The space program we have is a joke

[InigoMontoya]

It's only a fringe activity because we keep neglecting it. One of the main points I'm trying to make is that it SHOULDN'T be such a low priority. You seem to be confusing this with some sort of inherent technical difficulty when in fact it's a matter of politics. And you still didn't answer my question as to what you would recommend. Yeah getting women educated and in the workforce is the best single thing we've got for this problem, but that's not enough either.

Do you consider drunk driving effective population control? A quick google indicates that approximately 12,000 people per year die from DUI-related accidents in the US. That's on the order of 500X as many deaths in the US alone as the entire world sends up as astronauts each year. The point being that even if NASA turned around and sent up 500 TIMES AS MANY MANNED SPACE MISSIONS you still wouldn't be reducing the population in any meaningful way. Or put another way, you'd be sending up as many as 3 SPACE SHUTTLES EVERY SINGLE DAY and you still wouldn't be making any more of a dent than drunk drivers do.

 

To put it in monetary perspective, NASA's 2010 budget (at least, according to wikipedia) was 18.7 billion dollars. Multiply that times 500? You're talking over 9 TRILLION DOLLARS and you're still not doing anything significant.

 

It's not a matter of politics. It's a matter of sheer numbers. There are simply too many people in the world for the space program of any nation to keep up... Even if that nation were to declare the space program to be it's #1 priority!

 

 

As for what *I* recommend for population control? Exactly that. Population control. Best example to date? China's "one child" policy. It's relatively inexpensive and effective. True, it won't fly in the US (at least, not for a long time) but I see it as the best option. What do I think will *actually* happen? A global famine. One year or another there will be a simultaneous drought that will hit multiple "bread basket" regions of the world. Whammo. A billion or two people will die of starvation, and the world's economy will be in ruins for a generation.

 

Love the sarcasm. But you are the one who introduced the long time frame when you said "SPACE EXPLORATION WILL NEVER HELP REDUCE GLOBAL POPULATION. NEVER." Next time if you provide me with the time frame I'm allowed to consider I'll limit my comments accordingly.

The point was that if you want to call an activity that only removes statistically insignificant numbers of people from the Earth "population control" you're playing semantics games and being deliberately obtuse at best.

Edited February 9, 2011 by InigoMontoya

[D H]

As for what *I* recommend for population control? Exactly that. Population control. Best example to date? China's "one child" policy. It's relatively inexpensive and effective. True, it won't fly in the US (at least, not for a long time) but I see it as the best option.

It doesn't need to fly in the US, Canada, Western Europe, or Russia. We don't need enforced population control. We have voluntary population control with nary a regulation on births. This is one of many reasons why a space program will not help solve the population problem. The countries capable of flying a tiny number of people into space do not have an overpopulation problem. Overpopulation is for the most part a problem of second and third world countries. Those countries are not going to undertake a Chinese-style solution. The UN would have to step in -- essentially an act of war. The lie of "we're from the government and we're here to help" would become "we're from the UN and we're here to cut off your testicles."

 

 

A far into the future space program could help solve this population problem: "There are only 10 billion humans in the universe, and we're all right here. That's a problem! There should be trillions and trillions of us."

 

 

 

[Mr Skeptic]

A far into the future space program could help solve this population problem: "There are only 10 billion humans in the universe, and we're all right here. That's a problem! There should be trillions and trillions of us."

 

My thoughts exactly. We're just sitting here waiting for nature or mankind to wipe us out, killing each other over minor squabbles when we should be conquering our solar system and raising our civilization to the next level.

[zapatos]

The point was that if you want to call an activity that only removes statistically insignificant numbers of people from the Earth "population control" you're playing semantics games and being deliberately obtuse at best.

Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

 

Person A has position X.

Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).

Person B attacks position Y.

Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

 

That's twice now you've attributed "population control" to me. You might want to go back and see who actually used those words. (Hint: It was you!) Seems to me that you are the one who is being obtuse.

Edited February 9, 2011 by zapatos

[InigoMontoya]

That's twice now you've attributed "population control" to me. You might want to go back and see who actually used those words. (Hint: It was you!) Seems to me that you are the one who is being obtuse.

 

OK...

 

Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

You're going to sit there and tell me that the removal of 1,000 people out of a global population of 6,000,000,000 people - not even 1 person in a million - fits any reasonable definition of population control? In my book that's the very definition of a distorted, and exaggerated position.

