Re: [asa] A Sustainable Future and Exponential growth

Dave W. -- if the eschaton is delayed a billion years into the future, I
doubt we'll have to worry about overcrowding the earth. We'd have colonized
other planets by then and we'd probably have learned how to upload our minds
into computers. I'm getting old and cranky though, so I don't think the
Lord will tarry a billion years.

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 6:11 PM, Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
wrote:

> David Opderbeck wrote:
>
>> Ken, it seems to me that the Smail article just rehashes the Malthusian
>> fallacy that technology must remain static while population grows. For
>> example, Smail says this: /"Clearly, assertions that the Earth might be
>> able to support a population of 10 to 15 billion people for an indefinite
>> period of time at a standard of living superior to the present are not only
>> cruelly misleading but almost certainly false." / Why is this so clear and
>> certain? Smail doesn't say. (Rhetorically, whenever someone uses the words
>> "clearly" and "certainly" in the same sentence, it's likely that the actual
>> evidence is neither clear nor certain).
>> It's quite possible that agricultural biotechnology will indeed enable us
>> to feed 10 to 15 billion people indefinitely; it's also quite possible that
>> communications technology will facilitate a global economy in which that
>> many people; and it's also quite possible that new technology will
>> substantially change the "peak energy" curve. The market demand for all
>> this will continue to grow (with population growth), and market demand tends
>> to drive technological progress. At the very least, it seems impossible to
>> say what is "clear" or "certain" to be the case 50, 100 or 150 years from
>> now technologically. Moreover, technological progress and diffusion tends
>> to result in a reduction in average birth rates, as people move from
>> traditional agricultural societies into more advanced technological ones.
>>
> David
> I think your dismissal of population growth is too facile. Sure technology
> may enable us to feed 10 to 15 billion people on the earth but lets consider
> the scenario that the earths population continues to grow by a very modest
> amount of 1% a year and that the eschaton is delayed for a billion years
> into the future. I think it is clear that the earth could not sustain the
> population sometime during that period. Certainly companies can not grow
> their profit by 10% for an indefinite period, lots have tried and failed.
> In a physical world exponential growth or die off is not containable after
> suitable periods of time. If you disagree maybe you could give me 1 cent
> on the first square of a chess board, 2 on the 2nd, 4 on the 3rd, 8 on the
> 4th and so on.
> Seriously if the return of Christ is delayed then Christians would need to
> consider how to control population either from a total die off or from an
> explosion. I suggest this is a topic worthy of consideration on this list.
>
> Dave W
>
> (I have changed my email address for this mailing list as I was regularly
> missing email from David O, Rich, PVM... but others were coming through just
> fine. My old email addresses work fine as far as I can tell for other mail,
> just not for the asa list, certainly Rich can through fine when he sent me
> mail offlist. The support staff at hotmail ignore pleas for help and do not
> even answer my emails. For some reason now I do not seem to get a copy of
> posts that I make but I can see them on the archieve so I assume they are
> getting through.)
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.