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/sci/ - Science & Math

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>> No.4420599

We won't increase your life span, OP.
People who use >implying and post costanza inevitably get stabbed to death, never dying of natural causes

>> No.4420605

>People not dying.
>People still being born.
Do you see the problem?

>> No.4420607

>>4420605

No really. http://longevity-science.org/Projections-RR-2010.pdf

LOLOL umad?

>> No.4420608

>>4420605
Nope.
The universe gives us plenty of leg room for all.
Or are you one of those hippies who thinks that we'll forever be stranded on earth?

Not to mention the fact that only a VERY tiny fraction of earth is currently inhabited

>> No.4420613

>>4420608
>Not to mention the fact that only a VERY tiny fraction of earth is currently inhabited
Or, pretty much everywhere is inhabited other than Antarctica, and deserts.

>are you one of those hippies who thinks that we'll forever be stranded on earth?
Earth has the ideal requirements for human life, and these are rather specific.
Colonising other worlds would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

>> No.4420614

>>4420605
Several things:

Birth rates decrease dramatically with standard of living and education. If you're going to live for centuries, it pushes this effect even further. Japan is already hitting population decline so hard that it's going to cause serious problems, and the rest of the world is also experiencing declining growth rates.

There's still accidents. You're going to die within a few centuries in a car crash.

Not everyone will have access to this tech, at least not all of it.

It will probably just be a large extension of life, not clinical immortality.

>> No.4420617

>>4420608
>a VERY tiny fraction of earth is currently inhabite

Yes, and all the rest is necessary to produce food and resources for us, and it's already not enough.

>> No.4420618

>>4420613
>>4420613
no moving necessary.

http://longevity-science.org/Projections-RR-2010.pdf

>> No.4420621

>>4420614
>Not everyone will have access to this tech, at least not all of it.
Which causes you another problem.
If this tech existed, everyone would want it. Immortality, or even just a significant life extension, would be greatly desired by everyone.
If it is expensive, so only a small amount of people have access to it, everyone else would be extremely angry and jealous, and probably riot and try to steal the tech.

>> No.4420626

>>4420617
Wrong.
When I say "inhabited" I include farms.
And there is PLENTY of food, it's just not evenly distributed.

>> No.4420627

>>4420617
The places we produce food are inhabited, the population is just sparse.

>> No.4420629

>>4420618
You already posted it, I am already reading it.
>Implying this paper is accurate
>Implying they can tell the future
>Implying the consequences of this world altering technology would be even remotely predictable.

>> No.4420631

>>4420627
mfw vertical farms
mfw i have no face

>> No.4420630

>>4420621
We have this class of issue RIGHT NOW.

We call it "access to first-world health care". Not even all people living in first-world countries have full access to it.

And it's not about "stealing the tech", it's about whether you have the infrastructure, resources, etc. to get that tech implemented for *you*. If it were just the tech, then yeah, information wants to be free and all that jazz.

>> No.4420633

>>4420629
>>Implying they can tell the future
And you're not making claims?

>> No.4420634

>>4420627
>the population is just sparse

When people claim only a tiny fraction of Earth is inhabited they mean the global population density is low.

>> No.4420638

>>4420633
>And you're not making claims?
Claim: If people stop dying, people will still keep giving birth anyway. Population will rise.
Makes sense.

>> No.4420639

>>4420638
"Makes sense" is a piss-poor support.

How do you respond to the earlier post about the relationship between birth rates and improved education and standard of living?

And accidents?

And the fact that we're not talking about immortality, just increased lifespan?

There's a lot of number-crunching to decide whether the net effect will be long-term population increase, and you're glossing over it.


Let's start with this: Do you agree that current trends will leads to human population stabilizing, if lifespans do NOT extend beyond a century?

Because the current projections are for a peak at 9 or 10 billion around 2050 or so, followed by population decline.

>> No.4420640

>>4420634
Nope.
Here in Australia only about 10% of our continent is developed. The rest is just wilderness as far as the eye can see.
This is not unique at all

>> No.4420641

>>4420639
I linked him the paper. He's reading it. It shows what you're talking about.

>> No.4420642

>>4420639
>And accidents?
Accidents that cause death are relatively rare (considering the whole population)
They do not make much difference.

>Let's start with this: Do you agree that current trends will leads to human population stabilizing?
Yes.

>> No.4420646

>How do you respond to the earlier post about the relationship between birth rates and improved education and standard of living?
Considering this, and this >>4420607
The population rise probably would not be as bad as I first thought.