 

You state that the death of insignificant numbers of people represent a "future population" and that's a valid point... to an extent. The problem with it is that it lacks context. Suppose that population of 1,000 people doubles every 20 years. In 100 year's you'll end up with 32,000 people. Wow, that's a lot, isn't it? No, not really... Because while those 1,000 people were doing their thing the rest of the 6,000,000,000 were doing theirs' as well. Double 6,000,000,000 every 20 years and you end up with 192,000,000,000 people. You can make similar comparisons for any length of time you like. The fact remains that those 32,000 people aren't even a drop in the bucket compared to 192,000,000,000 people.

 

But let's put the ball back in your court. The discussion is whether or not space exploration would result in meaningful population control. Let's say that "meaningful" population control means nothing more than preventing 1% of the potential births out there. 1%. Mind you, that's not population control in the big picture; it's merely one tiny piece of a 100 piece puzzle. Surely that's not too difficult. All it takes is a national priority, right? OK... So you need to send 700,000 per year to somewhere out there.... Let's see your version of the numbers. How do you propose to do it?

 

edit: Ooops, put 7,000,000 instead of 700,000. Mea culpa. Fixed.

Edited February 9, 2011 by InigoMontoya

[Mr Skeptic]

I think that depends on how you look at it. It certainly seems likely that space exploration will not reduce the number of people on earth today, but it can have a big impact on the future population.

 

Any child born somewhere other than earth means the population of earth will not be increased by that birth. So while the population of Africa has gone up substantially since the first people left that continent, its population is much lower than it would have been if all the people born somewhere other than Africa had instead contributed to the population of Africa.

 

Similarly, if thousands of years from now humans are being born somewhere other than earth, I think it would be fair to say that space exploration contributed to a reduced population on earth.

 

That's twice now you've attributed "population control" to me. You might want to go back and see who actually used those words. (Hint: It was you!) Seems to me that you are the one who is being obtuse.

 

Right, you only said it could have a "big impact" on future population, not that it could be a form of population control. From the sounds of it you seem to think that if African Americans have 100 million kids in the US that should somehow count as reducing the population of Africa by 100 million more. Population doesn't work like that -- having kids or not is not something that is decided by fate and that the only thing we can control is where it happens. No, if people leave a region then that region's population is reduced, and if people in a region have a child, then that region's population is increased, but that doesn't further reduce the population of their region of origin. Space colonization will almost by necessity require special effort to have a lot of children per colonist, which they most certainly would not have had if they had stayed here on earth.

[zapatos]

You're going to sit there and tell me that the removal of 1,000 people out of a global population of 6,000,000,000 people - not even 1 person in a million - fits any reasonable definition of population control? In my book that's the very definition of a distorted, and exaggerated position.

 

You state that the death of insignificant numbers of people represent a "future population" and that's a valid point... to an extent.

In terms of our exchange, I don't know what you are talking about. Are you sure it is me you mean to be directing these comments to? If so, would you mind showing my exact quote followed by your response?

[InigoMontoya]

In terms of our exchange, I don't know what you are talking about. Are you sure it is me you mean to be directing these comments to? If so, would you mind showing my exact quote followed by your response?

 

You stated...

"Similarly, if thousands of years from now humans are being born somewhere other than earth, I think it would be fair to say that space exploration contributed to a reduced population on earth."

...Emphasis is mine.

 

I'm using the term "population control" as has been used since early in this thread. You're using the term "reduced population on Earth." Given the context of the greater thread, I view the two phrases in quotes as equivelent. If you don't, then I have no idea what you're trying to say.

[D H]

That's twice now you've attributed "population control" to me. You might want to go back and see who actually used those words. (Hint: It was you!) Seems to me that you are the one who is being obtuse.

Let's do just that. Who was it who opened this silly off-topic can of worms.

 

The first occurrence of the word population was in post #92, emphasis mine:

If you read the article I don't understand what you are trying to say and if you didn't you missed quite an interesting description of why nuclear power is not as dangerous as the general population thinks it is.

Moontanman is not opening the overpopulation / population control can of worms here.

