From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 21:09:33 MDT
At 07:31 PM 10/14/02 -0700, Olga wrote:
>Bill gave something
>for the audience to contemplate before the commercial fadeout: (I'm
>paraphrasing) "*Imagine* you're 1000 years old ... can you *imagine* how
>many people there would be? ... Can you *imagine* ...?"
Why, yes--it's easy if you try.
Six to ten billion, on dismally conservative estimates (no Spike, no upload
explosion, no devastating plague, asteroid or war).
How many of them would be children? As many as the oldsters who at any time
sign the social compact agreement to die within a year in order that a
fresh life might be created.
This should give Joy and other frightened people some comfort, since they
can delete themselves while giving a new human a chance, rather as
evolution has arranged things until now. Others will have to make do
without children, rather as technoculture has arranged things for most
people over 60 now.
Damien Broderick
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