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Populations under natural selection grow exponentially in the presence of sufficient food. If we have 100,000 times more food capacity than we need, and the pop
by Daniel_Newby 14y ago
Populations under natural selection grow exponentially in the presence of sufficient food. If we have 100,000 times more food capacity than we need, and the population doubling time is a very slow 100 years, then we hit the Malthusian limit in 1,700 years. Exponential growth is a powerful process.
This is the reason so many science fiction stories are set on a future Earth that is baking hot (industrial waste heat) and has fertility police that terminate unlicensed pregnancies. It's a simple extrapolation of current conditions.
- ars 14y agoMalthus forgot something very basic: Unlike animals, Humans create their own resources, they don't just find them in the environment. So it doesn't matter how many humans you have, there will always be enough resources. Remember that from a physical point of view nothing can ever be destroyed. The only thing that happens is the atom moves from one place to another. With application of energy and brains, you can move that atom right back to where you want it.
- Daniel_Newby 14y ago> Unlike animals, Humans create their own resources, they don't just find them in the environment. No. There are hard limits to resources, but exponential growth curves have no upper bounds. For example, humans could disassemble all the planets in the Solar system and turn them into space stations, increasing the habitable area by a factor of a trillion trillion. For a population doubling time of 20 years, the new territory will be filled up in a few thousand years. If we convert all the solid matter in the galaxy into space stations, the galaxy will hit the Malthusian limit within a few million years. The only solution to an exponential growth curve is starvation or artificial selection.