 

 

 

So who did? Hint: It was you, in post #104:

 

Space exploration is a matter of great importance and I don't know why so many people seem to have a hard time grasping this. Overpopulation is ultimately one of the greatest problems facing humanity.

It sure looks like you are alluding that space exploration is a part of the cure to the overpopulation problem here.

 

 

You gave the appearance of continuing in the same vein in post #120:

You guys misunderstood me. I don't think space exploration alone is the solution for overpopulation. But is there a good single solution? This is one of those problems that needs to be attacked from a variety of angles. In this context it could be useful for overpopulation.

 

Apparently we do misunderstand you. It now appears you are not talking so much about overpopulation of the Earth being a problem as the rather stark underpopulation of humans everywhere but on the Earth as a problem.

 

 

Getting back to the off-topic issue of population control, post #125:

Yeah getting women educated and in the workforce is the best single thing we've got for this problem, but that's not enough either.

Are you so sure that this isn't enough? Good chunks of the civilized world have a negative population growth problem. In other words, overpopulation is not a problem in Western Europe, Russia, etc. I would venture that getting women educated and into the workforce (along with getting kids out of the workforce) played a big part in making overpopulation a non-issue in the civilized world.

 

If we don't solve overpopulation on a global level, and soon, we may never reach the luxury of being able to view the fact that humans have not spread beyond the Earth as a problem.

 

 

 

Now can we please go back on-topic?

Edited February 9, 2011 by D H

[zapatos]

You stated...

"Similarly, if thousands of years from now humans are being born somewhere other than earth, I think it would be fair to say that space exploration contributed to a reduced population on earth."

...Emphasis is mine.

 

I'm using the term "population control" as has been used since early in this thread. You're using the term "reduced population on Earth." Given the context of the greater thread, I view the two phrases in quotes as equivelent. If you don't, then I have no idea what you're trying to say.

Well, I said "I think that depends on how you look at it. It certainly seems likely that space exploration will not reduce the number of people on earth today, but it can have a big impact on the future population."

 

In very general terms, let's say that hypothetically the human population reaches 100 billion, thousands of years in the future. If 50 billion of them are on living somewhere other than earth, then that means the population of earth is 50 billion, not 100 billion. That is the big impact on the future population of earth I was talking about. I was trying to make that point when I talked about the population of Africa and how it is less now than it would have been if humans had never left the continent.

 

I agree that space exploration and moving people off the planet is not "population control" in the sense that it has been used.

[InigoMontoya]

In very general terms, let's say that hypothetically the human population reaches 100 billion, thousands of years in the future. If 50 billion of them are on living somewhere other than earth, then that means the population of earth is 50 billion, not 100 billion. That is the big impact on the future population of earth I was talking about. I was trying to make that point when I talked about the population of Africa and how it is less now than it would have been if humans had never left the continent.

Fair enough, but I disagree with your premise.

 

Just because 50 billion people are off-Earth doesn't mean that you're preventing an Earth-based population of 100 billion people. To do so assumes that food supply and such are sufficient for 100B people. Note: Whether Earth could or couldn't support any specific number is largely irrelevant here. Adjust the numbers up or down for your personal bias on what population the Earth will support. The point is that Earth's resources are finite and sooner or later you're going to run into a wall. At that point in time, it won't matter if there are 50B people living on Mars. You could birth 100B more people on Mars and it won't have an effect on Earth's - for lack of a better term - potential population because even if all those people were suddenly teleported to Earth they would all promptly starve to death and Earth's population would remain static.

 

Hmmmm... Soilent Green, anyone?

[Mr Skeptic]

zapatos, you seem to be grossly overestimating the effects of emigration. Suppose for example that Alice and Bob leave Bishop Rock and then have 20 kids. You seem to want to count this as the population of Bishop Rock being reduced by 22: 2 from emigration and 20 from potential procreation. If each of their kids also has 20 kids then I'm sure you'd say the population was reduced by 400 more. In case you're wondering, Bishop Rock is a tiny island with little more than a lighthouse. It used to have someone living there but now it is fully automated. It simply can't have that many people living there, and that is the point... the children of people who are no longer here are irrelevant. It doesn't even matter how many children people would have on average here. No, what matters is the population growth rate, which is [math]r = \frac{births - deaths + immigration - emigration}{population \cdot time}[/math]. Multiply r by population and you get your population growth rate per unit time. Reduce population by 1, and the effect on population growth rate is non-existent, it simply reduces the population by 1 as if it were an earlier time without affecting the rate. Reduce the population by 1 per unit time, and that does affect the growth rate. To count the effect you have to compare to the overall effects in the equation. And never will the effect be any greater than if the person had died. In fact, the effect of death would be greater than that of emigration because dead people cannot emigrate back.

