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I hope Humanity grows many orders of magnitude larger and expands across the galaxy. The universe will be a more interesting place. Some people here are saying

I hope Humanity grows many orders of magnitude larger and expands across the galaxy. The universe will be a more interesting place. Some people here are saying this is good for the environment. Having 20% fewer people won't do that. Clean energy and other technology will. You can easily fit 100B humans on earth, with more of the earth dedicated to nature preserves. (Maybe a trillion people https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVnc https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVnc) Macau has over 21,000 people per square km. There are 510M sq km of landmass on earth. This means on 1% of the landmass you could fit 100B people. You can fit quadrillions in ONeil cylinders just in our own solar system. We shouldn't shrink into extinction, we should ride to the stars and populate the galaxy with consciousness.

AlexandrB 6y ago
> Macau has over 21,000 people per square km. There are 510M sq km of landmass on earth. This means on 1% of the landmass you could fit 100B people. Yes, because the earth's carrying capacity is about square footage and not the resources necessary to keep those people alive, healthy, and happy for 80+ years. How many square km of farmland do you think is necessary to feed Macau?
- csomar 6y ago
  The sea is full of resources. No wonder coastal cities eats lots of fish.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Fish population is crashing hard worldwide. If we continue fishing as much as we do now, the oceans will be pretty much empty in a generation or two.
p1esk 6y ago
You could probably fit even more in virtual reality.
- inopinatus 6y ago
  We can all fit in San Junipero.
Arbalest 6y ago
I agree. But. So I think there's an unstated assumption about the driving force behind human population. Asides from a couple of pretty extreme environmentalists, most humans want a world well suited to the life of humans. This means that fundamentally, humans don't care what happens to other life forms. And why not, if everything is doomed to entropy, why would we favour the outcomes of non sentients over us? The issue is, however, humans do not live in an isolated bubble. We are part of the environment, and the environment is a part of us. We need to realise we are symbiotic with the environment, even if specific aren't all that important. As for high population density cities, as others have said, it's the support infrastructure which is killing us. Otherwise, urbanisation alone would have already brought us many gains in terms of pollution. So how does this mesh with still growing? Short answer: policy. Technology alone will not save us. We need a lot of social and cultural changes to also increase the material efficiency of each human. If we want to continue to expand, we need every last drop of ideation, experimentation and ambition. We need an environment for people to thrive, without having a class of people who too busy patting each other on the back, and another too busy surviving to contribute to the greater cause. Edit: I should probably also have mentioned that Technology is getting harder, and we can less and less wait for the magic bullet. We need to act now (on efficiency), so that we have space to invest in the future.
Santosh83 6y ago
A human being can fit into approximately 2x2 feet cylinder. I propose packing the entire accessible Universe with a human being per such cylinder stacked alongside each other with no padding/margin between cylinders. We will thus avoid shrinking into extinction and maximally populate all available 3-dimensional space.
- scollet 6y ago
  I propose hexagonal storage pods. Even though the bees may be gone, we can carry on their legacy.
globular-toast 6y ago
Have you even explored Earth? You will never run out of places to explore in your lifetime. Your post reads like someone who doesn't go outside and thinks they've exhausted the Earth because they've been to a couple of theme parks in North America. Have you ever been to a densely populated area? You seem to think it will be more interesting. I speak to fewer people in cities than I do in the countryside. Nobody in a city cares about you. And if they do it's probably wishing you weren't there. We can't even live as we are now without constantly being at war. What makes you think a higher population will make that better? You suggest colonising other planets. Do you understand exponential growth? Going to another planet is not a solution even if it was possible.
inawarminister 6y ago
Don't worry about humanity's numbers. The "rapid-breeding" subcultures (e.g. archtraditionalist sects, pro-natalist populations) will replace those who are less willing to breed, in the long run. The problem is, of course, whether the replacement memeplex that will occur would focus on the colonisation of Solar System by Earthlife. I have no idea.
Tepix 6y ago
I hope that humanity doesn't grow until we actually have that room beyond Earth available to us. Martin Rees believes with a vegan diet, no travel and spending most of the time in VR, Earth could sustain 20 billion people. We're already using resources in an unsustainable manner. Human greed will keep it that way. Now, once we have those O'Neill cylinders out there, sign me up! Just building a single one in space is going to require an incredible amount of resources, however.
- 0xffff2 6y ago
  > Martin Rees believes with a vegan diet, no travel and spending most of the time in VR, Earth could sustain 20 billion people. Is this being proposed as something to aspire to? Much better to sustain a much smaller population that can enjoy a varied diet and see the world IMO.
carapace 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project > "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps" by Marshall T. Savage is a book (published in 1992 and reprinted in 1994 with an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke) in the field of exploratory engineering that gives a series of concrete stages the author believes will lead to interstellar colonization. Many specific scientific and engineering details are presented, as are numerous issues involved in space colonization.

