Just because humans are reproducing way faster than they can be lifted out of Earth's gravity well, doesn't at all mean we can't still enjoy having "large" families.
Pronatalist said:
What if the human race, only but doubles once more? What relevance would any of these "hard" limits have?
Your original hypothesis had no such limit, and was clearly worded to imply that no such limit was necessary. I refuted that hypothesis and you modified it to conform to the limit set forth in my refutation, with plenty of room to spare. That's fine. This is how science works.
I did not change my "original hypothesis." I am not arguing for "just one more" doubling of the human race. I only mentioned something of the current demographic projections. What if the human race doubles its numbers once more, and keeps on growing just as remarkably as ever? Adding more people to the planet, isn't hardly what one would propose, if "regulating" birthrates is the only consideration. With all the more fertile human birth canals, there's more opportunies for contraceptive "failures," probably all the more people who for one reason or another don't practice any means of "family planning" other than the elegant and natural "no method" method, and presumably, there's even less room left for all the additional babies that may be expected.
I want to enjoy having all the children that I was meant to have, I expect that the huge population of the world would expect the same, but what when all these children grow up, and want still more children? Double again, and again, let human populations grow naturally, unhindered. But just because people argue to defend right-to-life and all that, doesn't necessarily mean that's the direction of the demographic trends. Maybe huge portions of the population are gullible, selfish, and will continue to be duped by the anti-family "family planning" pushers. Maybe people are just too busy working and watching TV, to do "what comes naturally" much anymore?
After the human race has double yet again, if that ever happens, it causes changes, that invite the next doubling as well. History is already showing that human population expansion already seems to contain the seeds of its own accomodation. The more populated we get, the better we get at accomodating large populations, at least if that's the pronatalist goal, and we actually try to use the technologies available to benefit people.
I am not even convinced of the "hard" limits. They're only hard to explain, now, with our lack of knowledge or understanding. A future, more-heavily-populated society, might far better explain how to elude such "hard" limits. Most all the talk of human population "limits" sounds very much self-imposed and anti-family. A lot of previous talk of "limits" has largely been discredited, perhaps to the claimed "dismay" of those population phobics who fear a future "crowded" planet.
Your updated hypothesis is no longer remarkable.
Some people may think it remarkable. I didn't "update" my hypothesis, but I do try to explain it better when people ask useful questions. I try to explain, that the world can hold, or be made to hold, quite likely far more people than there ever will be, especially within the forseeable future. When I did some informal survey of people I work with, as to whether God's commandment to people to Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, still applies, I think all my respondants said that it did. My sister said that God has not rescinded his commandment. Some guy at work said that the human population is "huge," and yet it still applies. So perhaps to call for more and more people to be welcomed to come alive and be born, is still rather "remarkable," but in accordance with what most people naturally want, that they don't want to be told just how many children they are to be allowed to have. But why can't a hypothesis be "remarkable?" Not everything has to be "easy" to understand, because people need challenges anyway. I despise the rather "lazy" sloppy thinking methods of tax-and-spend liberals. "You don't have to think to be a liberal," claims Rush Limbaugh.
Somewhere I read some anti-population talk on some website, something or other that we need a new "paradigm." Okay, here's mine then. As the world comes to become more densely populated with people, of course people may continue to, and should be encouraged to, go on enjoying having their "traditionally very large" families. But the city should be seen as a good place to do that as well, as the year 2008, is supposely about the official year at which the world "tips" towards having more people living in cities than the countryside. Maybe we are getting so populous, that maybe not quite everybody can live in the countryside anymore, lest there not really be much rural countryside anymore? Cities are technically mild population "archologies," and as people around the planet, find that they have to live a bit closer to their many neighbors, on the global scale at least, because there's so many of us, families can still be naturally as large as ever. Urbanize the planet to whatever extent needed.
Of course this has implications for China and basic human rights. Many people in China still yearn for "traditionally very large" families, or so I read somewhere. Let them enjoy having their children,
in China, and in the many cities, even big cities, as well. More people live in the countryside than in the cities, in China, but people don't at all lose their God-given right/duty to procreate when they become living closer to their many neighbors in cities. Let villages become engulfed by nearby growing cities naturally coelescing into one another. A few such minor "growing pains" are but a small price to pay, for being free to have our children.