[zapatos]

Let's do just that. Who was it who opened this silly off-topic can of worms.

 

The first occurrence of the word population was in post #92, emphasis mine:

 

Moontanman is not opening the overpopulation / population control can of worms here.

 

 

 

So who did? Hint: It was you, in post #104:

 

 

It sure looks like you are alluding that space exploration is a part of the cure to the overpopulation problem here.

 

 

You gave the appearance of continuing in the same vein in post #120:

 

 

Apparently we do misunderstand you. It now appears you are not talking so much about overpopulation of the Earth being a problem as the rather stark underpopulation of humans everywhere but on the Earth as a problem.

 

 

Getting back to the off-topic issue of population control, post #125:

 

Are you so sure that this isn't enough? Good chunks of the civilized world have a negative population growth problem. In other words, overpopulation is not a problem in Western Europe, Russia, etc. I would venture that getting women educated and into the workforce (along with getting kids out of the workforce) played a big part in making overpopulation a non-issue in the civilized world.

 

If we don't solve overpopulation on a global level, and soon, we may never reach the luxury of being able to view the fact that humans have not spread beyond the Earth as a problem.

 

 

 

Now can we please go back on-topic?

I swear it feels like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Your post seems to be directed at me as the first quote is from me, as follows:

"That's twice now you've attributed "population control" to me. You might want to go back and see who actually used those words. (Hint: It was you!) Seems to me that you are the one who is being obtuse."

Which you then follow up with statements of your own as follows:

"The first occurrence of the word population was in post #92, emphasis mine:

 

Moontanman is not opening the overpopulation / population control can of worms here.

 

So who did? Hint: It was you, in post #104:"

Well, I don't think it was me because my first post in this thread was post #122.

It seems like I'm being confused with wright496 for some reason.

 

zapatos, you seem to be grossly overestimating the effects of emigration. Suppose for example that Alice and Bob leave Bishop Rock and then have 20 kids. You seem to want to count this as the population of Bishop Rock being reduced by 22: 2 from emigration and 20 from potential procreation. If each of their kids also has 20 kids then I'm sure you'd say the population was reduced by 400 more.

Actually what I would say is that the population of Bishop Rock did not increase by 400 more.

...the children of people who are no longer here are irrelevant.

They are relevant to what the population would have been on Bishop Rock had they not emigrated, but instead stayed on the rock and delivered their progeny there.

 

Africa has a population of about 1 billion, or about 15% of the earth's population. Suppose Africa was the only continent on earth, which means that humans could not have emigrated elsewhere. Do you suppose the population of Africa would still be 1 billion or would it have changed?

 

For the moment I'm leaving out limiting factors such as natural resources, but I suspect the population would be much larger. I'm not trying to make accurate predictions of exact populations. I'm just saying that the population would tend to be higher if people did not emigrate.

 

And in the Africa example, if resources were not limited and no one emigrated to other continents, the population of Africa would now be about 6 billion.

 

Fair enough, but I disagree with your premise.

 

Just because 50 billion people are off-Earth doesn't mean that you're preventing an Earth-based population of 100 billion people. To do so assumes that food supply and such are sufficient for 100B people. Note: Whether Earth could or couldn't support any specific number is largely irrelevant here. Adjust the numbers up or down for your personal bias on what population the Earth will support. The point is that Earth's resources are finite and sooner or later you're going to run into a wall. At that point in time, it won't matter if there are 50B people living on Mars. You could birth 100B more people on Mars and it won't have an effect on Earth's - for lack of a better term - potential population because even if all those people were suddenly teleported to Earth they would all promptly starve to death and Earth's population would remain static.

 

Hmmmm... Soilent Green, anyone?

Right. I'm not saying that earth's population won't hit 100 billion (or whatever) at some point, I'm saying that it would hit it later. If the population rate does not change then we will hit 100 billion at some time in the future, regardless of whether those people are on earth, in space, or in both places. And if the population is divided between both places, then the population on earth is less that it would have been without emigration to space. In my example by half.

