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From: chuck@dartvax.UUCP (Chuck Simmons)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Population
Message-ID: <4314@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Mar-86 12:47:57 EST
Article-I.D.: dartvax.4314
Posted: Sun Mar 16 12:47:57 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Mar-86 07:18:59 EST
References: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].844652.860310.KFL>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 54
Summary:  Feed those who exist before creating new ones.

>   But the question is, how [many people should there be]?

>   I have several points to make:
> 
> 3) The more people there are the more geniuses there will be.  There
>    will be more and better inventions, music, literature, software,
>    sculpture, paintings, etc.  If with ten to the ninth people we have
>    one Newton or Mozart per century, with ten to the twentieth we
>    should have several dozen geniuses on a par with them each second.
>    I have no idea what this would be like, or what sort of super-
>    genius would appear just once per century on the high end of that
>    much taller bell curve, but I would like to find out.

It took me a while to figure out the fallacy in this argument.  Having a few
dozen geniuses around each second is useless if they must spend all their
time finding enough food to stay alive, or if they die before they are, say,
five years old.  Newton was not only a genius, but he was also relatively
rich.  He had enough money to spend some time thinking about the way the
universe works.  Also, there appears to be a strong correlation between
intelligence and upbringing.  Upperclass families tend to have more
intelligent offspring because the offspring are subjected to a more
intellectually stimulating environment during their early years, and they
get enough to eat.

> 6) It will increase the economies of scale.  If the world population
>    were only 1000, would there be any market for computers?  For CD
>    players?  For SF books?  These things are only possible because
>    there are so many consumers.  Just think what new things would be
>    possible if the population were a million times what it is.  An
>    author who would have gotten just 100 dollars royalties because his
>    work appealed to so narrow a segment of the population would get
>    100 million dollars instead.  Machines that interest only one
>    person in a million would be mass produced by the millions and
>    would cost just pennies.

If we were capable of supporting a million times as many people, we would be
capable of supporting the current population with a standard of living a
million times what it currently is.  We could sell Amigas to every person
living in Ethiopia.  An author who would currently get 100 dollars in
royalties would get 1 million dollars instead because more people would be
able to afford his book, and more people would be capable of reading it.

> 8) Life is enjoyable.  Else why go on living?  So why not share this
>    amazing boon with as many others as we can.  

This is a good point.  Is life enjoyable when you are starving?  I would
suggest that if governments and people want to encourage increased
populations then they should first be able to guarantee that life will be
enjoyable.  They should guarantee that new people will be fed, clothed,
housed, provided with medical care, given an education, and given a job.  If
these conditions cannot be met, then it is the moral responsibility of
people everywhere to discourage increases in population.

Chuck Simmons     chuck@dartvax