The consensus of the demographic predictions I have read is that the population will level off at just about the figure in your post, and in fact somewhat lower, within a century.
Maybe, maybe not. My point is that in either case, I argue for continued natural human population growth. As there gets to be more women of childbearing age throughout many parts of the world, I do not at all ask that people curtail their natural childbearing. There's way too much emphasis on "limiting" numbers, and not near enough exploration or open-mindedness towards beautiful, more natural and elegant population
accomodation. For a country to be naturally "swollen" with people, should be no more shameful or less to be expected, than to properly welcome a woman to be visibly "great with child" in public. Mothers deserve special honor, for making the great investment into welcoming additional human beings to live. Why not more deliberately use the technologies available, to better mitigate naturally "swollen" populations, so that they may more comfortably and safely, go right on growing. Consider that modern affordable highrises to replace old overcrowded shantytowns, can hold lots more people, without necessarily always having to enlarge settled land areas right away, and that's but just one example.
What if the "demographic transition" fails to materialize, throughout many areas of the world? Is it then excuse to impose "limits" on childbearing? Not at all, but rather a natural argument to explore how to populate the entire planet more densely and efficiently, for the greater good of the many.
Our atavistic tribal instinct that drives much of our politics may cause a problem with this many people on one planet, but our technology certainly will not.
I welcome the sort of natural "globalism" that would seem to come with a world naturally populating itself into itself. Seeming of moving perhaps towards a world with seemingly so many people most everywhere, and national boundaries fast fading away. But that isn't the flavor of "globalism" in fashion among the power-mad globalists. They have stupid delusions of global utopia, that is highly exclusionary, seeking to reduce human population, pretty much to the level of only the minimal numbers of people, to not get in the way, and to provide worker slaves so that a few rich elites don't actually have to do any productive work. It's very cruel and selfish. If at all anybody wants to entertain silly notions of humans building some global utopia, it had better be incredibly populous, so that the populous masses don't soon find overwhelming reasons to oppose it.
I do believe that human "laws" should be more universal, standardized the same across the entire planet. I would prefer it be the "same time" everywhere, and do away will confusing time zones. Who says that "midnight" is the time to sleep? I say sleep when it's dark outside, no matter what the clock says. Problem is, I see no mechanism for man to bring that about. People are too selfish and corrupt. Power must be divided up, or people will abuse it. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," or so the saying claims. There must be accountability. So the nations must still be divided. Not hostile, but divided in political power. It's part of the necessary "checks and balances." If some country abuses its people, videos and evidence can be smuggled out, and then they made to look foolish, in "outside" medias of other countries. People seeking political assylum in other countries, can be a huge embarassment and incentive towards considering human rights again. If the whole world was but one "globalist" country, as some of the New Age or atheist or globalists want to rush like mad towards, where would the refugees go, when it's inevitably found to be corrupt?
The efficient and sustainable agricultural techniques of the sparsely populated Western Hemisphere could easily feed twelve billion people, and creating the infrastructure to transport that food to them won't strain the world economy.
But some noted population pessimist laments something about turning the planet into a gigantic "feedlot" to feed people. Well if that's where it's supposedly going, so what? People's precious darling babies, is a very potent driver of agriculture or whatever. Selfish people invent a "science" rationalizing away their selfishness and stupidity. According to the "lifeboat ethic," the world is like a "lifeboat," in that supposedly just so many people can fit. When we help other countries, by giving (or selling) them food and medicine, we (supposedly) increase longevity, decrease infant mortality, and encourage more childbearing, which only serve to worsen their (presumed) "overpopulation." But I already advocate a more heavily-populated planet, for people's precious darling babies and all their compelling reasons why they have as many children as they do, for the greater good of the many, so of course I want to encourage better longevity, reduced infant mortality, and encourage more childbearing. I would like for lots more people to feel more relaxed and positive about life, and feel free to just let their babies push out naturally, without having to bother or worry about "family planning," which is so much against nature. So the cities and towns naturally and often gradually grow. So what else is new? I hope it's more from the natural increase of all those people within them, and not so much from people depopulating the countryside to move to crowded cities, as has too much been the case. Natural increase would seem enough to be filling the cities with people. I don't want for the economy to have such problems that people feel they can't live in rural areas. Let human populations rise naturally in the rural areas as well, and spontaneously form even new towns and villages as their numbers also rise.