 

I generally agree with what you say. There is some limit to the populatioin the earth can hold. But if part of the population is growing elsewhere, then it is not growing as fast on earth, and therefore the population on earth will be lower than it could have been, for an additional time period.

Edited February 9, 2011 by zapatos

[InigoMontoya]

They are relevant to what the population would have been on Bishop Rock had they not emigrated, but instead stayed on the rock and delivered their progeny there.

 

Africa has a population of about 1 billion, or about 15% of the earth's population. Suppose Africa was the only continent on earth, which means that humans could not have emigrated elsewhere. Do you suppose the population of Africa would still be 1 billion or would it have changed?

Disagree. I think that even without the massive and forced emigration of the 1500-1800 timeframe (ie, the slave trade) that the population of Africa would be about... 1 billion give or take. Why? In a word: Malaria. Increased population would force more people into the "less desirable" areas of Africa. Result: Malaria, Sleeping Sickness, the Guinea Worm, and other diseases endemic to the area absolutely ravage these populations and... Voila, population remains largely unchanged.

 

For the moment I'm leaving out limiting factors such as natural resources, but I suspect the population would be much larger.

But you *can't* just leave out limiting factors. You can argue about the mechanisms or numbers of the limits, but you can't just assume that there are no limiting factors when discussing population growth. I mean, throw out limiting factors and the whole discussion of population growth and control becomes a moot point.

 

I generally agree with what you say. There is some limit to the populatioin the earth can hold. But if part of the population is growing elsewhere, then it is not growing as fast on earth, and therefore the population on earth will be lower than it could have been, for an additional time period.

Sure, but is it a meaningful delay?

 

At the rates we're talking about, even with the "500 times current NASA" rate I was discussing earlier you're dealing with stuff like....

 

"The Earth will hit 8 billion people on Jan 1, 2020." vs. "The Earth will hit 8 billion people on Jan 2, 2020."

 

Was there a delay? Yes. Was it meaningful? I would say not.

Edited February 10, 2011 by InigoMontoya

[zapatos]

Disagree. I think that even without the massive and forced emigration of the 1500-1800 timeframe (ie, the slave trade) that the population of Africa would be about... 1 billion give or take. Why? In a word: Malaria. Increased population would force more people into the "less desirable" areas of Africa. Result: Malaria, Sleeping Sickness, the Guinea Worm, and other diseases endemic to the area absolutely ravage these populations and... Voila, population remains largely unchanged.

 

Maybe. And here is another opinion:

 

The population of the continent south of the Sahara, decimated by the slave trade and colonization, stood at 100 million in 1900, according to the study by Centre Population et Developpement. It had grown more than seven-fold to 770 million by 2005. By 2050, it will grow by as much as 2.6 times above that level, to 2 billion.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/africa-population-47010905

But you *can't* just leave out limiting factors. You can argue about the mechanisms or numbers of the limits, but you can't just assume that there are no limiting factors when discussing population growth. I mean, throw out limiting factors and the whole discussion of population growth and control becomes a moot point.

Ok, so let's say population is curbed by 50%. That puts the population of Africa at 3 billion instead of 6 billion. But of course I'm just making that up as I have no idea what impact the limiting factors would have. Can you site some study that would give us a clue to what the population of Africa would be if it were the only continent on earth?

 

Sure, but is it a meaningful delay?

Well, since Africa has not yet reached a population of 6 billion but humans have reproduced at a rate bringing the total population to 6 billion, yes, I'd say it is a meaningful delay.

[InigoMontoya]

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/africa-population-47010905

So the population of Africa has gone nuts since 1900. I'd wager that this is primarily due to the industrial revolution and modern medicine hitting the area rather than things returning back to normal. The slave trade (as an international trade) ended in 1853. What did the population of Africa due between 1850 and 1900? That would give you a better indicator of what effects emigration had on Africa's population.

 

Ok, so let's say population is curbed by 50%. That puts the population of Africa at 3 billion instead of 6 billion. But of course I'm just making that up as I have no idea what impact the limiting factors would have. Can you site some study that would give us a clue to what the population of Africa would be if it were the only continent on earth?

No, I can not. Can you?

