Is Negative Population Growth Bad?

[L.Y.S.]

NASA employs only 18,000 people, probably not all in one place. And it contracts to another 300,000. That still leaves 9.7M free to do other things (I am going for my 10M population having decided 100M is too many and I may ditch NASA and go for 1M)

This doesn't even begin to include all of the persons indirectly involved from the Air Force, or the weather agencies that help launch, or the FAA clearing flight paths, etc. It is much more complex than what you are making it. It probably takes tens of thousands of people working on the ground just to send three to five people into space.

So your answer to my question is you don't know.

Not even science knows. It is still in research for decades, minimum. They can barely alter height now. Age won't be coming any time soon, at least not through genetic engineering. Which, is the only real way that humans will live longer than 200 years.

 

[GlennB]

Of course, Mars hasn't been terraformed.

You speak of terraforming as if it were the matter-of-fact we see in SF movies. Is there a way to 'terraform' Martian gravity up from .4g such that is might retain a useful atmosphere, or to provide that planet with a magnetosphere? The list is very long.

Venus is also an excellent candidate. We have to position mirrors around the planet which can either absorb or reflect light. This will decrease the tremendous heat on the planet's surface, and allow for the planet to cool.

Venus is no candidate at all, no matter how many impossible Venusian mirrors you magically conjure up.. Surface heat is only one of many terminal obstacles and the heat itself would take millenia to disperse.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Or, ooh ooh, we could just build a bunch of new planets in the Goldilocks zone. Let's do it!

I'm tickling inside from the thought of a man in the 19th century. A man had recently told him about his idea. They were talking about how they hate the length in delivery from the postal service. The guy tells him that they should send the messages through electric wire. He says, "sir, what if we could send our mail through electric wire? Wouldn't that be neat?". The other man started laughing at the idea of sending mail through electric wire. What a stupid guy right? I mean, who would think of such junk. Boy he sure did have a good laugh until 1989...

 

[zeggman]

That's a false presumption due to a lack of knowledge. Humans already have all the necessary knowhow to travel throughout the solar system. The only issue seems to be that there is no current demand to travel into space. Humans at the moment, seem, 'too down to Earth'.

Yeah, imagine actually preferring to live on a planet with plenty of breathable air, drinkable water, comfortable climate, reasonable protection from ionizing radiation, and (would you look at that!) 1G gravity instead of some lead-melting inferno or airless frozen desert.

People are just so irrational sometimes.

 

[zeggman]

I'm tickling inside from the thought of a man in the 19th century laughing at the idea of sending mail through electric wire being possible. What a stupid guy right? I mean who would think of such junk. Boy he sure did have a good laugh until 1989...

I have some spare lumber in the barn out back, and Billy can bring his bag of rocks. What are we waiting for?

 

[Mark6]

The first and more rational step is to remodel cities, potentially with arcology. This idea hasn’t been a popular one.

We noticed!

Still not convinced arcologies are just too inflexible?

Another rational step is to expand out into space.

What for, exactly?

This is a serious question. You do not seem to advocate "ship people off-world in order to reduce crowding on Earth", and a good thing for this is a monumentally stupid idea. You seem to agree with Anglolawyer in that Earth can sustain a stable and prosperous population -- you just disagree about how large a stable population. So why exactly do you want to colonize space?

Or is "colonize" a wrong word, and you are merely interested in using Solar System as resources rather than living space?

 

[L.Y.S.]

Yeah, imagine actually preferring to live on a planet with plenty of breathable air, drinkable water, comfortable climate, reasonable protection from ionizing radiation, and (would you look at that!) 1G gravity instead of some lead-melting inferno or airless frozen desert.

People are just so irrational sometimes.

It's amazing how people lack vision sometimes.

 

[anglolawyer]

This doesn't even begin to include all of the persons indirectly involved from the Air Force, or the weather agencies that help launch, or the FAA clearing flight paths, etc. It is much more complex than what you are making it. It probably takes tens of thousands of people working on the ground just to send three to five people into space.

Will there be an air force in 3013 when the population reaches its target of 100,000 (I have decided that IM is too many)?

Not even science knows. It is still in research for decades, minimum. They can barely alter height now. Age won't be coming any time soon, at least not through genetic engineering. Which, is the only real way that humans will live longer than 200 years.

Uh huh.

You:

Above 200 – 300 in the next century is extremely optimistic.

Me:

And you know this how?

You:

Not even science knows (= I don't know)

Whatever.

 

[Urg]

I decree there should only be one human alive on this rock. Please everyone, kindly die, thank you for your service.

 

[Arcade22]

It's amazing how people lack vision sometimes.

By vision is presume you mean wishful thinking?

 

[anglolawyer]

I decree there should only be one human alive on this rock. Please everyone, kindly die, thank you for your service.

We will obey. But not today.

 

[GlennB]

It's amazing how people lack vision sometimes.

It doesn't take "vision" to understand that Venus suffers from a searingly hot atmosphere, bone-crushing atmospheric pressure, clouds of sulphuric acid, mega-hurricanes 24x7 and other profound, er, "disadvantages".

You couldn't get your terraforming gear down there to begin with, even if your insanely improbable wealth exceeded your stupidity.

Living in an SF fantasy world <> "vision".

 

[L.Y.S.]

