X-Message-Number: 10785 From: "Trygve B. Bauge" <> Subject: Longevity as a means to prevent over-population Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 10:58:21 +0100 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0039_01BE1086.DBC167E0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Every so often I run into people who oppose individual longevity for the reason that if we live longer the world would be over crowded. It seems to me that if we were able to slow the ageing process, women would be fertile later and stay fertile longer. If they used this to on average get more kids, or if they still got their kids as early as they otherwise would have, then of course there would be more of us around. However, the trend in Western capitalistic societies has been towards fewer off spring. The wealtier we have become and the more leisure time we have gotten, the fewer off spring per family. At least that has been the trend here in Norway for a generation now. There is no reason to think that this trend won't continue if we got even longer life, and thus in fact more wealth and more leisure time. Being fertile longer might prevent the mad dash towards motherhood by those who are thirty to forty years old. What I am saying is that if women live longer it doesn't lead to increases in the population growth if they also on avarage wait longer before they get whatever kids they would be getting anyway. When there cmes to preventing over crowding: There is no need to legislate limitations on getting offspring. There is no need to mandate that one wait with geting kids. In a free society, individual women of all ages will get kids, and some will still get many kids. All that is needed is a voluntary trend towards getting fewer kids and getting these later in life. All that is needed for increased longevity to not give increases in the overall population is for each woman on average to not get more than slightly more than 2 kids, and to wait longer with getting those kids. If we on average get more years between the generations, this would offset any increased longevity, as far as the effect on the total population. E.g. if we had on average 40 years between the generations, we could have kids, parents and grand parents, being 40, 80 and 120 years old respectively, without there being more of us around. If I am to make an educated guess I would assume that increases in average longevity will lead to a decrease in the overall population. E.g. the longer we live the less inclined we will be to get kids, On the other hand we might get more inclined to get cloned. But that too wouldn't necessarily increase the overall population either. If we increase the average generation between each person and its clone, the same would apply for cloning as for traditional off springs: Any increases in longevity can be offset by increasing the average generation span. There could on average easily be 3 or 4 clones of each individual walking around at any time e.g. as kid, parent and grand parent to one another, without this leading to a larger world population. Population booms are usually linked to areas with short life spans, e.g. unfree areas with unrest and not much hope for a long and free life. Lack of liberty and lack of longevity is the cause of crowding. Longevity on the other hand might be the cure against crowding. Life-Extension Systems, Norwegian Icebathing Association & Action 88. For a VHS video presentation of my work, send $50 to Trygve B.Bauge c/o Aksjon 88, P.o.b.59 Hovseter,0705 Oslo,Norway Ph 47-2214-8078 E-mail: http://www.powertech.no/~trygveb/ [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] ------=_NextPart_000_0039_01BE1086.DBC167E0 Content-Type: text/html; Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10785