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Post by crocoduck on Aug 15, 2012 12:07:49 GMT -5
Try to think of any population control scenario that would work.
China's tried it, it doesn't work. If the entire world were to do it, think how long people would allow their children to be killed or taken from them before they rose up and revolt. When it comes to their offspring, nobody thinks "It's best to kill him for the world's sake".
And I don't neccesarily mean traveling to different planets and colonizing there, although that might certainly be an option. But at least retrieval of resources from other planetary bodies.
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Post by Hitotsumami on Aug 15, 2012 12:14:59 GMT -5
Yeah, that may be so.
But do we have enough time to develop a spaceship who can leave the overpopulated planet? Who decides who goes and stays? Will it be forced upon people to leave their homes?
I think I'd rather use a combination of laws and education to prevent overpopulation instead.
Even a drug that stops women from getting pregnant until they fill out some kind of request form and get approved would be a better investment, I think.
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Post by Shark a' Pult on Aug 15, 2012 13:35:01 GMT -5
There's another thing we're forgetting. It may seem ridiculous now, but this seriously going to be our life line in the future. We're rapidly reaching Earth's carrying capacity. People mate like fucking rabbits, and because of medicine, less and less people die each day. At one point, there will be absolutely no space or resource left for us to live, and that point is going to arrive much sooner than later. Now, when that point comes, we're totally screwed if we do not have some sort of space exploration program to fall back on. Also, you were saying how we should make it a cure all diseases program instead, but disease is one of the few things left keeping our population in check. I know that sounds horrible, but before we can try and remove the largest factor stopping us from completely overpopulating the world, we need to make sure we have a plan for when that overpopulation is reached. That is horrible because it's a faulty assumption. There is no foreseeable carrying capacity with current technology estimates, and it's only going to get better from there. That's what the whole Zeitgeist movement is about. In some unlikely fail state scenario where all proponents of this collapse, that still places the limit well beyond the point at which terraforming is uncertain. |
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Post by crocoduck on Aug 15, 2012 14:15:26 GMT -5
There's another thing we're forgetting. It may seem ridiculous now, but this seriously going to be our life line in the future. We're rapidly reaching Earth's carrying capacity. People mate like fucking rabbits, and because of medicine, less and less people die each day. At one point, there will be absolutely no space or resource left for us to live, and that point is going to arrive much sooner than later. Now, when that point comes, we're totally screwed if we do not have some sort of space exploration program to fall back on. Also, you were saying how we should make it a cure all diseases program instead, but disease is one of the few things left keeping our population in check. I know that sounds horrible, but before we can try and remove the largest factor stopping us from completely overpopulating the world, we need to make sure we have a plan for when that overpopulation is reached. That is horrible because it's a faulty assumption. There is no foreseeable carrying capacity with current technology estimates, and it's only going to get better from there. That's what the whole Zeitgeist movement is about. In some unlikely fail state scenario where all proponents of this collapse, that still places the limit well beyond the point at which terraforming is uncertain. ...wut. There most certainly is a carrying capacity. It might not happen in a hundred years, or even two hundred, but it's not exactly thousands of years away either. There are several factors on which we depend on that can be depleted, even with more technology. Water is an example, but water can be replenished and recycled. The recycling process doesn't recycle 100% of the water, but future advances in technology could synthesize water. Food is another example, not nearly as easy to recycle, possible to synthesize, but for how long? Oxygen/breathable air is far off, but still possible example. More pollution, more oxygen-breathing humans and less and less photosynthesizing land each day makes this more and more of a reality, but i highly doubt that there wouldn't be an answer to this. Such as making all buildings have green roofs and having machines that help regulate the atmosphere. Now here's the biggun', Space. There's no technology that can change the fact that our space is running out. Even if we did some form of land reclamation and started filling in the oceans, we'd run out eventually. With the rate that we breed, that's not at all a far off possibility. On that note, we also run out of basic resources such as wood and fossil fuels and basic things like that. Earth definitely has a carrying capacity. |
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Post by Shark a' Pult on Aug 15, 2012 14:39:54 GMT -5
...wut. There most certainly is a carrying capacity. It might not happen in a hundred years, or even two hundred, but it's not exactly thousands of years away either. There are several factors on which we depend on that can be depleted, even with more technology. Which is what I said, tell me in two hundred years there won't be vast terraforming and space travel efforts. By the timescale you're suggesting, we will reasonably be colonizing other planets just out of habit, rather than necessity because there isn't enough room or resources on earth. That, and we really have no idea what technology will be like in two hundred years. Who knows, we may never have to leave earth. You have to at least consider it to be entirely possible that within... oh lets just say a hundred years, through technology and science you could settle the problems you outlined in your post. We really can't say because we can't see the future, but it is definitely not impossible. Now here's the biggun', Space. There's no technology that can change the fact that our space is running out. Even if we did some form of land reclamation and started filling in the oceans, we'd run out eventually. With the rate that we breed, that's not at all a far off possibility. On that note, we also run out of basic resources such as wood and fossil fuels and basic things like that. That's a smallun' You're thinking laterally, think vertically. It's been postulated that a single vertical farm the size of a large skyscraper could feed all of New York city. That's one building, among the skyline. Not down into the ground, and not out in the countryside. If you go downwards and outwards, it only increases the yield. But it is not even necessary. It's true! Look at some of the Zeitgeist planning for cities, they talk about it in at least one of the documentaries that I know of. There's a specific term for it that they came up with in the 60's I think, a guy called Jaques Fresco was the main idea man. Earth definitely has a carrying capacity. A carrying capacity that is completely hypothetical, and even were it to be a possible reality, it would be so far off that it is ridiculous to even consider it. I mean we're talking a population that would not be able to be attained for hundreds of years at least, and by then we fall back to that initial concern of what science and technology can do for us by then. It's certainly a concern to address, but I agree with Hito in that, I don't think it should be something we think of when we say "Why space travel?" --- What were we talking about again? |
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