X-Message-Number: 8584
From: Tom Matthews <>
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Population red herring
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 21:46:57 -0700
Message-ID: <>
References: <> <>

Will Ware wrote:

> Anders Sandberg () wrote:
> : I think overpopulation is a red herring when it comes to life
> : extension: the reason the population is growing exponentially is
> : that people have a lot of children (who survive), not that they
> : live long. If people were immortal the population growth would
> : not become qualitatively different, just a constant percentage
> : faster. Since population control is needed anyway (if we settle for
> : finite resources), life extension does not really change anything.
 
> This is such a great counteragrument to the Overpopulation Whine that it
> bears reposting. Even if cryonics were done to ALL people with a 100% success
> rate, it would not qualitatively change the population issue facing us.
> It is not a morally acceptable resolution of the issue to require that
> everyone die. Up to now, that has been the solution of convenience, merely
> because we haven't yet developed the option of allowing everyone to live as
> long as they want.
 
> The use or non-use of viable cryonics technology will make an insignificant
> difference in the population problem. If working cryonics would doom us to
> some kind of population tragedy, then it would have occurred anyway, just a
> few years later. Any impending doom cannot be avoided by outlawing cryonics.

[snipped the rest which is excellent]

This correction to the argument stated is not to, in any way, criticise
cryonics or any other approach to life-extension. I, too, fully agree
that population problem is a "red herring" and is fully solvable.
However, Anders' (and Will's) analysis is a little too simple as it is
and may be somewhat misleading.

Instead of the "exponential population growth will doom us all"
scenarios of a decade and more ago, modern studies of population
increase, the growing world-wide use of birth control (even mandated in
china), and the steady downward trend of average of average number of
offspring towards the replacement level (already below in come western
countries) have given rise to recent predictions that sometime during
the next century the earth human population will become steady state at
no more than 40 billion and possibly then begin to actually decrease.
These predictions are, of course, based on there being no radical
extension of the human lifespan. If this population scenario happens
(and I see no reason why it should not), then, of course, population
growth is no longer exponential and radical changes in life-span, while
being arithmetic in their effect on population, will none-the-less be
significant. For example if the average life-span were extended by 50%,
the world population would soon be 60 billion instead of 40. If cryonics
became very popular (and we didn't get off-earth), this *could* be a
problem for the future when all these people were revived to join the
billions already there. Pressure to decrease the birth rate even further
in order to accomodate it, might not be acceptable - many people do like
having and raising children. I hope that it won't be necessary, but I
can easily envisage a future where there may be a law which makes it
mandatory that anyone electing cryopreservation will be required to
emigrate off-earth when they are revived.  

--Tom 
Tom Matthews
 
All personal comments do not represent the views of anyone from:
The LIFE EXTENSION FOUNDATION - http://www.lef.org - 800-841-5433 
A non-profit membership organization dedicated to the extension of the 
healthy human lifespan through ground breaking research, innovative 
ideas and practical methods.

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