Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity - Forever!

However much damage has been done by misguided Utopians, it certainly
has been the age-old dream of humanity to live in peace and prosperity,
and not under conditions of oppression, and have this condition secure,
rather than precarious.

While a Utopia, in the sense of a planned, regulated attempt at a
*perfect* society is fairly obviously going to be a nightmare...

why is it that we tend to suspect even this more *modest* dream is
going to be unrealistic in practice?

If there are still people in the year 2200 A.D., must there still be
wars in 2200 A.D.?

***

In the year 1964, neither the United States of America, nor the Kingdom
of Belgium, was riven by a civil war. It is possible for war to be
absent from a certain area for a certain period of time. So there is
not a fundamental reason why war couldn't be absent from the whole
Earth, for a time measured in centuries, or is there?

It is true that in the absence of an external enemy, societies devote
more attention to their internal differences. But war requires the
absence of a monopoly of force.

So, if we had a World State with effective gun control, there might not
be any wars. But such a state might be expected to eventually become a
tyranny. Couldn't we avoid that, by proper arrangement of the powers in
a bicameral legislature, and having regular elections properly
scheduled?

Is the problem a basic flaw in human nature that makes us want to hurt
one another? That doesn't seem to be quite right, since most human
communities are peaceful most of the time; humans are not particularly
ravenous and bloodthirsty when they're treated well, it would seem.

It has been suggested that Europe came to dominate the world because
its mountainous territory, aiding the defense in war, meant that
competitive states retained their sovereignity, thereby ensuring that
no country would afford rulers the opportunity of deciding to halt all
technical progress to better ensure the stability of their rule.

Does that mean the price of a human future is a war waged with
nanotech, so that no society will have the luxury of banning it to
avoid the "gray goo" catastrophe?

***

What is the real flaw in the human condition? Are we incapable of
getting along, no matter how good conditions are? No. That isn't the
problem.

It's when times are tough, and there isn't enough to go around, that
minor tensions escalate into wars.

So I think the big question to answer is this:

Are humans capable of maintaining a rate of population growth that is
no greater than the rate of growth in the production of the basic
commodities needed for survival?

The question isn't phrased that way because I think people can, or
should, exist without luxuries. However, it can happen that the rate of
production of luxuries can increase more quickly than the production of
more basic items. Think of how the production of computers has
increased, compared to the production of food or housing. People can't
be wealthy if they can't afford enough to eat.

Actually, "capable of maintaining" is not quite the right word. Bad
circumstances can certainly impose a low rate of population growth on a
society. But if people are prosperous and content, peaceful and happy,
is their reproductive rate low?

The ideal human society isn't a "Utopia", where everyone wears the same
clothes, and is assigned duties by the government. Instead, it is an
open frontier - where land and other resources lie there for the
taking, so that material limits cease to constrain human well-being.

Can we "freeze" a frontier condition, as it were, by enjoying wealth
and yet not expanding?

Since conditions are sometimes difficult instead of easy for humans and
other living things, Nature has formed us to reproduce beyond mere
replacement. Men desire women; women want babies. Given a sex ratio of
105 males to 100 females at birth, and a tendency for men to marry
women two years younger than they are, a population growth rate of 2.5
percent per annum is required to avoid discontented unmated males.

Then you can have everyone content, a low crime rate, and so no call to
restrict political liberties, no panic at crime, no restiveness that
leads to war, and so on. But the world isn't growing at a rate of 2.5
percent per year. Exponential growth cannot continue forever.

We seem to already be in collision with limits, since at present some
people are poor. Even in rich countries, the steady job and home
ownership are more difficult to obtain than they were in the prosperous
early 1960s. Yes, a computer and a color TV set are easier to own, but
what counts in life is love, not toys.

Technology is improving, and perhaps the near future will hold some
changes for the better. Perhaps we will obtain fertilizer from the
Kuiper Belt, perhaps we will master fusion power, perhaps we will mine
the asteroids. But even with material needs met, if a population of 100
billion lives in crowded cities, how will we live our lives in
defensible spaces? Larger cities bring anonymity, and hence more crime
- at least as long as limits exist which bring discontent.

Since those with a tendency to outbreed others will indeed swamp the
others, if we bring prosperity that lets people have more children,
some will abuse it, and so prosperity cannot be maintained in the long
term, it would seem. And if the government imposes Zero Population
Growth, it seems that leads to a dystopia, since such unpopular
regulation of people requires a dictatorship.

Of course, if you compare today's income tax rates to those before
World War I, it could be argued that the frog is already in the hot
water.

Naturally, easy, cheap interstellar travel would keep the wolf from the
door for a long time. Absent that, what other hope is there?

Well, we could keep the wolf from the door for a while *if* we had a
good way of massively transfering people out of the Earth's gravity
well to space colonies here in the Solar System. I fear that the space
elevator requires too much of materials to be a realistic near-term
prospect, though.

John Savard