>> No.4420649

>>4420642
Fantastic!

So really, there are two main questions:

1) How many children will a woman have in her lifetime?
2) What is the "normal" human lifespan?

You'll have a bulge in population if lifespans increase WITHOUT a decrease in children per woman, that's certainly true. Oh, a third question:
3) How long between a woman's birth and the birth of her children, on average? This is pretty crucial.

If a woman only has one or two kids, ever, and those kids come when she's 100 or so, then things like car wrecks might just keep human population stable.

>> No.4420660

>>4420646

:)

Now all we need is some SENS successes, some of which are listed in OP

>> No.4420662

>>4420649
>How many children will a woman have in her lifetime?
Varies a lot. Some have none, some have dozens. (yes, literally) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feodor_Vassilyev

>2) What is the "normal" human lifespan?
Varies a lot as well, it depends a lot on where you live.

>If a woman only has one or two kids, ever, and those kids come when she's 100 or so...
I think women would still choose to have their children while they are still young.

>> No.4420667

>>4420646
You're being a good sport about this!

I'll openly admit a good point in your direction too: Increases in lifespan will lead to a bulge in population if birth rates don't immediately decline to match. Which they might not.

But Japan, for instance, is in a regime where their population is going down, but mostly is just getting very old. The ratio of working to retired people is going to get dicey.

Oh, and yes, we absolutely need to realize that our resources are finite, and that the planet has a finite carrying capacity for a given set of technology. If needed, we'll go full China and regulate reproduction. And by "if needed", I mean if we face a Malthusian tragedy of the commons otherwise. But we'll see if that's necessary or not.

Personally I'm more worried about the oil crisis screwing up the current trends to modernization and population stabilization.

>> No.4420672

>>4420667
We won't stay in our human, resource consuming, biological-shitsack bodies for long. Resources won't be a problem when we can merge with our technology.

inb4 kurzweil faggot.

>> No.4420678

>>4420667

Clearly, this is easier than extrapolation.

We're experiencing this same phenomena right now. A la "baby boomers"

>> No.4420679

>>4420672
The arguments about reproduction and lifespan on a finite planet still apply, no matter what your body is made of or how you like your energy source provided. Even if we expand through the solar system in machine bodies, we still only have the sun's output and the mass of the planets to work with.

>> No.4420686

>>4420679
We have a solar system to consume. And a sun. A galaxy. By the time we reach that level, who knows how we might bend space and time to our will.

I see no point in making a fuss over resources in the near future, is what I was really getting at.

>> No.4420691

>>4420672
I excitedly await the day we merge with our technology.

>> No.4420693

>>4420649
>just keep human population stable
that would be true, but then everyone would realize that every couple only ever has (function of children * per population over density * per lifespan of child / constant of importance) children... and then loses one will excite a change in policy due to emotional response.

>Curious about the equation I posted... any help?

>> No.4420694

>>4420686
Ah, well the NEAR future has significant hurdles. Gazing starry-eyed at the horizon means you're going to trip over those hurdles.

>> No.4420697

>>4420693
>me
fuck, forgot the distance in time between mother and children births in proportion to the sustainable population on the Earth...

>> No.4420698

>>4420694

Frankly, I'm tired of naysayers and depressing media telling us that humanity is regressing. Fuck that shit. Lets look to the horizon and pull the present forward to meet it.

abundance is the future: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BltRufe5kkI&feature=g-u&context=G240e629FUAAAAAAAAAA

>> No.4420701

>>4420693
Hm. But this would only be an issue for children that die BEFORE their parents, so it's not entirely hopeless.

And besides restricting total family size, you can also restrict timing. Like forbidding reproduction before the woman is 50 or something (if medical tech can make this acceptable; it's currently a bad idea). That's a big increase to the time between generations, and the number of accidents per generation.

>> No.4420703

>>4420698
I'm just telling you to take our problems seriously. I agree that there are amazing possibilities for the future. But very horrible futures are also possible, and we have to pay lots of attention and effort to guiding our course.

>> No.4420704

>>4420701
>This if for parents that die when their children reach the parent's age when they had them... and then they too have 2 children of their own.

>> No.4420706

>>4420704
- or kind of... like i said here:
>>4420697
- not quite finished yet... give me a few minutes...

>> No.4420707

>>4420698
I believe that humanity is pressing forward, but also believe that we're going to do something incredibly stupid that halts progress altogether, or wipes out a fuck huge chunk of our population.

