World population passed 7.5 billion yesterday!

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, IllyrianTheGreat said:

Club of Rome is group of really bad people, there is no natural limit.

50 years later and resource prices is generally very low shows its fail. 

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Not true anymore!

Birth rates are coming down in all countries across the world. Globally, the number of babies born per year is starting to decrease as well. World population is naturally approaching a fixed maximum.

Hans Rosling has many interesting statistics about global development, but this one here seems extra relevant:

This, and its no reason to expect the trend to end, in short the high pop growth countries will stabilize and the rest will mostly drop. 
In short the 2 kids goal will not hold it will get below that.

Luckily we will get life extensions and more AI and robots
 

[wumpus]

5 hours ago, IllyrianTheGreat said:

Club of Rome is group of really bad people, there is no natural limit.

A human needs about 2kW/hr of energy (via food) per day.  Traditionally, nearly all this energy is solar via plants or indirectly going plants->cattle/fish->people.  An arcology could conceivably produce this with nuclear energy (pretty much a requirement for Belters and anyone else beyond Mars).

Technological advancements also are dependent on a large population (or more accurately, a large number of people doing things that advance technology).  Don't be too surprised when a large population solves the problems it creates.  Just don't assume that the problems (especially the ecological ones) it creates are the same as the ones as 50 years ago (or whenever the project started).

[Terwin]

14 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Heck, we could try and build floating islands. Not now, sure, but these would be far easier and cheaper to do than planets and orbital colonies. We could probably support tens of billions given more advanced future technology. Perhaps quite comfortably. 

http://freedomship.com/  (planned to have ~100K persons on board at any one time)

At a current estimated cost of ~$10Bn for the first ship, compared to Musk's goal of ~$200K per person to mars, the cost of living on the ocean on a prototype ship is roughly half of the target price to make mars colonization affordable...  

 

[kerbiloid]

Why make the artificial island ship-shaped? Anyway it couldn't evade from an iceberg.

It should be round-shaped, parked in an appropriate place.

Spoiler

 

[StrandedonEarth]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Why make the artificial island ship-shaped? Anyway it couldn't evade from an iceberg.

It should be round-shaped, parked in an appropriate place.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Waterworld?

[HunHarcos]

On 4/26/2017 at 4:07 AM, ARS said:

Either we find a way to colonize planets or making orbital colonies, or we're going to have an overcrowded world

Naive... Making a third world war will be much easier, to get rid of the poor people.Im not saying I want this, dont get me wrong, but I think it will be like that.

[ARS]

9 minutes ago, HunHarcos said:

Naive... Making a third world war will be much easier, to get rid of the poor people.Im not saying I want this, dont get me wrong, but I think it will be like that.

The future is dark...

[HunHarcos]

Just now, ARS said:

The future is dark...

The question is , was the past darker? Maybe lighter?

[ARS]

5 minutes ago, HunHarcos said:

The question is , was the past darker? Maybe lighter?

It's up to humanity. Since the past is no better than future. We've become the most savage species in this planet since a very long time ago. And what matters is not about whether the past is lighter or darker. It's about how we can set aside our difference to make a brighter future. And I doubt we can do that, given how messed up our world today

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

As always, Kurzgesagt has a great video on this topic:

EDIT: Interesting website in the OP too, thanks.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Mad Rocket Scientist

[NSEP]

#stopthevaccines #bringbackthepolio #slowthisdown #nomorebabies

On 25/04/2017 at 11:52 PM, Nibb31 said:

I don't see how that would solve anything. Before we would be able to deport a million people, we will be several billions more. 

But maybe in a way for the future generations with more space? Does not mean we have to move millions there.

 

Maybe???.....

On 25/04/2017 at 10:00 PM, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

#colonizemars

#nocolonizecanadaandtakeoverinuitlandtheyneedalotofspaceanditstimetofightback

[NSEP]

On 26/04/2017 at 3:18 AM, Frybert said:

And humanity cements its place in history as a plague across the universe.