Fine, and I accept your clarification of your hypothesis. Nonetheless, a scientific interpretation of your many posts that express this hypothesis (and "scientific" is the only type of interpretation that serves as a reference standard on this website) easily identifies the consistent implication of an unbounded future, e.g. your cursory allowance for off-planet emigration.
A lot of the talk about population, has focused way too much upon "limits." Talking more of an "unbounded" future, is far more productive. So far, most all supposed "limits" have been more of illusion and shallow-thinking. Forever elusive limits might not really be limits at all. Why can't some cities contain 100s of millions or billions of human individuals, if they design cities to hold more people, and explore a gradual and proper conversion to cleaner technologies?
I advocate that people be welcome to naturally "outgrow" the planet, and spread to more worlds, although I don't see that as a very viable option other than in science fiction, for now. I want to see humans spreading to more worlds, in sci-fi, to encourage people to think more "outside the box." To imagine this "gravity well" of a planet to becoming "too crowded" with people is rather unproductive. To imagine humans someday emigrating to more worlds, allievates some of this imagined supposed "overcrowding," making the planet seem much less "confining." To a woman becoming visibly "great with child," talk of the relief of an impending "birth" is rather encouraging. A lot of supposed "scientists" needlessly worrying people about a planet seemingly becoming "pregnant" with people, have neglected the very practical consideration, that we simply don't know what a planet "pregnant" with people, would naturally look like. Just how big must the "swelling" get, before "birth" can be expected? We don't seem to know so well yet, because has it even happened before? I take "birth" here, in a broad metaphoric sense. "Birth" is a "gateway" into some realm far better. Presumably, for Christians, it can be all the more people to populate heaven. For sci-fi buffs, it may the natural prelude towards colonizing more worlds. But in either case, I say it's necessary. Life brings some "growing pains," and in the broad perspective, such "growing pains" are often quite minor, and quite necessary.
As I said already, that's fine. You are debating like a scientist and that is all we ask.That was the point.
That's not enough. If "scientists" are to be responsible, they must also consider the social implications of what they say. I am pro-life, and believe abortion to be murder. And it also corresponds to a decay in social mores making other crimes to seem more okay or permissable. The "huge" population of the world, is no excuse for abortions. People must still be welcome to have their precious darling babies. That there's so many of us alive these days, is all the more reason to at least try to be civilized, and to be pronatalist and understanding, and to have compassion towards people. The Anti-Christ, in the fictional "Left Behind" fictional series of books (and CDs and DVDs) of how biblical endtimes might play out, scolded the developing countries for letting their populations "balloon" in size. Sounds like an "antichrist" sort of thing to do. Conversely, what's the humane or compassionate thing to do? Just that. Let the various nations "balloon" their human populations. I understand why world population grows and grows, and I agree with almost every reason that may be given. By the many nations populating themselves more and more densely, they do their part and duty to help the planet hold more and more people. It should be no shame, but a great honor, for nations to welcome their populations to naturally grow huge and densify, since that's what it would seem to take, towards the
global goal and natural desire to enlarge the entire human race, that our powerful reproductive urges and so many compelling reasons to have as many children as we do, all adds up to.
Who says that "scientists" can't understand or make allowances for natural human reproduction?
We can't falsify the hypothesis that the other problems can't be solved, so the essayists purposefully postulated solutions to them to help the argument along. Then they came face to face with the waste heat problem and focused on that as the final limiting factor.Of course. But the laws of physics reassure us that there is a limit to our ability to reduce it, which is the thermodynamics of human metabolism. Our bodies produce more low-frequency energy ("waste heat") than required to maintain a temperature of 98.6 degrees (37C). That waste heat must be dissipated or we will die.Yes. You are reproducing the (as I said) unremarkable and elementary calculations in the essay I read 40 years ago.No, even in the doubling-every-thirty-years model used in the essay, we have rather a lot of time to turn each of the principles set forth into a functioning technology. Many people focus on the array of solar collectors and microwave transmitters because they foresee that as the most difficult in many ways: energy, materials, testing, transportation, zero-gee habitats, not to mention politics, personnel management and quality assurance.