 

I would guess, however, that the population of Africa as a closed system would be LESS than it currently stands. After all, the other continents sure seem to ship an awful lot of food that direction.

 

Well, since Africa has not yet reached a population of 6 billion but humans have reproduced at a rate bringing the total population to 6 billion, yes, I'd say it is a meaningful delay.

I don't even have the words to express my gut reaction to this statement.... I'm out.

[InigoMontoya]

[nevermind]

Edited February 11, 2011 by InigoMontoya

[zapatos]

I don't even have the words to express my gut reaction to this statement.... I'm out.

 

[nevermind]

Ah, come on. If you are going to give me a negative rep, at least tell me what you found so offensive.

 

I may be wrong but it seems to me that the reason you are getting so frustrated with me is because I'm looking at what the population could look like in the very long term, and you are looking at population trends in a much closer time frame.

 

EDIT: My apologies for assuming that you gave me the negative rep. As Mr Skeptic just pointed out to me, he gave me the negative rep and explained why below.

Edited February 11, 2011 by zapatos

[Mr Skeptic]

I'm the one who gave you the negative rep. It's off-topic, blatantly wrong, and the reason why was already explained to you. In short, you are mixing the resources of one region and anywhere anyone from that region has ever emigrated to, as if all those resources were available to the people in the first region, and so incorrectly counting emigration as a larger effect than death for population control.

[zapatos]

I'm the one who gave you the negative rep. It's off-topic, blatantly wrong, and the reason why was already explained to you. In short, you are mixing the resources of one region and anywhere anyone from that region has ever emigrated to, as if all those resources were available to the people in the first region, and so incorrectly counting emigration as a larger effect than death for population control.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

It's off-topic

Ok. Although as mitigating circumstances I'd like to point out that I did not start the converstation about the effects of space exploration on global population, and I was not the only one discussing it.

 

you are mixing the resources of one region and anywhere anyone from that region has ever emigrated to, as if all those resources were available to the people in the first region,

 

I just reread all of my posts and the only time I mentioned resources I said "For the moment I'm leaving out limiting factors such as natural resources, but I suspect the population would be much larger. I'm not trying to make accurate predictions of exact populations. I'm just saying that the population would tend to be higher if people did not emigrate."

I purposely left out resources. I'm not sure what I said that made you conclude I was sharing resources.

 

and so incorrectly counting emigration as a larger effect than death for population control.

 

And for the second time in this thread I wish to point out that I did not use the term population control, and am not saying that emigration is a form of population control.

 

As a recap of the point I was trying to make:

 

Let's say planet X has a population of 20 reproducing couples at year 1, and a reproduction rate of r, and that after 100 years the population of the planet is going to be 200 based on that reproduction rate.

 

If at year 1 you instead took half of those reproducing couples and moved them to planet Y, and the reproduction rate remained the same, then after 100 years the total population will still be 200, but that will be divided into 100 people on planet X and 100 people on planet Y.

 

Therefore, the emigration of those 10 reproducing couples to planet Y, had an impact on the population of planet X.

 

That's it.

 

I did not address resource availability because I had no idea how to do so.

I did not give specific numbers to the impact on the population on earth, I only said that over a long period of time, it could have a big impact on the future population of earth.

I did not make predictions about birth rate as I had no idea how to do so.

 

And I'm happy to drop the topic also.

[Mr Skeptic]

Perhaps this will explain then:

http://en.wikipedia....Logistic_growth

 

It doesn't matter a rat's ass what the rate of population growth is, so long as it is above 1 and the carrying capacity does not change. Eventually, carrying capacity is reached and growth cannot continue past that point (not without being followed by a population crash). The only difference is how long it will take. You think that buying some time will be of any value whatsoever? Say you manage to launch 200,000 people into space. Congratulations, you postponed our population problems by a day.

[zapatos]

It doesn't matter a rat's ass what the rate of population growth is, so long as it is above 1 and the carrying capacity does not change. Eventually, carrying capacity is reached and growth cannot continue past that point (not without being followed by a population crash).

Yes, I know that.

The only difference is how long it will take.

Yes, I know that.

You think that buying some time will be of any value whatsoever?

No, I don't.

Say you manage to launch 200,000 people into space. Congratulations, you postponed our population problems by a day.

Yes, I know that.

