Sedna, space probes?, colonies? what's next?

John Savard wrote:
On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 00:04:34 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote, in part:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 23:21:58 GMT, in a place far, far away, Dick
Morris made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Ok, how about giving me a compelling reason for doubling the population.

Doubling the potential for another Einstein, another Bach. Doubling
the potential for more innovative solutions to problems. Doubling the
amount of total consciousness in the known universe.

If humanity has any value, then twice as much has twice the value. If
humanity doesn't have any value to you, then do you propose that we
exterminate ourselves?

If it becomes possible to support additional humans in comfort and
peace and happiness, then I am for it. Right *now*, however, there is
a great amount of poverty, even in the wealthiest nations. Clearly,
our population is much larger than can be effectively accomodated on
Earth with our present technological level.

You should also seriously consider proving that the number of people in
poverty would be smaller if the number of people would be lower, and not
vice versa.


John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 01:38:18 +0000 (UTC), Sander Vesik
wrote, in part:

You should also seriously consider proving that the number of people in
poverty would be smaller if the number of people would be lower, and not
vice versa.

It is obvious by observing groups of people in different countries on
Earth now that two things lead to poverty:

a lack of access to technology, and

a lack of access to resources.

It is possible for a country with limited resources to be prosperous
if it is a world leader in technology - like Japan - and prosperity
can also come from having lots of resources relative to a small
population - like North America and Australia a hundred years ago.

Why should I have to "prove" the obvious, whereas the obviously silly
notion that a larger population, in which resources such as arable
land, water, and metals would be driven to higher prices, being
scarce, and human labor, being common, would become cheaper, would
lead to prosperity and not poverty is not given the burden of proof?

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 10:12:42 GMT, in a place far, far away,
lid (John Savard) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

It is possible for a country with limited resources to be prosperous
if it is a world leader in technology - like Japan - and prosperity
can also come from having lots of resources relative to a small
population - like North America and Australia a hundred years ago.

Why should I have to "prove" the obvious, whereas the obviously silly
notion that a larger population, in which resources such as arable
land, water, and metals would be driven to higher prices, being
scarce, and human labor, being common, would become cheaper, would
lead to prosperity and not poverty is not given the burden of proof?

People don't realize that humans are a resource as well, perhaps the
ultimate one, when allowed to be.

People don't realize that humans are a resource as well, perhaps the
ultimate one, when allowed to be.

True! They can be broiled, fried, steamed, or pressed for their oil; they
can serve as cannon fodder; some can be trained to do tricks.

The future holds something for everyone to hate.

Richard Schumacher wrote in
:

People don't realize that humans are a resource as well, perhaps the
ultimate one, when allowed to be.

True! They can be broiled, fried, steamed, or pressed for their oil;
they can serve as cannon fodder; some can be trained to do tricks.

The future holds something for everyone to hate.

No, no. There future holds something special for everyone you hate--
broiled, fried, steamed, pressed for oil, used as cannon fodder, or, if
you're the president of Uzbekistan, boiled.

--
Coridon Henshaw - http://www3.telus.net/csbh - "I have sadly come to the
conclusion that the Bush administration will go to any lengths to deny
reality." -- Charley Reese

Richard Schumacher wrote:

People don't realize that humans are a resource as well, perhaps the
ultimate one, when allowed to be.

True! They can be broiled, fried, steamed, or pressed for their oil; they
can serve as cannon fodder; some can be trained to do tricks.

Some can even be trained as engineers, though that won't make them
anywhere near as valuable as the ones who are trained to throw balls
through hoops.


The future holds something for everyone to hate.

John Savard wrote:
On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 01:38:18 +0000 (UTC), Sander Vesik
wrote, in part:

You should also seriously consider proving that the number of people in
poverty would be smaller if the number of people would be lower, and not
vice versa.

It is obvious by observing groups of people in different countries on
Earth now that two things lead to poverty:

a lack of access to technology, and

a lack of access to resources.

Neither of which has any particular relation to the size of the population,
or even more, population density. If you don't see how this is relavant,
look at say Belgium -
* it has had (mod for wars) monotonicly increasing population
* it has had a constant good access to technology and innovation
* it has had a decreasing amount of resources
* it has had a monotonicly decreasing number of people in poverty

It is also very easy to show that should the population growth stop - or
worse, decrease - the number of people living in poverty will start to grow
very fast.


It is possible for a country with limited resources to be prosperous
if it is a world leader in technology - like Japan - and prosperity
can also come from having lots of resources relative to a small
population - like North America and Australia a hundred years ago.

The country being prosperous has little or anything to do with the percentage
of people in poverty. There are plenty of countries that are prosperous yet
have very steep curves


Why should I have to "prove" the obvious, whereas the obviously silly
notion that a larger population, in which resources such as arable
land, water, and metals would be driven to higher prices, being
scarce, and human labor, being common, would become cheaper, would
lead to prosperity and not poverty is not given the burden of proof?

No, you have to prove it because you are using an extremely silly
Malthusian notion that has no basis in practice and to which any
number of counterexamples exist - while being suported at best by
one example in which total destruction of basicly all of the territory
of a country in going after a single mineral resource has left the
country in poverty after depletion accompanied by squandering of money.



John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 00:38:54 +0000 (UTC), Sander Vesik
wrote, in part:
John Savard wrote:

Why should I have to "prove" the obvious, whereas the obviously silly
notion that a larger population, in which resources such as arable
land, water, and metals would be driven to higher prices, being
scarce, and human labor, being common, would become cheaper, would
lead to prosperity and not poverty is not given the burden of proof?

No, you have to prove it because you are using an extremely silly
Malthusian notion that has no basis in practice and to which any
number of counterexamples exist - while being suported at best by
one example in which total destruction of basicly all of the territory
of a country in going after a single mineral resource has left the
country in poverty after depletion accompanied by squandering of money.

Belgium is a country with modern technology and which is wealthy, so
of course they can engage in manufacturing.

Things like raw materials, energy, and arable land are *vital* inputs
to productivity. And the number of people in the population represent
how many ways the output of production must be divided; if that
fraction of the production isn't enough, then some people will not
have enough.

I have not denied that resources can go further when you have
technology and capital. But these are also not unlimited at any one
time.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 00:46:12 GMT, in a place far, far away,
lid (John Savard) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Things like raw materials, energy, and arable land are *vital* inputs
to productivity.

Really? Is that why Hong Kong is so impoverished and unproductive?

Rand Simberg wrote:

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 00:46:12 GMT, in a place far, far away,
lid (John Savard) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Things like raw materials, energy, and arable land are *vital* inputs
to productivity.

Really? Is that why Hong Kong is so impoverished and unproductive?

The fact that Hong Kong gets along with very little of those things is
irrelevant. Stop their food, raw material, and energy imports and see
what happens to their productivity. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore,
Chicago, New York, etc., can be densely populated only because the rest
of the world isn't.