From: Nick Bostrom (bostrom@ndirect.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jul 25 1998 - 11:15:47 MDT
This answer should probably be shortened and simplified a bit.
===
Won't extended life worsen overpopulation problems?
Overpopulation is something we would have to come to terms with even
if life-extension were not to happen. Some people blame technology for
having given rise to the problem of overpopulation. Another way of
looking at it is to consider that were it not for technology then most
people alive today would not have existed -- including the ones that
are complaining about overpopulation! Were we to stop using modern
agrecultural technologies, such as tractors, fertilizers and
pesticides, most humans would soon die of starvation. It's worth
thinking twice before calling something a "problem" when owe our very
existence to it.
This is in no way to deny that too rapid population growth causes
crowding, poverty and depletion of natural resources. In this sense
there is a very real problem. Efforts to promote education about
family-planning and contraception, especially in the poorest
countries (where population growth is fastest), should be vigorously
supported. The constant attempts by some religious pressure groups in
the United States to block these humanitarian efforts are seriously
misguided in the opinion of transhumanists.
We can also be hopeful that scientists will be able to keep up with
the increasing demands of a growing world population. For example, we
have just begun unlocking the potential of genetic engineering.
(Cloning is just one very helpful method in genetic engineering.)
It's impossible to foretell exactly how far that will take us, but it
is already clear that it will enable us, among other things, to
substantially increase crop yield and effectiveness in animal
husbandry. If we could design cattle without brains or with just the
brain stem, we would have a way of producing meat without maltreating
animals (the brainless bodies wouldn't count as animals). The human
yuck-feeling (probably temporary) would have to be weighed against
the permanent reduction in animal suffering.
One thing that the environmentalists are right about is that the
status quo is unsustainable. Things cannot, as a matter of physical
necessity, remain the way they are today indefinitely or even for
very long. If we continue to use up resources like we currently do
then we will run into serious shortages sometime in the first half of
the next century that will force the world economy to contract and
the world population to decrease drastically. The deep greens have an
answer to this: they suggest we try to turn the clock back and return
to an idyllic pre-industrial age in harmony with nature. The problem
is that the pre-industrial age was anything but idyllic - poverty,
misery, disease, heavy manual toil from dawn to dusk, superstitious
fear and cultural parochialism. Also, it's hard to see how more than
a few hundred million people could be maintained at a reasonable
standard of living with pre-industrial production methods, so 90% of
the world population would somehow have to get rid of.
Transhumanists propose a much more realistic alternative: not to go
backward but to push ahead as hard as we can. The environmental
problems that technology creates are problems of intermediary,
inefficient technology. Technologically less advanced industries in
the former Soviet-block pollute much more than their Western
counterparts. High-tech industry is relatively benign. When we
develop molecular nanotechnology we will not only have perfectly
clean and efficient production of most any commodity but we will also
be able to clean up the mess created by today's crude production
methods. This sets a standard for a clean environment that
transhumanists challenge any environmentalist to try to match.
Nanotechnolgy will also make it cheap to colonize space. From a
cosmic point-of-view, Earth is a totally insignificant little speck.
It has been suggested that we ought to leave space untouched and
preserve it in its pristine glory. This view is hard to take
seriously. Every hour, through entirely natural processes, huge
amounts of resources - thousands of times more than the total of what
the human species has used throughout its career - are transformed
into radioactive substances or wasted as radiation escaping into
intergalactic space. Whoever was in charge of this project could
probably have done with a little bit more accountability!
Even with full-blown space colonization, however, population growth
can continue to be a problem. If the expansion speed is limited by
the speed of light then the amount of resources under human control
will only grow polynomially. Population on the other hand can easily
grow exponentially. If that happens then the average income will
eventually be drop to the Malthusian subsistence level, which will
force population growth to slow down. How soon this would happen
depends primarily on reproduction rates. Increases in average life
span does not have a big effect. Even vastly improved technology can
only postpone the inevitable for a relatively brief time. The only
long-term solution is population control restricting the number new
persons created per year. This does not mean that population could
not grow; only that the growth would have to be polynomial rather
than exponential.
_____________________________________________________
Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb
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