I am not at all worried about the "waste heat" problem, because it's not even a factor, within the forseeable future, and might not ever be. To worry about such things, is to put way too much confidence in the accuracy of our calculations, and to leave little room for imagination as to future unknown adaptations that may naturally come along. Even if it was to be a problem, we are still severely "underpopulated" in many respects, right now. To suggest as I do, that human populations should be or become "nearly as large as possible," towards some "ideal" or "optimum" sized population, probably implies that our numbers should be or become all the "closer" to whatever "hard" limit there might be postulated to be. Come on, auditoriums baking in human body heat, aren't so bad. Open the windows, we have air conditioning, there's plenty of ways to mitigate or convenienlty overlook such minor annoyances.
Personally I think that bulldozing the earth's surface into a perfect ellipsoid plus redirecting the flow of all water into irrigation and life-support will be a pretty tough project.
Not really. Technologically, it's easy enough to propose massive projects. Look at the huge army of workers that might like to have good jobs building something grand. The real problem, is the corrupt, non-visionary goverments, and their seeming inability to balance hardly any budget. In the movie "Total Recall," the technological matter of making a planet more habitable to humans, seems "easy" compared to the damage that can be caused, by a governmental regime that has other "priorites" other than accomodating and serving the people. That what scares me about such ventures. I imagine it far safer to live on a "crowded" earth, than to go to some new world, where we are dependent upon the technology, and the morons that run everything. Bad combination.
Furthermore, building a 500-story, 25000-mile-wide condominium that provides more-or-less the same living standard to every inhabitant will require careful oversight to put it mildly.Perhaps.
Then a very pronatalist culture, would help quite a lot in that.
This was thought up forty years ago. Nonetheless none of the people I have shared this with, with serious expertise in many disciplines, could offer a better alternative.They didn't pick 500 because of the limits of construction, although there were considerations of pumping air and water. They arrived at it from calculating the population limit. They will fit in a mile-deep warren so there's no reason to complicate the scenario with unnecessary excavation.Those are my words.
I like all the ideas, some more than others. Underground cities, cities in orbit, vertical population arcologies, floating cities on the oceans, etc. Yeah, it's probably easier to simply stack people upwards into the sky, than to dig very deep into the earth. Although the higher up you go, maybe there's a natural balance of digging a little deeper as well. But then there's the issue of flooding and water table. As with the levies in New Orleans, just a little crack, and there's a huge flood. Above the water line, structures are more safe. Most problems with skyscrapers, don't doom the entire structure, especially if built wisely, allowing time for repairs.
Of course, one limit on how high up people can be stacked, is the thin atmosphere too far up. Human environments could be pressurized, but then, that's more opportunities for technology failures. But come on, we're nowhere near "standing room only" on the ground floor, so of what relevance as to how high people could be stacked, have to the present reality?
The essayists were more vague. I don't think the movie "Soylent Green" was out yet but the underlying concept of creating food by largely inorganic processes was.
I bought that movie, because I wondered what in the world were people talking about? And as I expected, it was a stupid sensationalist farce. Preying upon people's fears, with very little science or practicality about it. It was set too close into the future, by which time, such population numbers would have been quite unlikely, and the food source was far too bizarre and nonscientific. People eat many times their body weight, so eating other dead people, wouldn't really help much. I would propose even before that, that by cremating dead people, and not having gravesites, there can be all the more reason for the living. Actually, why not eliminate some of those rich yuppie space-wasting golf courses first? Sometime, I think I may post a poll of all the things we could get rid of, before denying people their God-given right/duty to bear children, as a way to point out what a foolish idea setting "limits" on childbearing is. We could get rid of cars, golf courses, fitness gyms because people can walk around the block, who knows what all? The presumption is, that if we want to keep those things, we must keep the childbearing as well.
