From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Mar 25 2000 - 01:36:59 MST
In an effort to interject some additional "facts" into the discussion,
see:
"World Population Implosion?" @
http://www.pop.org/students/popimplode.html
Also, the "Population Reference Bureau" (http://www.prb.org/)
has a number of publications.
As Billy pointed out, all doomsday predictions are based on no
improvements in our technology base. IMO, far more concerning
than overpopulation would be the development of robotics or
sub-AI that eliminates the needs for employing a large fraction
of the population. If we assume, for the moment, that most
of the people on this list fall into the "above average" segment
of the population (in intelligence, education, awareness, etc.),
doesn't that give you pause to ask, just what does the "below average"
segment of the population do? And what will happen when they can
be replaced by a reliable 24-hour-a-day robot/AI?
Is Moravec's Tax-the-robots environment feasible? Would you as
a robot owner operate your robots in a taxing jurisdiction? Or
would you move your operations to a robot-tax-free state?
If the taxes on the robots are distributed to the people
will it not be strange to be paying for your hamburger at
MacWendKings with money derived from the "employees" at that
establishment?
Robert
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