Thats bassicly the point of life. Spread your genes and live as long as possible. It just happends to be that humans have a rapidly rising population, wich adds another factor of life: make sure you have enough space for your children and their children and their children.

We cant just let the entire human species get extinct, amongst billions, there will be at least thousands of survivors who start the plague once again.

Edited April 29, 2017 by NSEP

[wumpus]

On 4/27/2017 at 1:38 AM, kerbiloid said:

Why make the artificial island ship-shaped? Anyway it couldn't evade from an iceberg.

It should be round-shaped, parked in an appropriate place.

I'd expect that you would want to evade a hurricane.  Presumably it would be deep enough that a tsunami wouldn't be noticed.

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, wumpus said:

I'd expect that you would want to evade a hurricane.  Presumably it would be deep enough that a tsunami wouldn't be noticed.

Basically I meant something like these, but just tried to keep it cheaper.

Spoiler

P.S.
A dream of minecrafter

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by kerbiloid

[Sampa]

On 4/25/2017 at 6:07 PM, ARS said:

Either we find a way to colonize planets or making orbital colonies, or we're going to have an overcrowded world

I hate to get political, but, the way things are looking, the population will drop sharply when WWIII breaks out, which may not be too far off, the way North Korea has been behaving...

[kerbiloid]

I plus this though NK is a harmless theatre.
Africa and South-East Asia regions look the most overstressed areas.

[ARS]

3 hours ago, Sampa said:

I hate to get political, but, the way things are looking, the population will drop sharply when WWIII breaks out, which may not be too far off, the way North Korea has been behaving...

So if North Korea really started WWIII that's gonna make world's population plummet, it's basically either we survive or becoming one of the collateral damage

[Sampa]

I am refering to the fact that the tensions with North Korea and a war with North Korea may only be a powder keg.  besides that, World War III will more than likely involve Thermonuclear weapons which would kill more people in the long term as well as cause potentially deadly mutations due to the fall out radiation from the mass use of nuclear weapons.

either way, the population of Earth MAY suffer.

[kerbiloid]

Not the thermonukes, but destroyed irrigation in overpopulated areas and caused mass exodus and epidemies.

[magnemoe]

On 27.4.2017 at 7:38 AM, kerbiloid said:

Why make the artificial island ship-shaped? Anyway it couldn't evade from an iceberg.

It should be round-shaped, parked in an appropriate place.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

You want to go on cruise with it, its an combination of an cruise ship and tax haven. 
Boat shapes is anyway pretty practical in the sea, know of one oil platform who is round as its used in the arctic and need to store oil. 
And living space is not an issue in any way, living is expensive because of expected standards and location latest is both practical, social and status. 

[IllyrianTheGreat]

On 26.04.2017 at 3:32 PM, magnemoe said:

50 years later and resource prices is generally very low shows its fail. 

Not really there is lots of people thinking that overpopulation is huge problem, that is success.

On 26.04.2017 at 3:55 PM, wumpus said:

A human needs about 2kW/hr of energy (via food) per day.  Traditionally, nearly all this energy is solar via plants or indirectly going plants->cattle/fish->people.  An arcology could conceivably produce this with nuclear energy (pretty much a requirement for Belters and anyone else beyond Mars).

Technological advancements also are dependent on a large population (or more accurately, a large number of people doing things that advance technology).  Don't be too surprised when a large population solves the problems it creates.  Just don't assume that the problems (especially the ecological ones) it creates are the same as the ones as 50 years ago (or whenever the project started).

Large population is not problem. Ecological problems are created by large density of population.

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, IllyrianTheGreat said:

Large population is not problem. Ecological problems are created by large density of population.

This was true for population values <<7.5 billion (see note about "problems of fifty years ago").  Global warming and overall fish depletion are two obvious current dangers of large population.  Consider the issue of distant population centers demanding the deforestation (and other ecological havoc) of low density areas.

The flip side is that low population is hardly a panacea.  Technology (all knowledge growth really, but things go bad fast without the tech) and specialization really depends on population size (and population density helps in many ways).