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The earth has a carrying capacity of less than one billion people if those people have a USA level of consumption. How would we deal with this problem if people
by Contusion3532 3y ago
The earth has a carrying capacity of less than one billion people if those people have a USA level of consumption. How would we deal with this problem if people stopped dying or had their lifespans increased dramatically?
- JackFr 3y agoWell, that really speaks to your worldview and your ideas on the meaning and purpose of life. Why is that a problem? Is the purpose of life hedonic consumption, where there seems to be no other point than racking up a high score? Is there something more?
- Contusion3532 3y agoI'm actually for us -- especially in the west -- to significantly reduce our carbon footprint and consumption. My personal consumption habits are well-below the average in the west. I think hedonistic consumption is a hollow pursuit. But, I understand that most people will not voluntarily reduce their consumption habits.
- ChatGTP 3y agoIf people could live for ~ 500 years, the preservation of the Earth would turn into a much more important. Anyone who is alamost 100 would have cause for concern about climate change immediately.
- blagie 3y agoWhy do you think the Earth has a fixed carrying capacity? As with Moore's Law for decades, there have been many similar predictions in the past, and they fell by the wayside as technology, output, and productivity improved. At some point, Moore's law gave way to more gradual increases, and the same may happen here, but we have no idea how or when.
- Contusion3532 3y agoI'd say human contributed greenhouse gas emissions are the main limiting factor for the earth's carrying capacity for human lives. We're already experiencing many more severe climate related weather events and the problem is only going to get worse each year.
- DennisP 3y agoWe have multiple power sources that don't release significant greenhouse gases.
- Contusion3532 3y agoWe do, but they only contribute a small portion of the world's energy. It will take a long time to get to a point where most energy generated is renewable, and by that point, the climate is going to be a much much bigger problem.
- DennisP 3y agoThat's a big problem for the next several decades, but by the time longevity tech is mature enough to significantly affect populations, either we'll have converted to non-carbon energy or longevity tech will be pretty much irrelevant anyway.
- blagie 3y agoI'm not sure: - We might be sitting at a 500M population after the [climate / pandemic / AI / nuclear / system collapse / etc] apocalypse. - We might be sitting on a terraformed Mars (or in bubbles under the ocean) - We might be sitting in glass domes in the middle of an increasingly climate-hostile Earth ... and so on. We're very bad at predicting the future; it's hard to pick from thousands of (individually highly unlikely) possibilities.
- DennisP 3y agoRight, but I didn't mean humans would be extinct necessarily, just that longevity tech would be mostly irrelevant to population counts. In a lot of those scenarios, the main causes of death are likely to be things like starvation, disease, or accidents, rather than old age. Admittedly this isn't true of all possible scenarios. And in some, longevity would be really helpful.
- wheelerof4te 3y agoThere's so much unused space on Earth, and people still make this ridiculous comment.