5 ms·

To the contrary I think there's a decent argument to have about the idea that if we cloned a few billion people into being, it could help solve our problems fas

To the contrary I think there's a decent argument to have about the idea that if we cloned a few billion people into being, it could help solve our problems faster, through their brain power and the increase in competition. There'd be less to eat, and more short-term pollution, but it might be beneficial long-term, since most of the CO2 to have been released has already been released cumulatively during the last century.

mgnn 10y ago
We can also arrive at Brave New World style human production. Babies are produced in factories according to characteristics projected to be in demand by the time they have fully grown. Except instead of the alpha-beta-epsilon types in the book, we may be able to breed for maximum diversity for maximum potential resistance against diseases. Or, of course, any other objectives, technology permitting. We may also arrive at a common trope in sci-fi where reproduction is not an individual (or couple) decision. By default, individuals do not reproduce and the factories keep the society populated.
dikdik 10y ago
As nice as the sentiment sounds, a majority of our most brilliant people now are working on improving click-rates and keeping the stock market efficient. I don't really have hopes for the utopia you speak of.
- eru 10y ago
  > [...] and keeping the stock market efficient. Efficient allocation of capital is a noble endeavour.
Grishnakh 10y ago
Younger people are already spurning a lot of careers that aren't "fulfilling". We absolutely could handle a huge increase in human population, if we did the following: - institute Universal Basic Income - massively increased the density in cities and built more housing in them (i.e. more skyscrapers, and link them together better so cities are more 3-dimensional) - greatly improve local transportation using PRT (personal rapid transit) like SkyTran for less-dense areas and more-expensive service and better mass-transit systems for the highest-density areas - improving long-distance transportation with Hyperloop, high-speed rail (maglev), maybe vactrains later, etc. - more efficient farming, such as the "vertical farming" techniques being explored now - more automation of farming and other industrial production (which feeds back into making UBI work) - cleaner energy sources, mainly better utilization of solar energy with increased PV and maybe orbital solar collectors - asteroid/moon mining and maybe moving dirty industries offworld (with energy being clean and renewable, I'm thinking that metal refining will probably be the last really dirty industry, and with more metal mining offworld, it'd make more sense to do the refining there too)

mgnn 10y ago

We can also arrive at Brave New World style human production. Babies are produced in factories according to characteristics projected to be in demand by the time they have fully grown. Except instead of the alpha-beta-epsilon types in the book, we may be able to breed for maximum diversity for maximum potential resistance against diseases. Or, of course, any other objectives, technology permitting. We may also arrive at a common trope in sci-fi where reproduction is not an individual (or couple) decision. By default, individuals do not reproduce and the factories keep the society populated.

dikdik 10y ago

As nice as the sentiment sounds, a majority of our most brilliant people now are working on improving click-rates and keeping the stock market efficient. I don't really have hopes for the utopia you speak of.

eru 10y ago
> [...] and keeping the stock market efficient. Efficient allocation of capital is a noble endeavour.

Grishnakh 10y ago

Younger people are already spurning a lot of careers that aren't "fulfilling". We absolutely could handle a huge increase in human population, if we did the following: - institute Universal Basic Income - massively increased the density in cities and built more housing in them (i.e. more skyscrapers, and link them together better so cities are more 3-dimensional) - greatly improve local transportation using PRT (personal rapid transit) like SkyTran for less-dense areas and more-expensive service and better mass-transit systems for the highest-density areas - improving long-distance transportation with Hyperloop, high-speed rail (maglev), maybe vactrains later, etc. - more efficient farming, such as the "vertical farming" techniques being explored now - more automation of farming and other industrial production (which feeds back into making UBI work) - cleaner energy sources, mainly better utilization of solar energy with increased PV and maybe orbital solar collectors - asteroid/moon mining and maybe moving dirty industries offworld (with energy being clean and renewable, I'm thinking that metal refining will probably be the last really dirty industry, and with more metal mining offworld, it'd make more sense to do the refining there too)