Still, we're a long way from unlocking the mystery of photosynthesis (much less abiogenesis) and without it we can't convert energy plus inorganic matter into organic matter.Obviously one of the principal authors of this essay was a physicist. He took all of this into account. Heat is electromagnetic radiation and the transfer of energy by this means is limited by the speed of light. That was all factored in.I suppose this hypothesis does not deserve to be dismissed as pseudoscience because of the reasonable way you phrase it. Nonetheless, your hypothesis falsifies a major component of the scientific canon, after all of the testing and peer review it has withstood, and therefore it certainly qualifies as an "extraordinary assertion." You are required to submit some extraordinary evidence before we can reasonably use it in a discussion which so far has stuck faithfully to basic, uncontroversial scientific principles.Of course. And if an "exception" can be found to the lightspeed limit, we can solve our population problem by "beaming" billions of people to Tau Ceti.
My Dad had problems with Star Trek, claiming it's too far-fetched. So I told him, what I think is really so far-fetched about it, is this silly notion that people get along so well with one another, without "religion." The technological "inventions" I find so much easier to accept. But sometimes they carry the "magic" too far, or not far enough to be logically consistant.
Consider that such "inventions" may not work quite as portrayed. In some movie, somebody "beamed" from one (phone?) booth, to another. "Thank you for using AT&T," it says. (How much did AT&T pay for that "commercial?") What? No "site-to-site" transport? Well do we get printouts from our computer, with no printer? There must be some machine to reassemble the "beamed" people, right? Oh, but site-to-site, is just the same as people beaming down to the planet, only instead of using a transporter pad, both ends are remote. Sort of a double-beam? But would it be possible to get sufficient resolution at such distances? Even with site-to-site, usually, a spaceship with transporters, must be reasonly nearby. If not, Star Trek Voyager could have simply "beamed" home and taken the 70 years off their journey. According to the storyline, it was "possible" to travel much, much faster, but their basic warp engine technology just couldn't quite do it.
So we may still have the gigantic crowded spaceships, they just may be quite a lot more numerous, and faster, than some people may have thought. And more spacious than previously thought. Just like how our cars are replaced by flying cars, in
The Jetsons cartoon future, cities could be replaced by flying spaceship cities, in the future? I would much rather be born on another planet, or on a spaceship hurtline towards hopefully finding new worlds, than not at all, because there simply wasn't enough room anymore on the Earth. If there are more people than beds, I will share. It's just not that big a deal, and I can easily get along with reasonable people, even if they seemingly seem to be "too many." I would enjoy sex with other people around, were it really necessary. But these days, most people can find a place of privacy to sleep, at least family-privacy, if they live in one room.
The limitation is entropy, enforced by the lightspeed limit. No matter what material (or empty space) used as a conduit for the waste energy, it can only travel as fast as the speed of light. When you've got fifty quadrillion people each emitting forty watts of waste heat, that is inevitably going to heat the surface of the planet to 125 Fahrenheit just as fast as that energy can dissipate out into the universe at lightspeed.
All the better then, as finally everybody in the world will finally have air conditioning.
These guys did the math and I've had physicists check it over the years. It is simply not an Einsteinian-level calculation. Trust them. I'm sure there are ten members of SciForums who could do it in half an hour. Mister Q is probably one of them.It isn't nature that will cause the balance but the people, in your unedited scenario in which they would blithely keep doubling their numbers indefinitely. The "nature" in this case is not the nature of Malthus's time, which was things like the water table. It is the laws of physics, which are part of the structure of the
natural universe.The man who cites religion in his writings and had to go back and shore up the imprecise language that invalidated his own hypothesis is nailing me on the technicality of waxing poetic.
Nonetheless "cabin fever" is a documented phenomenon. We will commit almost all of the human race to a life without ever once seeing or breathing a non-artificial atmosphere at our peril.You're back to that again. It has already been refuted.
I welcome even "artificial" means in support of
natural human reproduction. Why must we help the anti-family contraceptive pushers in their anti-human-life crusade? I believe the human reproductive system, a very vital function of the body, should be just as welcome to operate naturally, as people breathing or their hearts beating. What's less cruel than denying people their children? Let them fill the gaps between people with still more people. Welcome their babies to keep on coming out. Malthus supposedly said that somebody must die to make room for each birth. What utter nonsense! There is a far better alternative, to asking people to "wait" until "hell freezes over," for the population to finally dip a tad, so that they can have their precious darling babies, if they still can as such an old age? Natural population
accumulation. Let births long exceed deaths, and ADAPT.
