Population Control Solves Alot of Problems

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:19 pm

Betruger wrote:I don't get any immortality vibe from having some molecules of mine passed on. That one never convinced me.
I'm not trying to do anything, just debating to try to figure out why you think genes are more resistant to time than anything we could make, and now why people buy into that passed on/immortality thing. It just doesn't add up, to me, so I must be missing something that others are seeing. We're not even sure that we are the same person from moment to moment, or decade to decade (I personally think we are, but there's pretty compelling arguments we aren't - JStrout and I and a few others debated this here a while back), and even the clone scheme is suspect, so just a molecule is pretty scarce.

We can't live forever today, but I wager if we manage to extend life span to 150 or 200 in the next 50 years or so, effectively indefinite life span for those people would be possible. And then it's relatively little waiting to see a lot of unpredictible tech that IMO are as good as true immortality. Even then, I don't think it's going to be so extraordinary as some might expect.

But back to standing time.. The reason genes survive so long is that they're so numerously and constantly duplicated, inside just a single person. Advanced nanotech ought to match that. Nature did it passively, an active approach should at least match it. The means to it are nearly in our reach already.

Do you have children? I didn't used to believe that stuff either until I had a family.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:22 pm

I don't have free will. I have quantum indeterminacy.

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:06 pm

MSimon wrote:I don't have free will. I have quantum indeterminacy.

Unfortunately, since you posted this message, you lost your indeterminacy status

alexjrgreen · Post by **alexjrgreen** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:11 pm

Giorgio wrote:
MSimon wrote:I don't have free will. I have quantum indeterminacy.
Unfortunately, since you posted this message, you lost your indeterminacy status

That might give us his position. His momentum is still unknown...

MirariNefas · Post by **MirariNefas** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:25 pm

His momentum is known. But our precision is limited.

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:29 pm

alexjrgreen wrote:
Giorgio wrote:
MSimon wrote:I don't have free will. I have quantum indeterminacy.
Unfortunately, since you posted this message, you lost your indeterminacy status
That might give us his position. His momentum is still unknown...

Well we can assume that his momentum is equal to zero, unless he is typying at his keyboard from a moving medium. But you are all correct, we need more data to be sure. Let's wait for his next post and compare the two results..... unless of course our observations are disrupting him (ouch...).

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 4:12 pm

Hmm, his momentum relative to what?

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 4:47 pm

Just because you know all my synaptic potentials doesn't mean you know how my wavefunctions will collapse.

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 4:51 pm

I don't understand what makes childbearing so sacred. It's open season on regulating anything else.

Not free speech, or free press, or the right to vote, or to bear arms, or the right to a trial, or... well, you get the idea.

Talk of forced abortions and involuntary sterilization is scary.

Shubedobedubopbopbedo · Tue Nov 24, 2009 4:56 pm

kunkmiester wrote:I should have thought of this earlier:
http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Not that big of a deal after we're regulating birth, right?

Someone has been reading a bit too much malthus, methinks.

There is a reason Malthus and Jonathan Swift published the ideas they did, because humans have been overpopulating and starving to death forever. The difference between their ideas and mine is that his "modest proposal" is a reaction, after the fact of overpopulation. In his time, there were not sufficient resources to support people with a decent quality of life. You know the expression, an ounce of prevention... etc. etc. The only people that would suffer from childbirth licenses would be the people whose egos are built on having as many kids as possible. Or is it Id? Whatever.

Personally I feel no obligation to my dead ancestors. I have no plans to carry on their traditions or fulfill their hopes & dreams. If that's what they wanted to do, then they should have had a different kid, cause I'm all grown up and I'm doing what I want. Fact is, their way of life was based in ignorance, and so is ours. Frankly I hope our decendents abandon our ways entirely, there are plenty of things that need improving.

Number One on the list is the odious need to secure employment under implied threat of death. Try to argue with me that isn't how our society works and I'll bury you! Just another form of slavery. It sucks. Own up. Just don't ask me how to fix it. If we can't control ourselves collectively I doubt we'll ever have a truely stable society that doesn't inevitably bankrupt itself. Bankrupt: that's when you run out of money, a finite resource. Term could easily be applied to resources in general.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:34 pm

People are eating better than ever. About 4 billion out of 6 billion have adequate food. No point in stopping that. And it is the oil and electricity revolution that is feeding that.

More power plants. More cars. In fact it would be really good if cars were series hybrids with power generation capabilities. Then you feed in wind and solar power and you have a 24/7 village power source.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:40 pm

Try to argue with me that isn't how our society works and I'll bury you! Just another form of slavery.

You mean in the tribal form of organization people don't need to eat or find shelter?

We just do it at a higher level of comfort.

A thermodynamic explanation of politics

Which explains why city people have a penchant for mass murder while country people think such schemes are nuts.

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 6:29 pm

Actually, from what I understand Swift's essay was total, unrelenting snark. Malthusian ideas about limits on population and resources were making the rounds, and he took affront to it, and decided to show people just how far you could go with that logic.

Of course, everyone who's tried to say the world was doomed to a vast hunger has been wrong, but only because we've always had people to discover something new that produced an increase of yield. Basically, they discounted human ingenuity and science's ability to feed the world.

The only way things will be different now is if people use the gov and other influences to destroy the ability of those people to increase our ability to feed the world. This could be scaremongering about genetic engineering, global warming, other enviro-wackoism, or even deliberate genocide(been done before). It certainly won't be the world's carrying capacity.

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:32 pm

The difference between their ideas and mine is that his "modest proposal" is a reaction, after the fact of overpopulation. In his time, there were not sufficient resources to support people with a decent quality of life.

The problem is his principal axiom was completely wrong. We've conquered famine, pestilence, and plague. His contemporary critics have been vindicated in their belief society would improve faster than population. People today enjoy the highest living standards in history.

Malthus lived during the onset of the Little Ice Age. It's no wonder he was a pessimist. Given the data available to him, it wasn't an unreasonable conclusion that subsistence could not expand as fast as population. But as it turned out, he was wrong.

A Soviet citizen might have come to the same conclusion. As it turned out, it was just because Communism doesn't work.

Number One on the list is the odious need to secure employment under implied threat of death.

Lots of people manage to avoid employment without suffering death. Homeless shelters and soup kitchens abound. Or, you can head into the wilderness and fend for yourself.

What's odious is the notion you have a right to the unearned fruits of someone else's labors.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:46 pm

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http://www.ecnmag.com/neighborhood-deve ... ckage.aspx

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How w to change the world without needing totolitarian social controls.