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From: lreastma@CRDC-VAX2.ARPA (Leslie R. Eastman)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re:  Population Density
Message-ID: <8603111407.AA08136@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 09:00:25 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8603111407.AA08136
Posted: Tue Mar 11 09:00:25 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 03:34:32 EST
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I guess population density is a matter of taste.  I, for one, think there
are too many people now, even in the United States, not to mention China,
India, Ethiopia, etc,etc.  Big cities are a nice place to visit occasionally
but I wouldn't want to live there.

In addition, the discussion of how many people can live on earth seems to
totally disregard the rights of animals to live in their preferred habitat.
Even if we could get all of our food and energy from space, if there are
(pick your own number) of people on earth, where will the animals live and
what will they eat?

Some people on this net talk like free food, energy and building material
are there in space just waiting to be picked up and beamed back to earth
where it will also be free for the taking by who ever needs it.  The raw
materials may be there, but utilizing them will take alot of money and
energy on our part and I don't think they will be inexpensive in the
forseeable future.  (Remember the claims at the beginning of nuclear power
that electricity would be so cheap you wouldn't even need to meter it.)  So
don't look to space to be the answer to the population problem in the near
future.  The only near term answer is birth control. (I only plan to have
one child.)  And birth control does not mean killing anyone - it just means
stop having babies.  If the population continues to grow, there will be
people (myself included) who will not want to go into space for adventure,
curiosity, or science but just to find a more pleasant place to live.