----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruce Bostwick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The fact that deciding which of the existing 6-7 billion should be > allowed to live is an extremely thorny ethical and moral question (and > one I wouldn't even begin to be qualified to answer) doesn't take away > from the fact that a population of 6-7 billion is far in excess of > what this planet appears to be able to support on a sustainable basis, > nor does it address the problem that the moment anything improves on > the supply side, the population immediately accelerates growth to more > than wipe out those gains on the demand side. (In other words, saying > it's a potentially insoluble problem doesn't make the problem go away.) Lets hope that that technology will eventually enable 6-7 billion humans to exist on Earth on a sustainable basis. Mind you, I think we should be ambitous and work towards a population of 20-100 billion plus near immortal humans, living in stimulating artifical environments in underground arcologies, with say 5-10% of the earths land surface built over, and the remainder left as or reverted to natural environment. We should be trying for fusion power, and biological and nano machines that recycle everything, etc. etc. We should be trying for a technological utopia, and not giving up and dreaming of reverting back to a non-existant preindustrial golden age. Regards, Wayne Eddy. Where is the Science Fiction spirit in you lot? Maru. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