>> No.4420708

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20426616

It's time to shoo out the Malthusians and talk about the real issues (of which overpopulation is emphatically not one).

>> No.4420710

>>4420704
Hey, that's a simple way to enforce strictly zero growth! It requires medical tech good enough to make reproduction easily and healthily possible at just about any age though:

Woman are only allowed to have as many children as they have dead parents.

>> No.4420709

>>4420703
Is is really necessary for me to be told that these futures are possible when it's all we ever see in media and literature these days?

Right now, it's popular to take a dystopian perspective. Everything about the future is dystopian - just look at the terminator movies as a good example.

No, I reject their dystopian reality and substitute my own. It's far better to dwell on the solutions than to bask in the immensity of the problems.

>> No.4420712

>>4420607

I already linked that, here:
>>4420708

You from imminst?

>> No.4420713

>>4420710
Yeah, thinking back... this will never work, as a person's parent may be dead, she/they are trying for a child.... she dies, line lost... one person less on the planet.

>There needs to be a better approach that accounts for accidental loss.

>> No.4420717

>>4420709
>No, I reject their dystopian reality and substitute my own.
There's a difference between hope and denial.
>It's far better to dwell on the solutions than to bask in the immensity of the problems.
I agree. But "the future will be awesome" is *not* a solution, it is a denial that the problems must be addressed.

I'm not saying bad things WILL happen. I'm saying they will if we don't PAY ATTENTION.

If you're driving to Disneyland, you have to do more than think about how awesome Disneyland will be to get there alive.

>> No.4420722

>>4420713
Some bloodlines will die out, others will be given special permission for "extra" kids. Shit happens.

>> No.4420723

>>4420712
I am not, although I've read certain subforums extensively in the past.

The book 'Abundance' by Peter Diamandis shows great promise in counteracting the Luddism-derived pessimism that tends to permeate these threads - I'm only about a third of the way through it, though, so I can't actually recommend it quite yet.

>> No.4420726

>>4420717
In order to get to disneyland, you have to believe that you can get there first. You have to envision the future in order to create it.

>> No.4420729

>>4420722
The "extra" part sounds just too hap-hazard... it's bound to lead to another increase in population....

>> No.4420730

>>4420726
I think we're in agreement then.

>> No.4420735

>>4420729
If population stability requires regulation of reproduction, the issue of "who will regulate and how can we be sure they'll do it fairly and properly" is already present, accidents or not.

If we're lucky, it won't actually be necessary. Lots of Chinese families don't *want* more than one child now. There has been a large shift in both environment and culture regarding family size in China. It hasn't taken as much hold in rural areas yet (economic/etc. reasons for only wanting one child).

>> No.4420737

>>4420723
I like your name. I read that story when I was a kid... it's amazing how we've dreamed of immortality for so long.

>> No.4420738

>>4420735
The rest of the world (as I know it) isn't as densely packed as China. If this is true (and tell me if it isn't), then wouldn't it be prudent to assume that the rest of the world will need to be as dense as China before we realize that we need to reduce our population growth?

>> No.4420740

>>4420737
I just feel bad for people like Ben Franklin who knew it would be possible to eventually put an end to aging and wanted to partake but were simply born too early.

>> No.4420747

Do you think we'll be alive to see humanity achieve immortality?
Those of us born in the 80s for example.

>> No.4420750

>>4420738
I don't think so. China started out poor, and with a population issue. First-world countries are already getting damn close to being stable or even in decline (not factoring in immigration/emigration, which is a sizeable source of US population growth for instance). All the remaining projected growth in world population is in countries that are not yet modernized, like India and Africa.

Now, if American living standards were to decrease dramatically because of food shortages (not likely, but possible if the oil crisis gets really fucked up), then that drop alone might be enough to prompt regulation of reproduction. At least, strict regulation of food supply, which would mean "keep your family size down or starve". Either way, you wouldn't have to hit China population density first.

>> No.4420751

>>4420747
I personally doubt it. But I won't be unhappy if Kurzweil gets his way. Or even Aubrey de Grey.

>> No.4420753

>>4420740
We would be here all day if we started listing all the people who should be here but aren't.
>>4420747
It depends if we can get our shit together. If Kurzweil is right, then we might have a shot. If not...then, I really don't know. Hopefully SENS has further successes, especially with regard to stem cells, AGE-breakage, and clearance of lipofuscin. I think cancer will be solved in some other way that will come out of the massively funded research we have already.

