[Novus]

This is an intellectual exercise aimed to point out the ultimate futility of our infinite growth paradime. Since the time of Thomas Malthus warned of a die-off the human population has increased six fold because of technological solutions have enabled the human race to expand seemingly indefinitely. Since no die-off has occurred it has been assumed by many cornucopians that subsequent technological advances would allow the long term human growth rate of 1.1% continue indefinitely.

In the following chart I will list the year and human population followed by the technological advance that supports that population. The 1.1% growth rate yields a doubling of the population every 40 years or so.

Year......Human Population........................Technology
1960....3 Billion........................Second Green Revolution (Industrial Agriculture)
2000....6 Billion........................Expended Oil based Industrial Agriculture
2040....12 Billion......................Fusion replaces oil based industry
2080....24 Billion......................Bio-engineered super crops & expanded fusion
2140....48 Billion......................Hydroponic farming & undersea colonies
2180....96 Billion......................Terafarming Mars and Europa
2220....192 Billion...................Asteroid Mining and other local space exporation
2240....384 Billion...................Star Trek level technology anti-mater and warp
2280....768 Billion...................Deep space exporation and colonization
2320....1536 Billion.................Food replicators make farming obsolete
2360....3072 Billion.................Zero Point energy harnessed
2400....6144 Billion.................Star Wars level technology Earth looks like Coresante
2440....12280 Billion...............Expanded space exporation and Colonization
2480....24576 Billion...............Entire Galaxy explored and colonized
2520....45 Trillion.....................Dune level technology inter-galactic space travel
2560....90 Trillion.....................Artificial planets created
2600....180 Trillion...................Expanded artificial planets
2800....5760 Trillion.................First Dyson Sphere created
3000....184320 Trillion............Expanded Sphere creation
3200....58982400 Trillion........???
3400....2 * 10^18......................Peak Galaxies
3600....2 * 10^20......................Peak Universe
3800....2 * 10^22......................?????
4000....2 * 10^24......................??????????????????????????
6000....2 * 10^44......................Human race exceeds mass of the universe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

In terms of cosmic time the human race is a flash in the pan that is less significant yet more voracious than bacteria growing in a pettri dish. If growth continues humans will have succeeded in just five short generations to strip the Earth bare. At that increasingly excelerating rate humans would strip the universe bare to the last atom in 50 more generations. This model accounts for just population growing at 1.1% a year. Human impact on resources is growing even faster as people living the industrial lifestyle consume 30 times the resources than the traditional agricultural lifestyle. If every human alive lived like a Europeans we would need four Earths to meet our needs. If every human lived like Americans we would six Earths to support all of us.

If one looks just at technological improvements to solve the resource mismatch we are doomed to fail no matter how good the technology is if we do not also address the problem of growth.

[Dukat_Reloaded]

All that sex must feel good though.

[ravensburg]

God I hate to think of what will happened when we go above the amount of population we have today. Already we are seeing the mass extinction of species, more and more land loss to sprawl. The burning and cutting of rainforest to suit our needs for wood and growing land. Yep things are great lets just growing until nothing is left. You know my work will pay for me to get a surgery that will not allow me to have kids, I think this is a good option.

[Lokutus]

Hey don't fret! Someone is bound to invent something that will make the problem go away.

Capitalism works!