"Cabin fever" is such a problem? Nonsense. You can have a little nature in "spaceships." Don't you suppose that's partly what the "holodeck" is for? For temporary virtual environments? There could still be a few decorative house plants. There can be "common areas" to "get outside" into. It's not at all like the little box that astronauts must live in, for the duration of the flight or mission.
But why are we trying to redesign God's earth anyway? What's wrong with the current model? These ridiculous extrapolations, posit that God is dead, irrelevant, or never existed. If God be real, might that be a factor as well? Either God wouldn't allow us to multiply to such levels, or God would expand more worlds to be available to us. Why must you know all the answers, right now? For right now, just go on doing what we know so well, and are used to. Keep building more homes and surburbs, in the ration ample land available most everywhere. Encourage people to go on having children. There's even a natural progression, in which by going forward, we can more clearly see the next steps, after we get closer to wherever we are going. Sure, I admit that human bodies, must grow closer together on the global scale, since as they say, the planet isn't getting any bigger. But I don't imagine it to be such a "problem" as the faith-bashing Malthusians make it out to be.
Thermodynamics does not allow this. You have already used up your quota of one extraordinary hypothesis per post so we won't treat any more of them with respect.
This is a science website.
I don't understand this "quota" of which you speak. And certainly the topic of "ideal number of humans" can't be so neatly pigeonholed or cubbyholed into just "one extraordinary hypothesis per post." The numbers of people alive throughout the world, is already sort of "astonishing," when you try to comprehend it all, and apparently, whether people want to believe it or not, it's possible. You forget that the natural exponential growth of human numbers, changes far more than just the numbers. It has profound effects on the growth of technology, the number of intelligent thinking minds. If ever anything could allow humans to invent "Star Trek" like technologies, the natural "explosion" of our numbers could very well be a key factor. What if you only get but one really brilliant scientist, per million people? No, make it a billion. Then we had better have a really "huge" population, to really invent all that much.
The fundamental premise of science is that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be understood and predicted by theories derived logically from empirical observations of its present and past behavior. Hypotheses of a supernatural universe that is unobservable and illogical, including inhabitants that control the behavior of this universe in unobservable and illogical ways, are antiscientific. Excessive posting of such hypotheses is trolling.
No it isn't, especially on such a religious or philosiphical subject as "ideal number of humans." That's not such a tiny idea that you can just fit neatly into a laboratory test tube. Even "science" has to admit that there's a lot of things we simply don't know, and raise the question whether it's even knowable, and can humans even understand it? Our pet dogs could decide to be scientists, but they probably wouldn't get very far, because there minds just can't understand very much to a sufficient level of abstraction. That's why they are so impaired in the area of language even. Well how do we know we don't have that problem as well, just not quite to such an impaired extent? Aren't there many scientific theories of physics and such, that only but a tiny percentage of people know of or understand? Most people of the world don't really know what light and gravity is, and are we so sure, that even we do?
There is only a finite quantity of matter in the solar system. Once you convert it all into more warrens you've extended the date of the entropy limit by a few generations but then you still run into the same problem.You have not heard that from very many married people.
What are you saying? That we are "addicted" to growth? So what if we are? Without population growth, even economies could be in trouble. Without population growth, many homes could get old and fall into disrepair. Why repair homes, in a world of declining population? Why not just move into housing of still better condition, long since abandoned by the declining numbers of people to house? We would lose natural incentive to explore and invent and find better ways of doing things. How sad that all would be.
And why not extend things for a few more generations?
I am not at all convinced, by the "sudden" contraceptive, fake-medicated sex, way of thinking. That's not our history. That's not natural. That's not for progress. It's a very destructive, anti-family paradigm invented by rather "small" minds, who depise anything of "faith" or that they can't quite seem to understand.
Didn't I hear somewhere, that even Malthus said supposedly that overpopulation is necessary, to prevent laziness?
Take my word for it.The "generation starship" concept has been elaborated to death in sci fi. You have to have a ship literally the size of a city so that civilization can be maintained by a critical mass of inhabitants.
