The entire human population of the Earth has room to stand, elbow to elbow,
in Leon County, Florida, USA.
In Monterey County, California, everyone can have a lounge chair.
--Wilson.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2000 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: CRYO/AGING: [was Re: CRYO: Illegality of Cryonics in British
Columbia]
>
> On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, CYMM wrote:
>
> > CYMM SAYS: I really wish I had such faith... I'm not even sure that our
> > cirrent civilization is robust enough to withstand the slings & arrows
of
> > the 21st Century. There is far too much interdependence and
> > overpopulation...
>
> I won't comment on the interdependence, since that is a matter
> of specialization and I'm almost positive that Robin would
> argue strongly that that makes us all richer. We would probably
> be able to support a much smaller population without such
> interdependence because we would all have to be relatively
> inefficient generalists.
>
> With regard to "overpopulation", this is a *MYTH*, a *LIE*,
> an *INCORRECT MEME*, and anything else of the same ilk that
> you would care to call it.
>
> Unlike many people on the list and throughout the world, I've
> traveled it extensively. For *most* of the of the world --
> the United States, Canada, Russia, India and Australia to name
> a few there is *no* overpopulation problem. Yes, there are
> places where there are high population densities (Tokyo,
> Mexico City, Cairo) where that population density is severely
> stressing the local environment and infrastructure, primarily
> in 3rd world countries. However, those are economic, technology
> and infrastructure problems, NOT OVERPOPULATION. Overpopulation
> is something you have been sold by the greens and you should look
> at it very very closely. Go back and look at how often the Club
> of Rome has been wrong in their predictions.
>
> A larger population allows a greater fraction of "fundamental"
> R&D individuals to be supported which in turn increases the
> knowledge base to allow us to become more productive.
>
> > a descent to a "lower" level of civilization would provoke
> > mass death & and huge loss of technological knowledge.
>
> It would be very hard to lose large masses of technological
> knowledge (given the number of places in which it is stored)
> and serious studies of even global thermonuclar war show that
> it is are very survivable (Sagan stretched things a fair amount
> to make his arguments, perhaps justifiably so.)
>
> If you like, I can go dig out the references. On this list
> you need to be prepared to back up your "statements of fact"
> or disclaim them with "in my opinions"...
>
> Robert
>
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