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Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!alberta!cadomin!andrew
From: andrew@cadomin.UUCP (Andrew Folkins)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Population
Message-ID: <659@cadomin.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Mar-86 16:44:40 EST
Article-I.D.: cadomin.659
Posted: Thu Mar 13 16:44:40 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Mar-86 21:42:47 EST
References: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].844652.860310.KFL>
Reply-To: andrew@cadomin.UUCP (Andrew Folkins)
Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Lines: 77
Summary: 

I agree with most of your points, and just want to add a couple of comments :
 
In article <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].844652.860310.KFL> KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>  
>2) For the short term, the more people in space, the fewer are on
>   Earth messing up the wildlife.  For the long term, mankind will
>   make available for life far more space and time than are available
>   on Earth.  Possibly we will set up whole world-sized experimental
>   ecologies.
>
    In quite a few notes lately, the implication seems to be that Earth
will become less populated by emmigration to outer space.  I don't dislike
with the concept (I'd like to go myself), but it is not *practical*.
There is no way to ship people off this planet fast enough to decrease
the population (growing at how many *millions* per day?). The way to
avoid the "Limits to Growth" scenario is to establish an extraterrestrial
economy which can return enough wealth to this planet so that *everyone*
becomes rich, especially the Third world countries where most of the growth
is projected to occur.
   My point is that we cannot solve the Earth's population problems
by exporting people to space, but one way we can slow the growth
is to exploit (oh no! Exploitation!) the materials and power out
there and increase the worldwide standard of living.  Whoever does 
it will drag the rest of us along the road to prosperity along with him. 

>
>5) Even if nobody ever actually lives in space, we could (with more
>   advanced robotics) have all our large factories there.  And our
>   mines.  And our farms.  >>> So Earth COULD then support a much higher
>   population density, equivalent to downtown Manhattan. <<< Food, fuel,
>   computers, cars, furnished apartemnt buildings and office
>   buildings, would parachute down from space to the point where they
>   are needed when they are needed.
>
    I hope not.  Could you image downtown Manhattan *everywhere* you
went?  There is too much beauty on this planet to plaster it all over
with buildings (unless, of course, we rename the planet "Trantor").
 
>
>7) The more people there are, the more will share your tastes,
>   sympathize with your problems, etc.  There could be millions of
>   independant countries to live in, millions of seperate religions to
>   join, millions of TV channels to watch, billions of seperate
                                            ^^^^^^^^
>   corporations to work for, billions of different books to read,
                              ^^^^^^^^
>   billions of different computer programs to run, trillions of
    ^^^^^^^^
>   special interest clubs and societies to join, and trillions of
>   possible friends and lovers.
>
    You're not related to Carl Sagan by any chance, are you?
 
>8) Life is enjoyable.  Else why go on living?  So why not share this
>   amazing boon with as many others as we can.  How is it of any
>   benefit to anyone for worlds to remain barren of life, resources
>   unused, sunlight streaming pointlessly into empty space?
>
   Enter dream state : pictures of solar power satellites beaming millions
of dollars of electrical power back to Earth.  Asteroid smelters producing
billions of dollars of metals and volitiles for the habitats in Earth
orbit and the asteriod belt . . .
   I've said it before and I'll say it again : someone is going to become
*very* rich when an extraterrestrial economy gets going.  Of course, his
problem then is how to prevent the habitats from gaining independance
and nationalizing everything.



-- 
Andrew Folkins        ...ihnp4!alberta!andrew    
 
"We humans think of ourselves as being rather good at reasoning, but at
best we perform about a hundred logical inferences a second.  We're
talking about future expert systems that will be doing ten million
inferences a second.  What will it be like to put a hundred years thought
in every decision?  Knowledge is power."  - Edward A. Feigenbaum