix]

alot of post here i read actually didnt describe the main problem per se.

from the viewpoint of science humanity has neither a space nor a energy problem.

mankinds main problem is a socio-economical one - everything is a question of profit and loss.

without it, we would already explore different galaxies(!!!).

[Beliathon]

The carrying capacity of the earth is not static. Technological advancements continually expand it. We aren't living in a glass bottle, but a rubber balloon.

Yeah, about that...



What do you think happens on this graph now that we're slowly running out of fossil fuel?

[lophie]

"The planet is fine, The people are fucked!"
                                    - George Carlin