I think they fudge it by, maintaining an incredibly elaborate spaceship computer database of knowledge/electronic library, and because all these spaceships are interconnected via communications with each other and the planets. So the "critical mass" need not be all on the same spaceship then. Sure, maybe the Star Trek spaceships are too small, so as to not go so futuristic and far-fetched as to lose their rather government-school dumbed-down TV audience. But their mission is more one of exploration, not of "escape" from "exploding" human populations. Sure, the human race is spreading from planet to planet, a bit like "cancer," but it's so gradual and natural, that there isn't much worry about that. Maybe in the future, there just aren't any Malthusians left, because the Malthusians didn't have enough children. The few casual population references I picked up on, is that the Earth population is then much larger than today, but not overwhelmingly so. Not all that many people are trying to "flee" Earth, but they are fine with it. After all, they have "food replicators," so very few people actually bother to grow food anymore. All that farm land would be available for natural conversion to growing cities filled with people. Isn't that really the purpose of "food replicators," besides getting rid of the ridiculous space-wasting huge gardens on already-heavy spaceships?
At a minimum it would be built like the 3000CE earth, with minimal size private cubicles.Indeed. At relativistic speeds it will take sixty years just to travel to the nearest star which probably has a planet. There is no hope of a "galactic civilization." A trip from one edge of the galaxy to the other would take several hundred thousand years.Again the antiscientific hypothesis of a supernatural universe. You are trolling.Yet another time. There is a Sticky in Biology and Genetics to which all discussion of evolution denialist theories is limited by the Moderators.Of course. The spaceship will presumably be constructed in orbit out of material scavenged from asteroids. Still, the people must be lifted out of earth's gravity well. Have you calculated the amount of energy that will use?
Rather "big" military submarines, are a lot more cramped that many people realize. Their mission isn't of comfort, but of military defense or offense. Much of the rather costly machine, is all about the mission. Don't they often have things like hot-bunking? Meaning that a bunk is not owned by just one soldier, but owned for only his sleeping shift? When he gets up and does his duties, somebody else may sleep there. Even if they do have their own bunk, it's close to other people's bunks, stacked on top of others. But I agree with the direction of sci-fi, of "enlarging" living quarters. Sci-fi wouldn't be very interesting, if it was of miserable living conditions. We also see the direction, of minimizing space for equipment, and maximizing comfortable human cabins. Look how big SUVs and vans are, and yet how tiny the engine compartment in comparison. Why couldn't spaceships take almost the same direction? Most of the ship would be living quarters and common areas, and only a tiny portion for engines and such. Technology tends to increase power, and minimize the size of machines, and design around the needs of people.
Some noted population pessimist, claims that "population explosions" on spaceships would be disasterous, so only the least fertile people could be sent, leaving the most fertile people on Earth to breed. What utter nonsense! Spaceships could be specifically designed to accomodate and encourage natural human population "explosions." Common crew quarters could be designed for large families. It's conceivable that a spaceship could arrive with 4 times the number of people that they left with, and multiple people/families in each room. Many 1000s of women could be pregnant at any time, and babies being born every day. Such a compact and modern population, with probably not too much work duties, could likely easily pair up, and the next generation start reproducing as well. There's also the sci-fi idea of putting people into "stasis" of some sort, until they get to their destination, but that's often rejected as sort of bizarre and unhuman, to do for too long usually. In the Star Trek universe, babies indeed are born on spaceships as well.
But you are making quite a lot of assumptions. Sci-fi doesn't usally assume all spaceship trips to take 60 years, nor that it's impossible for people to have their own personal spaceships, something almost like how most everybody has cars today. Even in Star Trek, the galaxy is still quite huge. Humans have only explored but a tiny fraction of it. Even warp drive hasn't made the galaxy seem all that small, merely the nearest stars so much closer.
Yeah, humans are multiplying much too fast to be lifted out of Earth's gravity well, anywhere close to the rate that they are reproducing. So that's a practical reason why I don't advocate sending people to Mars or wherever anytime soon. It's just too expensive and too risky. But that's at the present technology level. It could be so different in the future. And right now, the technology simply isn't going must in the direction of colonizing more worlds. It's going very much in the direction of populating this world more and more densely. So that's the natural direction we should very much be going, well into the forseeable future.