 

In fact, we seem to be in complete agreement. The only issue I can see at all is that for some reason you seem to be projecting on to me the views of someone else.

 

If you read only the words that I wrote in this thread you'll see what I mean. I am not implying anything other than what I wrote. I cannot understand why you think otherwise, or why you seem to be getting hostile about it.

[InigoMontoya]

I may be wrong but it seems to me that the reason you are getting so frustrated with me is because I'm looking at what the population could look like in the very long term, and you are looking at population trends in a much closer time frame.

No, my frustration is based on your apparent complete lack of understanding regarding the concept of limiting factors of population and how that applies to the long term. Contrary to your belief, it is YOU who are looking at short term populations. You say, "Lets ignore natural resources" but that very assumption is utterly asinine. Without limitations there's no point in having a conversation regarding population growth. Might as well have a conversation about automobile gas mileage but then assume that all cars have Mr. Fusion as their power source; not gas.

 

So... let me try this again....

 

POPULATION SANS EMIGRATION

1) Population grows at X%.

2) After LongTime years the population reaches BigNumber.

3) At BigNumber, the population stabilizes simply because you can't feed any more (any additional people starve to death).

 

POPULATION WITH EMIGRATION

1) Population grows at (X-x)%

2) After LongTime+MoreTime years the population reaches BigNumber. Yes, the very same BigNumber mentioned previously.

3) At BigNumber, the population stabilizes simply because you can't feed any more people (any additional people starve to death).

 

When you're say that I'm looking short term and you're looking term you're focusing in on step 2. What you're completely failing to realize is that BigNumber for BOTH processes is the same. Short term? Yeah, there's going to be some differences (very small, but yes, differences). Long term? Nope... The population will stabilize at BigNumber. Period.

Edited February 12, 2011 by InigoMontoya

[zapatos]

No, my frustration is based on your apparent complete lack of understanding regarding the concept of limiting factors of population and how that applies to the long term. Contrary to your belief, it is YOU who are looking at short term populations. You say, "Lets ignore natural resources" but that very assumption is utterly asinine. Without limitations there's no point in having a conversation regarding population growth.

Actually what I said was:

 

"For the moment I'm leaving out limiting factors such as natural resources...".

If you are going to quote me, I wish you would quote what I actually said.

 

I also made the following statements:

 

"...I have no idea what impact the limiting factors would have."

and,

"I did not address resource availability because I had no idea how to do so."

 

I admit it. I don't know how to project future populations due to limiting factors. What do you want me to do? Make stuff up?

 

 

 

So... let me try this again....

 

POPULATION SANS EMIGRATION

1) Population grows at X%.

2) After LongTime years the population reaches BigNumber.

3) At BigNumber, the population stabilizes simply because you can't feed any more (any additional people starve to death).

Yes, I know that.

 

POPULATION WITH EMIGRATION

1) Population grows at (X-x)%

2) After LongTime+MoreTime years the population reaches BigNumber. Yes, the very same BigNumber mentioned previously.

3) At BigNumber, the population stabilizes simply because you can't feed any more people (any additional people starve to death).

Yes, I know that.

 

What you're completely failing to realize is that BigNumber for BOTH processes is the same. Short term? Yeah, there's going to be some differences (very small, but yes, differences). Long term? Nope... The population will stabilize at BigNumber. Period.

How do you figure I failed to realize that? Did you read either of the following things I said?

 

"I generally agree with what you say. There is some limit to the populatioin the earth can hold."

 

and when Mr Skeptic said:

 

"Mr Skeptic, on 11 February 2011 - 05:06 PM, said:

 

It doesn't matter a rat's ass what the rate of population growth is, so long as it is above 1 and the carrying capacity does not change. Eventually, carrying capacity is reached and growth cannot continue past that point (not without being followed by a population crash).

 

I said,

"Yes, I know that."

 

In addition you've made the following statements, attributing things to me that I never said:

 

"You're going to sit there and tell me that the removal of 1,000 people out of a global population of 6,000,000,000 people - not even 1 person in a million - fits any reasonable definition of population control? In my book that's the very definition of a distorted, and exaggerated position."

 

"You state that the death of insignificant numbers of people represent a "future population"..."

 

Throughout this thread you have ignored things I've said, misquoted me, and assigned statements to me that I have not made. It's getting old.