It doesn't take "vision" to understand that Venus suffers from a searingly hot atmosphere, bone-crushing atmospheric pressure, clouds of sulphuric acid, mega-hurricanes 24x7 and other profound, er, "disadvantages".

You couldn't get your terraforming gear down there to begin with, even if your insanely improbable wealth exceeded your stupidity.

Living in an SF fantasy world <> "vision".

Again, this is because light from the sun continually reaches the surface. If light reflectors or absorbers are used, then Venus would cool down rapidly. You would essentially choke off the supply of sunlight making the planet constantly heat up by using tons of mirrors. This concept has already been theorized for the cooling down of Earth.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Will there be an air force in 3013 when the population reaches its target of 100,000 (I have decided that IM is too many)?

1M is not too many, that's all in your mind. And your fancy about the population declining will not last that long. IF every one were to mate at the level of a woman in Germany the human race will be extinct by 2600. Somewhere in that chain is a violent and terrible decline.

No there won't be an air force in 3013, but with such a small population there won't be a space force either. So much for NASA.

 

[L.Y.S.]

We noticed!

Still not convinced arcologies are just too inflexible?

Nope, arcologies are the future. Sure there are kinks in the idea, but it is still a great idea.

What for, exactly?

This is a serious question. You do not seem to advocate "ship people off-world in order to reduce crowding on Earth", and a good thing for this is a monumentally stupid idea. You seem to agree with Anglolawyer in that Earth can sustain a stable and prosperous population -- you just disagree about how large a stable population. So why exactly do you want to colonize space?

Or is "colonize" a wrong word, and you are merely interested in using Solar System as resources rather than living space?

Colonization usually starts with using the local area as resource cabinets. As for colonization, I know that it will start phenomenally slow, and that it will take perhaps centuries to terraform just a few planets. Colonization is a useful gateway to protecting the human species, and reducing the chance that a single catastrophe will wipe out our species. Why should we have colonized the Americas? Stupid idea right? We should've just left the land to the natives and never exploited the natural resources. Because that happens in human history?

With that being said, yes I agree with him, I just believe his number of below a billion to be unreasonable. At any moment science can expand the life span of the average person to new heights. Which would make his dream of 1M people obsolete. In addition, humans don't die off nearly as fast as they did during the paleolithic.

 

[anglolawyer]

1M is not too many, that's all in your mind. And your fancy about the population declining will not last that long. IF every one were to mate at the level of a woman in Germany the human race will be extinct by 2600. Somewhere in that chain is a violent and terrible decline.

No there won't be an air force in 3013, but with such a small population there won't be a space force either. So much for NASA.

100,000. That's better. Forget NASA. 50,000 medics, 50,000 lawyers.

 

[GlennB]

Again, this is because light from the sun continually reaches the surface. If light reflectors or absorbers are used, then Venus would cool down rapidly. You would essentially choke off the supply of sunlight making the planet constantly heat up by using tons of mirrors.

"Cool down rapidly" ? A million years? Do you have any concept of the mass and heat capacity of the Venusian atmosphere?

Meanwhile, note, the surface area of Venus (I calculate roughly) to be ~450,000,000 sq. km. Shielding that area would take orders of magnitude more lauch-grunt (and money) than the human race has ever put into space projects in our history. And at a distance we haven't begun to manage.

And for what? To "terraform" a scorched surface that will take millions of years more than the CO2 atmosphere to cool to a habitable degree?

It might have escaped your notice, but .... a few centuries of Earthly world-wide industry has managed to edge up our CO2 levels slightly to a point some find worrying. With Venus you'd face the reverse problem with no hope whatsoever of matching that level of 'industry'. It's 96% CO2. How are you planning to remove that?

Oh yeah .. "terraforming", no doubt.

 

[Hellbound]

Just to add to this, Venus's clouds already give it a .65 albedo...meaning that already it reflects 65% of the solar radiation back out into space. A shield would, at best, add the extra 35%.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Problem is that it costs a lot of money to educate and raise a person. So to kill them shortly after they become an adult is very wasteful (This is a good argument against conscription). Killing people who can no longer be productive is another matter.

You have just made part of an argument for killing them while they are young.

"Nits make lice." (Chivington)

(I doubt that was your intent. )

 

[L.Y.S.]

"Cool down rapidly" ? A million years? Do you have any concept of the mass and heat capacity of the Venusian atmosphere?

Meanwhile, note, the surface area of Venus (I calculate roughly) to be ~450,000,000 sq. km. Shielding that area would take orders of magnitude more lauch-grunt (and money) than the human race has ever put into space projects in our history. And at a distance we haven't begun to manage.

And for what? To "terraform" a scorched surface that will take millions of years more than the CO2 atmosphere to cool to a habitable degree?

It might have escaped your notice, but .... a few centuries of Earthly world-wide industry has managed to edge up our CO2 levels slightly to a point some find worrying. With Venus you'd face the reverse problem with no hope whatsoever of matching that level of 'industry'. It's 96% CO2. How are you planning to remove that?

Oh yeah .. "terraforming", no doubt.

Again, claiming that I'll know the tech that will exist in a century or two is pointless. Humans within a century will have drastically superior technology, and may potentially have limitless resources. The cost of production has been decreasing since the start of the industrial revolution, and the optimum price of production is zero. Some technology will exist within 100 years that will make the cost of production zero. When you essentially have unlimited resources, it becomes possible to make mega projects happen.