AlexandrB 6y ago

> Macau has over 21,000 people per square km. There are 510M sq km of landmass on earth. This means on 1% of the landmass you could fit 100B people. Yes, because the earth's carrying capacity is about square footage and not the resources necessary to keep those people alive, healthy, and happy for 80+ years. How many square km of farmland do you think is necessary to feed Macau?

csomar 6y ago
The sea is full of resources. No wonder coastal cities eats lots of fish.
- adrianN 6y ago
  Fish population is crashing hard worldwide. If we continue fishing as much as we do now, the oceans will be pretty much empty in a generation or two.

p1esk 6y ago

You could probably fit even more in virtual reality.

inopinatus 6y ago
We can all fit in San Junipero.

Arbalest 6y ago

I agree. But. So I think there's an unstated assumption about the driving force behind human population. Asides from a couple of pretty extreme environmentalists, most humans want a world well suited to the life of humans. This means that fundamentally, humans don't care what happens to other life forms. And why not, if everything is doomed to entropy, why would we favour the outcomes of non sentients over us? The issue is, however, humans do not live in an isolated bubble. We are part of the environment, and the environment is a part of us. We need to realise we are symbiotic with the environment, even if specific aren't all that important. As for high population density cities, as others have said, it's the support infrastructure which is killing us. Otherwise, urbanisation alone would have already brought us many gains in terms of pollution. So how does this mesh with still growing? Short answer: policy. Technology alone will not save us. We need a lot of social and cultural changes to also increase the material efficiency of each human. If we want to continue to expand, we need every last drop of ideation, experimentation and ambition. We need an environment for people to thrive, without having a class of people who too busy patting each other on the back, and another too busy surviving to contribute to the greater cause. Edit: I should probably also have mentioned that Technology is getting harder, and we can less and less wait for the magic bullet. We need to act now (on efficiency), so that we have space to invest in the future.

Santosh83 6y ago

A human being can fit into approximately 2x2 feet cylinder. I propose packing the entire accessible Universe with a human being per such cylinder stacked alongside each other with no padding/margin between cylinders. We will thus avoid shrinking into extinction and maximally populate all available 3-dimensional space.

scollet 6y ago
I propose hexagonal storage pods. Even though the bees may be gone, we can carry on their legacy.

globular-toast 6y ago

Have you even explored Earth? You will never run out of places to explore in your lifetime. Your post reads like someone who doesn't go outside and thinks they've exhausted the Earth because they've been to a couple of theme parks in North America. Have you ever been to a densely populated area? You seem to think it will be more interesting. I speak to fewer people in cities than I do in the countryside. Nobody in a city cares about you. And if they do it's probably wishing you weren't there. We can't even live as we are now without constantly being at war. What makes you think a higher population will make that better? You suggest colonising other planets. Do you understand exponential growth? Going to another planet is not a solution even if it was possible.

inawarminister 6y ago

Don't worry about humanity's numbers. The "rapid-breeding" subcultures (e.g. archtraditionalist sects, pro-natalist populations) will replace those who are less willing to breed, in the long run. The problem is, of course, whether the replacement memeplex that will occur would focus on the colonisation of Solar System by Earthlife. I have no idea.

Tepix 6y ago

I hope that humanity doesn't grow until we actually have that room beyond Earth available to us. Martin Rees believes with a vegan diet, no travel and spending most of the time in VR, Earth could sustain 20 billion people. We're already using resources in an unsustainable manner. Human greed will keep it that way. Now, once we have those O'Neill cylinders out there, sign me up! Just building a single one in space is going to require an incredible amount of resources, however.

0xffff2 6y ago
> Martin Rees believes with a vegan diet, no travel and spending most of the time in VR, Earth could sustain 20 billion people. Is this being proposed as something to aspire to? Much better to sustain a much smaller population that can enjoy a varied diet and see the world IMO.

carapace 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project > "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps" by Marshall T. Savage is a book (published in 1992 and reprinted in 1994 with an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke) in the field of exploratory engineering that gives a series of concrete stages the author believes will lead to interstellar colonization. Many specific scientific and engineering details are presented, as are numerous issues involved in space colonization.