Overpopulation?
rinipanini answered your question: jamessteiner reblogged your link: Engineered…
hello to overpopulation
I’m glad you mentioned this. It’s one of the most common responses I hear when discussing the possibility of immortality. And it’s a problem. Sure. But in the grand scheme, it seems like the bigger problem isn’t the people alive today - but the people that will be born in the next 10-20 years. Even if we don’t cure aging, the world population may hit 10 billion by 2050.
Thankfully, the birthrate in developed countries has been greatly reduced, and it seems that developing nations are catching up (there seems to be a strong connection with better medicine, women’s rights, and education correlating with a reduced birthrate). So even that “10 billion by 2050” is a lot smaller than what we may have guessed a few years ago.
So, again, overpopulation is a problem, but it will have to be dealt with either way. It’s not a problem that would be created by immortality; it’s primarily a problem simply b/c humans are programmed to have too many children! That said, you’re absolutely right, we have to figure out how to deal with it, b/c the world population is growing, people are living longer, and yes, immortality may be a reality in the near future and we’re going to need some good ideas to address the overpopulation issue.
I’d be interested to hear your (that’s a collective “your”, for all my tumblr peeps) opinion. What do you think?
(Source: realcleverscience)
