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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal
Message-ID: <26500106@inmet>
Date: Fri, 26-Sep-86 15:22:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.26500106
Posted: Fri Sep 26 15:22:00 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 06:12:36 EDT
References: <26500079@inmet>
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Nf-ID: #R:inmet:26500079:inmet:26500106:000:2346
Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw    Sep 26 15:22:00 1986


[Karl W. Z. Heuer : karl@haddock ]
>>And if eventually we become a *major* factor in the evolution of species -
>>what is wrong with that?  All air-breathing vertebrates are apparently
>>descended from one fish species.  If, some day, most of them are descended
>>either from humans or from human-bred animals - need we wring our hands in
>>advance?  Maybe the change is for the better - whatever *that* means...

>Bravo!  It's been estimated that 90% or more of all species that ever lived
>on Earth are now extinct (I suspect the true figure is higher).  I'm not
>crying over the demise of the passenger pigeon or dodo; it doesn't bother me
>that my ancestors may have hunted the woolly mammoth to extinction; and good
>riddance to T. Rex!  The whales do get my sympathy, since there's a chance
>they may be intelligent (whatever *that* means).

Thank you. Although the mammoth's exit does sadden me somewhat...
But  it would be foolish to blame our ancestors - too much was at
stake for them with a giant store of protein like that, and an ex-
cellent  tool  material,  to boot. Had they been advanced enough,
they might have tamed the mammoth - and have meat and tusks in
abundance, plus a magnificent beast of burden.

>On the flip side, I'd like to mention an extrapolation I saw once to compute
>an upper bound on human population, even assuming that (as I hope) we expand
>into space.  Using the current rate of exponential growth, how long would it
>take before the entire mass of the galaxy is converted into human flesh?
>Would you believe a mere 6000 years?

*That* kind of geometrical limitation is convincing. Assuming  an
expanding  sphere  of human occupation - the speed of expansion
can't exceed the speed of light, so it can't stay exponential.

Some science-fiction circumstances like parallel dimensions would
have  changed this - but of course are not to be expected to come
true, much less planned for. They are  modern  fairy  tales.  But
what *is* to be planned for? Will the universe as known 300 years
from now be at all like the universe we know? No, if past experi-
ence  is  any  guide. Let us therefore not plan that far at all -
but expand our  knowledge  and  our  resources  -  including  our
numbers.   And  then, using these assets, cross each bridge as we
come to it.  The future is *open*.

		Jan Wasilewsky