New sex drought threatens SS, Medicare, the GDP, the future (Politico report) and more Autism. Young adults are scared.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Mars will not solve any overpopulation problems in the next century or two. It's like trying to help a person who has to walk to work and the grocery store by buying them an f22 raptor fighter jet instead of a Ford Fusion car.

Are you saying it is impossible to colonize Mars in the next century?

[_Themis]

Now that I think about it going to Antarctica is a bad idea. If millions of people move to Antarctica that will probably melt the Polar ice cap faster than global warming, and that could be a problem for coastal cities.

Time for floating cities?
https://www.wired.com/story/sea-levels- ... ng-cities/

[_Themis]

Are you saying it is impossible to colonize Mars in the next century?

No, just really unlikely you will see large numbers of people living on Mars in the next century. It's much more resource intensive to get to Mars and then survive on Mars independent of Earth than to stay on a planet you don't need a suit to breath air in. probably better to do it on the MOON or do it like on the movie Elysium. We are no where near being able to leave earth easily and travel to other planets. If some of those challenges are solved then it could create more motivation to colonize space in larger numbers. It would be interesting, but when I watch a great tv show called "The Expanse", with the earth as overpopulated, it still seems like the better place to live.

[_Gunnar]

No, just really unlikely you will see large numbers of people living on Mars in the next century. It's much more resource intensive to get to Mars and then survive on Mars independent of Earth than to stay on a planet you don't need a suit to breath air in. probably better to do it on the MOON or do it like on the movie Elysium. We are no where near being able to leave earth easily and travel to other planets. If some of those challenges are solved then it could create more motivation to colonize space in larger numbers. It would be interesting, but when I watch a great tv show called "The Expanse", with the earth as overpopulated, it still seems like the better place to live.

Good points, Themis. Utilizing earth's resources to transport large numbers of people to Mars and initially setting up a sustainable colony there, will so severely deplete those resources that our planet and the people left behind will be far worse off and more impoverished than if we never made the attempt. Large scale exploration and colonization of space will never become possible or practical unless and until it becomes both possible and practical to entirely sustain such activity by efficiently using the resources and energy we find in space itself.

Even sending the first human explorers to Mars should probably not be attempted until we are sure we can figure out how to both reliably sustain them while they are there, and generate the fuel necessary to return them safely to earth by using resources available to them on Mars itself.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Are you saying it is impossible to colonize Mars in the next century?

No, just really unlikely you will see large numbers of people living on Mars in the next century. It's much more resource intensive to get to Mars and then survive on Mars independent of Earth than to stay on a planet you don't need a suit to breath air in. probably better to do it on the MOON or do it like on the movie Elysium. We are no where near being able to leave earth easily and travel to other planets. If some of those challenges are solved then it could create more motivation to colonize space in larger numbers. It would be interesting, but when I watch a great tv show called "The Expanse", with the earth as overpopulated, it still seems like the better place to live.

Okay, if the world population continues to grow for the next 200 years, what should we do? And how do you know a large asteroid impact cannot end humanity on Earth?

[_Themis]

Okay, if the world population continues to grow for the next 200 years, what should we do?

I'm not against going to Mars or colonizing Mars with lots of people. I'm just saying over the next century it's not likely to be a viable solution to overpopulation on Earth. If there are some major improvements in space travel and other areas it could be more realistically achievable.

And how do you know a large asteroid impact cannot end humanity on Earth?

It would have to be a truly large asteroid, but the point is we are not likely to have an independent population Mars in the next few decades or longer that could survive if Earth is annihilated by an large asteroid. Even then it is probably way cheaper to build large underground areas on earth to live in and grow food, and you still have more resources available on earth. Now the odds are so low of a large asteroid hitting earth anytime soon that it is not reasonable to worry to much about it, but if we want to protect the human species it would be much easier to build the necessary infrastructure here on earth, or in orbit, or on the moon. Lots of people living independently on Mars is still a ways off.

[Guest]

I'm not against going to Mars or colonizing Mars with lots of people. I'm just saying over the next century it's not likely to be a viable solution to overpopulation on Earth. If there are some major improvements in space travel and other areas it could be more realistically achievable.

Besides that, under no conceivable circumstances will it ever be economically or physically possible to transport enough people off the earth to prevent over population on earth without radically reducing birthrates to more closely match death rates. With or without migration to other worlds, population growth must eventually come to an end by one or both of two ways: 1. voluntarily reducing world birthrates to more nearly match the death rate, 2. a drastic increase in world death rates and a consequent shortening of average life expectancies due to wars, murders, forced euthanasia, and/or starvation and disease due to the population reaching and exceeding the maximum that our planet can possibly sustain. Continuing exponential population growth at current rates is mathematically impossible for very much longer. Fortunately, that growth rate appears to be gradually coming down, and is already close to or below zero in a few (but so far, very few) regions of the earth.

Eventual colonization of other worlds by humans is the only way to insure the continuation of our species when our world inevitably ends in the far future, when our sun inevitably reaches the end of its life, but that, by itself, can have nearly zero impact on population growth of the earth itself.

ETA: Due to the exponential nature of biological population growth in general, it is an inescapable conclusion that the total mass of living organisms on this earth, as a whole, must have reached the maximum that the earth can possibly sustain a very long time ago, in fact, shortly after life itself began. This means that the human population can continue to increase only because there still exist other species of living organisms that we have not yet eliminated or driven towards extinction to make room for more humans.

[_moksha]

Limiting the number of children per family for variable periods of time is the best way to curb overpopulation. This is something India needs to work on immediately.

[_Gunnar]

Limiting the number of children per family for variable periods of time is the best way to curb overpopulation. This is something India needs to work on immediately.

Yes, that certainly beats curbing overpopulation by increasing death rates and reducing average life expectancies via mass starvation, pandemics, wars over the world's dwindling resources, culling the aged and sick from the population via forced euthanasia, etc., which is the only and even inevitable alternative if we fail to reduce birthrates.

[_Themis]

Besides that, under no conceivable circumstances will it ever be economically or physically possible to transport enough people off the earth to prevent over population on earth without radically reducing birthrates to more closely match death rates.

Ya It would take a technological breakthrough like the Epstein drive to make mass movement of people from one planet to another feasible. Right now it would cost way more to move people to Mars than to just use those resources here to feed and house them. Yet I still think we should work to send people to Mars.

Eventual colonization of other worlds by humans is the only way to insure the continuation of our species when our world inevitably ends in the far future, when our sun inevitably reaches the end of its life, but that, by itself, can have nearly zero impact on population growth of the earth itself.

That is a lot further down the road then to go back to when humans first walked the earth. We have got a lot of time before we need to leave the earth, but until then we need to fix the problems we have today that threaten our existence.

ETA: Due to the exponential nature of biological population growth in general, it is an inescapable conclusion that the total mass of living organisms on this earth, as a whole, must have reached the maximum that the earth can possibly sustain a very long time ago, in fact, shortly after life itself began. This means that the human population can continue to increase only because there still exist other species of living organisms that we have not yet eliminated or driven towards extinction to make room for more humans.

And that mass is astronomically larger then all of humanity. It of course needs to be in order to meet human needs, but I think the world population is larger then what currently would be ideal, I also think we could sustain 10's of billions of people. I look around and think we do so horribly with using what we have. We take up so much space that takes away green areas. I think of all that roof space we live under, work under, shop under, etc and do little to make it green. I think the hobbits have it right.