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From: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Population
Message-ID: <12421@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 16-Mar-86 02:48:07 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12421
Posted: Sun Mar 16 02:48:07 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Mar-86 03:23:04 EST
References: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].851959.860315.KFL>
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Reply-To: weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].851959.860315.KFL> KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes:
>  Once we colonize space and make extensive use of the resources of
>the solar system, we won't have to choose.  We will be able to have a
>trillion trillionaires.

But we will end up with a thousand sextillionaires instead.  Or do you have
some sort of inside information that the rest of us don't know about?

>    Secondly, you are assuming that economies of scale will continue to exist.
>    I believe it may be possible that this is not the case.  As an example, it
>    used to be that it would have been cheaper for a car maker to make 1
>    million cars that were each painted black.  These days, it costs nearly the
>    same amount of money to make cars in lots of different colors.
>
>  Not a good example.  It is still true that building a million cars
>is nowehere near a million times as expensive as building one car.
>Building a trillion cars would probably be even cheaper, per car.

Oh really?  You are blithely ignoring transportation costs of getting cars
from space factories to planet surfaces, increased pollution costs, etc.  If
you want to make straightforward linear sci-fi extrapolations, you can then
conclude anything you want.  But I think the actual story is going to be a
lot more complicated (and expensive) than you or I or anyone else can even
guess at the moment.

It could be cheaper, or it could be the same, or it could be more expensive.
That's about as accurate a statement as anyone can make about the future.

And where the hell are you going to park all those cars?  :-)

>  Given robotics to do most of the boring and dangerous jobs, enormous
>amounts of power and materials from space, and a much higher
>population, I forsee an economy where the major occupations are
>writer, programmer, philosopher, scientist, architect, artist,
>entertainer, musician, etc.

With your view of a trillion trillionaires, I was expecting you to say the
major occupation will be spoiled brat/bum.  Why do I suspect all of the up
and coming poets you are predicting in this glorious tomorrow are going to
write at the level of Rod McKuen, if we are even that lucky?  Do we really
want to inflict that sort of mental blight on society?

>                                             Since these will be made
>by robotics, the cost of food, shelter, air, water, and clothing will
>be negligible.

No.  Only the labor will be negligible.  The capital costs will still
remain.  And part of that capital will be software/hardware the likes
we have never seen.  Cheaper?  More expensive?  I don't know.

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720