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My previous entry generated a rather virulent debate in which my adversary repeatedly and vulgarly insulted me after he expressed his viewpoints. I would just like to offer a rebuttal to this dispute. I think that there is a slight ambiguity with regards to the grounds of the debate. It may indeed be inevitable that private development will yield space colonization. That is not the argument. The argument should be whether the government should actively pursue the colonization of space, and whether the human race should be colonizing space. I personally don't think that space colonization will occur by private entities, at least not for an extremely long time. The energy requirements for reaching any place in the solar system are enormous, and the requirements for transporting anything back are even greater. I also don't think that we should be colonizing space period, primarily because of the fact that I asserted earlier: there is not that much to gain from space. Let me confront this through two prongs of attack.
The most important issue of contention in this argument is with regards to the human population and consumption. My adversary claims that I have no proof that the global population will level off according roughly to a logistics curve. On the contrary, I have 200 years of population dynamics and the best current statistical projections to back up my claims. In every single case of industrialization recorded in human history, the population undergoes two primary changes. Naturally, the human population is equilibrium with deaths balancing births. Both rates are at about 50 per 1000 people. Then, the deathrate is reduced through the introduction of modern medicine and sanitation. Some time later (usually about 50 years, I think) economic development due to the rise of industrialism leads to lower birthrates, as more women become educated and more affluent. By this time, birth and deathrates are brought back into equilibrium at about 10 to 15 per 1000. There is no question that the developing nations of the world are undergoing this demographic transition. Statistics show declining deathrates that lead declining birthrates. UN statisticians also show a decline in the growth rate of the global population. There is every indication, both empirical and theoretical to suggest that the global population will follow a logistics curve--leveling out at a certain maximum. If we can aggressively limit global birthrates, then the population will plateau and hopefully decline. Some say that it is not population, but rather overconsumption that is the cause of resource depletion. They are both equally problematic. However, technological improvements in efficiency are capable of partially offsetting overconsumption. Some would say that technology can compensate for all increases in consumption. I disagree, but it is inevitable that it can compensate for some increase in consumption. But alas, I'm going to state unequivocally that overconsumption is a huge problem that is driving resource depletion, and is not likely to end in the future. The real question is, is space colonization a solution? I contend that it is not.
Again we must consider the resources that we can obtain from space: perhaps some low-grade ore and possibly hydrocarbons. I'm going to posit that it is not economically viable in the least to actually refine and transport these resources across the vast solar distances. I can't deny that the future might bring some new technology that would enable this, but it would necessarily be very, very, very far off. The skeptics are accusing me of hand-waving right now, so I'm going to make a computation of the energy requirements of moving various amounts of these "resources" around the solar system. Some would say that nuclear energy is the answer, but fissionable uranium supplies are estimated to only last another 40 years at best. I'm getting tired of typing so I'll continue this sometime later on...
Josh: what do u think about space colonization?
Nick: i think it's (a) necessary, (b) inevitable, and (c) totally badass
I think Nick summed up most of my ideas in those 3 points. I'll reply more coherently tomorrow because I'm tired. Bitch.
I suspect that many people would consider your title offensive, which, unfortunately, just minimizes the chance that they will read your post.
Personally, I happen to agree with Ted (oops, I mean Me) on the issue.
The real reason that population declines with industrialization is because the cost of raising lots of children gets prohibitive. Before industrialization children provided a free source of labor -- now the cost of college is equal to the cost of a house.
STOP THINKING IN TERMS OF CURRENT TECHNOLOGY.
Space colonization is most definitely the way to go. However, using expensive rockets or untested space elevators is not a cost-effective option. Instead, after completely covering Earth with our buildings, we will have no option but to build up. Eventually with the global population exceeding 12,131,415,161,718 or so, our buildings will be built so high that they will rise higher than the natural atmosphere and humans will reside in space condos.
It is the future. The rat king and his nazi UFO buddies told me that an exploding whale was an omen foretelling all of this. They also told me that Colin would be the only one to truly understand their premonitions.
NO TITLE
Some new evidence has been brought to light and I feel I must expand upon and explain the reasoning behind my beliefs.
Contrary to what Adam says, the population growth rate will not approach zero until one of two conditions are met:
humans are replaced by robots or all humans perish.
Conclusions made about industrialized countries' population growth rates cannot be extrapolated and applied to the entire globe. When countries industrialize, they merely outsource most their poverty to other less developed nations through trade. It is the decrease in poverty that is responsible for the decline in birth rates, not the actual industrialization. All of Earth cannot be successfully industrialized because there is nowhere to outsource the poverty inducing conditions. History has shown that all societies have required a lower class to perform the worst tasks and be trod upon by the higher classes. Event today, now that many official caste systems (slavery, India's, Japan's) have been ablolished, de facto stratification of society remains. Many farms across our nation rely upon imported labor to operate profitably and by industrializing other nations that provide cheap labor and cheap manufacturing, those production factors would be removed from the market. Civilization cannot continue without a lower stratum to support it. Population growth would continue.
Nations that have reduced poverty and the population growth rate by industrializing are able to do so because their relative wealth and power allow them to give subsidies and dictate international law that prevents other countries from industrializing efficiently and ending up at similar levels of technology and government structure. This benefit would be eliminated if all nations became rich enough to slow their birth and death rates. Without this benefit, countries would not be able to maintain the standards of living that allow birth rates to decrease. Population growth would continue.
However, in light of these absolute truths, there are stil solutions to population growth. The total destruction of the human race would obviously bring it down to zero, but one other solution remains: ROBOTS! Cheap, effective robots can solve the population growth dilemma by replacing the lower castes and nullifying the effects of industry subsidization (mechanization of labor and manufacturing would also work, but robots are much, much cooler).
But the fact remains: paranoia of robots caused by Hollywood (See Matrix; Stealth; I, Robot; AI; et cetera) will prevent the widespread incorporation of robots into the workforce, which would displace the lower workers. The second option, utter annihilation of humans, will also be stopped with Hollywood propoganda (See Armageddon; Day After Tomorrow; Deep Impact; Pandemic; et cetera). I'm sure I could build a convincing case if I watched more than two movies a year.
In conclusion, Hollywood is powerful, robots are cool, and I have no idea about what should happen with regards to space colonization.
I feel so dirty for typing all of those IZEs.
This process is already occurring, and has been occurring for a very long time though. In fact, the crux of the transition from a pre-industrial to a post-industrial society is that menial tasks become mechanized and machines and robots replace the low-level workforce. We see this in our own country. The selection of jobs today is significantly more geared toward the service industry and "information economy". One could argue, as you attempt to do, that these menial jobs have merely been exported to foreign countries from the developed countries. The fundamental issue at work here, however, is the impact of the cost of production. In many cases it is cheaper to use menial manual labor in impoverished countries than it is to use mechanized labor. As education improves globally, people in developing countries will gradually experience a similar economic transition that the developed world has experienced, as it becomes cheaper to export some of these more "intellectual" jobs to the developing world. Inevitably, this will drive up the overall wage level in the developing world. In tandem with the continual decline in the cost of mechanized manufacturing, it will indeed become cheaper to mechanize manual labor, thereby replacing these "lower castes" of which you speak. Because of the reasons I just outlined, I think this will be the natural and inevitable course of global economic development, and I think that we will see the natural stabilization of population because of the demographical effects of economic development.
I agree. The continued mechanization of labor will allow more people to switch from low-paying agricultural and manufacturing jobs to higher-paying service and professional jobs.
Robots are the answer.
As long as they don't turn on us and destroy the world.