>> No.4420757

If given the chance, would you guys want to live eternally?

>> No.4420758

>>4420757
.... you wouldn't?

>> No.4420759

>>4420758
I sure as hell would, I just wondered about others.

>> No.4420763

>>4420759
There are emofags that claim on the internet that they wouldn't want to live forever, that they would commit suicide.

IMO most of them are spouting bullshit, even if they believe it themselves, and the ones that aren't are welcome to help themselves to a revolver whenever they want.

>> No.4420765

>>4420757
There's so much I want to do....

I'm most excited about virtual worlds. I want to disconnect my sensory organs from my brain and feed in artificial input. I could enter a world that I could create.

I could turn off gravity. Relive any book. Enter wildest dream. I could be be a video game character and have epic adventures. The possibilities would be endless...

>> No.4420772

For every problem, the response always is thorium.
Food production? Thorium.
Heating? Thorium.
Fuel production? Thorium.

>> No.4420776

You who seek the answer
You who long to know the glory
Salvation is linoleum
Salvation is linoleum

>> No.4420779

TBH, I'd like to be biologically immortal. There is just so much to do in life than dying seems to be... pointless.

Fuck worldwide problems. We would deal with it as it comes, just like we always did. One way or another.

>> No.4420783

>>4420779
>I would murder you if I could get away with it

>> No.4420787

>>4420783
>me
Your idea is so overly-simplistic that it would theoretically over-populate the planet in a VERY short time...

what say you?

>> No.4420804

A question though, I've read somewhere that we will run in to the problem of our limited brain capacity when we reach higher age, not Alzheimer and such, just plain hardware limitations.
We perceive time differently as a year becomes a smaller and smaller compared to our total age, we run out of place for new memories etc.
Dunno if thats just speculations or what not, will we have a way of tackling those problems by the time we reach near immortality?

>> No.4420820

>>4420804
Idk, i'm 25 and time is passing much faster than it was years ago... good luck : /

>> No.4420837
File: 21 KB, 243x263, 1322376264370.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4420837

>>4420631
> vertical farms

>> No.4421234
File: 7 KB, 139x154, 1306105355998.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4421234

>Implying our technology can't make this thread immortal

>> No.4421278

the current land used to grow crops can make enough food to support a population of 20 billion, if all crops are replaced with GM crops that already existed 10 years ago.

>> No.4421317

>>4421278

ok. so if we don't lose farmland to residential development, where do you suggest we put the next 13 billion people?

>> No.4421335

>>4421317
on the sea, in deserts, there is a lot of space.

that will need some development, so in the meanwhile, most towns don't even have a 4 story building, if each one only gets some skyscrapers you can easily quadruple the people in each town.

it will take decades for the population to reach 20 billion and if we know space is going to run out soon, people will develop technology to deal with it, since at that time it will be a very good investment.

>> No.4421359

shitty long life vs more satisfying normal one

hmm

>> No.4421369

What the fuck is with these marketing threads for life extension lately?

It looks like someone ran out of funds or needs to constantly reassure themselves that what they advertise is not sci-fi.

>cap: Ginseng, Kevelog
lmao

>> No.4421424

lol, ITT: Retards dont understand what happens to large populations in finite space.

Increase the food, life span, etc. of each individual beyond what the environment can support, and you get overcrowding.

When you prevent overcrowding from working itself out (eg death) with medicine and other shit, without relieving the actual cause of overcrowding you get something like china.

When you get china, you get disease, poverty, etc.

When you get poverty and disease from overcrowding you get reproduction laws (1 child limit), forced termination of those who would not survive on their own (to make way for those who can), etc.

Once it gets bad enough, once enough people get laid off, only those who are vitally important keep their jobs, and ghettos start forming. Then comes the rioting etc.

Once it gets this bad, where there isnt enough food/land/education for everyone, you get genetic selectivity; ie IQ cut-offs for reproduction, forced sterilization of people with diseases that affect chance of survival or productivity, and shit like that.

You see where this leads. Its a very slippery slope.

TL;DR humans are cancer

>> No.4421655

>>4421424
>IQ cut-offs
I hope we get to this point soon... but it would be great if we could just skip to this and forget the whole over-crowding prerequisite.

>> No.4422200

>>4421317
>lose farmland to residential development
40% of the US is farmland, ~5% is urban and suburban, "oh noes we're paving over all our farmland!!2" is myth.