The Future and Its Sustainability

So they've unlocked immortality and nanotechnology, and yet they can't mine a damn rock in space.

I vote for population control via exterminating the dunderheads who abetted this farcical future.

Excuse me if I consider stem cells and whatnot to be just a LITTLE more in our grasp than say, terraforming and space mining.

Also, it's a hypothetical, not meant to be a 100% inspired by God analysis of the future.

Here's another way to view it: what happens when we run out of stuff to mine? It may not happen in the perceivable future, but it naturally will since logic says the universe ends somewhere... new frontiers eventually cease to exist. How do we control population in the immortal world now?
 
Excuse me if I consider stem cells and whatnot to be just a LITTLE more in our grasp than say, terraforming and space mining.
Space mining isn't exactly as difficult to achieve as functional immortality. We've had probes that returned parts of comets back to Earth. The only thing keeping space mining from becoming reality is current economics. You mentioned scarcity becoming more important, and the nanotechnology makes the job even easier with stronger materials and more efficient parts.
 
What happens when those children want kids?

Mathematically, you'd still cut the number of new children 1/2 with each such new "generation" as for every two people out there there's only one kid under such a scheme. So that adds up to 1 + 1/2 +1/4 +1/8 + 1/16 of the current population and never becomes more than a doubling.

I think I'd be onboard with limiting more children in such a way as well given the OP's criteria, it makes sense and it's terrible in the scheme of things, having couples have only one child if they want one given all the other things that would come in this hypothetical society with immortality otherwise.
 
Thanks, Earthling!

Excuse me if I consider stem cells and whatnot to be just a LITTLE more in our grasp than say, terraforming and space mining.

Space mining isn't exactly as difficult to achieve as functional immortality.

I think the best way to settle the question is with a race! Everyone should start helping one or the other, and may the best team win!
 
I don't exactly know why I'm not cheering for my own team, but whatever. I'd like to help make stem cell therapy commonplace within my lifetime.
 
The data Rosling provides IS really very nice. It makes me happy every time I see it.

HOWEVER, the future stable human population of 9 billion individuals will all want to consume at least as much resources as each individual in the U.S. is consuming currently!

That's what's going to suck about 9 billion people. In order to just bring the current population of China or India up to first-world living standards, we'd have to basically double the production of the entire planet, and nobody's economy is growing fast enough to support that.

I think that either we learn to control population growth on our own, or we consign future generations to a world where the vast majority of people are living in poverty, with all the unpleasantness that brings. And with transportation costs trending up and most manufacturing happening outside the developing world, it seems likely that a lot more of that poverty will be experienced in what are now developed countries.
 
If we have nanotechnology we should have none of the scarcity issues.
 
Easy, for every kid you have you just have to kill someone.

The idea of curing aging in the near future seems improbable though & at first it will only be for the very rich.

Also, alot of folks won't necessarily want to live forever (especially those who are already old).
 
If we have nanotechnology we should have none of the scarcity issues.

Incorrect. We will still have to consume food. Water. Air. Still require resources for our homes and assorted luxuries.

To create and maintain, something else must be destroyed. The nanites will require fuel even if we don't.
 
Or for each child born, a grandparent needs to die first.

Edit: Unfortunately, could not find a decent pic of an Inuit geezer being tossed to sea on an ice floe...
My best friend's mother is 94, she sits & watches TV from morning until night with a nurse's aid by her side. She's a sweet old woman but can barely remember her son's name & sometimes thinks he is her husband rather than her son.

He gets $2K a month for her care (plus nurse's aid). I respect him immesely for keeping her at home & not at a nursing home but her life is a drain. Multiplied times millions & millions at that's a helluvalot of pollution, food & other resources being sent to keep alive people who really might not even really want to be alive in that state if they were in their right minds.

It's a very touchy subject. If I was in his shoes I'd probably do the exact same thing because A : I'm not sure I could euthanize my own mother even if she wanted me to & it was legal, B : $2,000 a month extra would be nice and C : nursing homes generally are terrible.

I'm certainly not going to suggest any plan or idea because A : I don't know what we "should" do and B : We won't do what we should do regarding sustainability anyway so my ideas whether extreme or moderate don't really matter anyway in the scheme of things.

I vote to do nothing. I trust market forces more than I trust doomsday-sayers.
You and everyone else, that's why we're doomed.
 
Well it probably should be it won't, A : because of policy (that rewards old folks families for them staying alive) and B : because no one wants to kill their own parents.

This type of example illustrates why humans are going to have trouble with things like climate change & resource scarcity. Everyone wants their share but no one wants to have to make the real hardcore type of sacrifices necessary. :undecide:

Note : I"m not trying to be preachy cause I doubt I could do it either (unless my parent was braindead then I would feel morally obligated to a la OFOTCN).
 
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