Postapocallyptic utopia

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Star Trek is a great technological utopia, with replication and transport technologies, I find that futuristic technological society appealing, especially the transport, for people like me who have issues on that.

thatredhairedgrrl: why is it important that we last? if humanity is to be reduced from billions to millions or hundreds of thousands, i honestly dont see why aspies should stand out as a minority to prioritize.

the cubumber: technology is all good and well, but it doesnt feed us if we keep multiplying, and we DO keep multiplying. the point of my thread is to NOT ignore the glaring fact of overpopulation. it HAS to reduce. and reducing it from 6 billion to 5 is pointless, it will be 7 next year nonetheless.
it has to be reduced hard, down to ten million, maybe five, maybe one.
farm towers would just cost more, the earth's landscapes are full of space for food, but the demand is simply too big.
if you are going to build towers to grow food, each tower would have to be thuousands of square miles wide or tall, or you'd have to build millions of them.

thats my original dream

I wasn't implying that we should. I was just noting that in the event, any of us (i.e. us on this board) who weren't already dead of starvation or whatever would probably end up wiped out by a primitive civilisation for its own reasons. Same for anyone with any kind of disability, or anyone perceived as 'different' in any other way. Racial segregation would most likely return in some form. Women might have it tough, too; there'd probably be a big swing back towards us being seen mainly as sexual/breeding creatures and controlled by men using brute force.

We tend to think that technology has made the biggest changes to our lives over the past few millennia, but really it's the way we've refined out social structures to be able to live in large groups that's made the biggest difference. It's a very thin veneer, though, was what I was trying to point out. I think in adverse conditions, it could all too easily break down.

It annoys me when people that feel as you do quote numbers like that.

Not that you wish depopulation, but you dont understand how few 1 million is.

If you had 1 million people in Europe(for example), and they were divided into family groups of 5, a mother, father, 2 kids and a single grand parent, those people could wander their entire lives and never see another human being.

If you had 10 million people in North America, with the same size family, you would 1 person for every 9.45 square miles. That is one person for every 24.49 square kilometer. What that means is that if you had 4 relatives right beside you, there would be no other human beings within a diameter of 47.25 miles(122.45 km). That means that even on perfectly flat open ground, they would be far far over the horizon and you would never see them.

if you separated those family groups, you would still not have anyone visible on the horizon.

I dont know if you have ever been out of the city, but when you are standing in forest, it is not usually possible to see, hear, or smell another human that is a mere hundred feet away.

Do you see the problem this causes with mating?

Now consider the whole of the earth. 57,500,000 square miles or 150,000,000 sq kilometers.

10 million people would have 57.7 square miles each to themselves, or in a group of five, 288.5 miles distance from the next group.

Assuming a walking speed of 3 mph (fairly fast), it would take you almost 100 hours to walk to them. That is assuming that they are not moving as well. This also precludes the assumptions of river crossings, mountains and other barriers, weather, being hidden(such as in caves) or illness and injury, nor poor nutrition.

Even if you are among the doomed?

ruveyn

Your response is hilarious as greenblue is talking about an idea of human extinction.

i know exactly how much 1 million is, and ive also consider 250 000 survivors, as an ideal number.
im not imagining the world as today, that is what you must understand.
im not imagining utopia, as on the "watchtower" pamflets, im imagining nobody left.

in your argument, you are describing my exact utopia :]
precisely that you look at the planet, and theres nobody left.

nobody.

"only" 1 million. at best.
but that number, is as good as "nobody left".

i AM taking it that far, and i stand by it. i dont WANT humans to have a chance at "recovering", because that would bring us right back here again.

Oh ok. I wont quibble about it then.

Anyway. Read that book "The world without us". Its awesome, and its about exactly what you want.

I'm for MORE people. But that book was awesome. Here is an excerpt.
http://www.worldwithoutus.com/excerpt.html

it does seem interesting.
i like the everlastingness of everything.

MORE people IS an interesting idea, but the way i see it, it would only be good for... more of what we have right now, more cultural exchange combined with more famine and more war. 6,5 billion is way way way higher a number than ANY animal our size, and i see estimates as to when it reaches 10 (which isnt far away btw), imagine it at 13. china, 2,5 billion, usa 600 million, europe 1,5 billion, spain 100 million.
its absurd.
in reality, the whole "every 4th person is a chinese" thing will swap for a black guy, as africa will become the "new asia" population wise.

(absurd all but norway, we'd be 10 million, and finally feel like a "big" country )

Interestingly, Many animals population mirrors that of humans. Chickens, for example, at any given time, number about 1:1.

One thing to consider is paradigm shifts. What seems to be an end point or limiting factor can, with a shift in perception and knowledge, become completely irrelevant.

One good example pertaining to humanity is crop density. Around the year 1900, it was considered a good yield to get 1 ton of usable potato per acre. Today, 10+ tons is the norm. To the line of thinking of people in 1900, getting such a bounty was beyond the pale, unrealistic. But a combination of small factors; better machinery, seeding practices, faster shipping, better storage made that happen.

So it could be(and has been) with modern populations. For example, a foothold into space would make overpopulation a moot point.

A-Men my brotha!



Primal society was FAR more brutal and uncomfortable than modern society and woe to those foolish enough to think we should go back to it.

theyre good points, but mild factors.
space is the only overpopulation salvation, really, but i have no faith in humanity getting us much beyond mars. theres no point in colonizing space, for the good of our population, if its gonna happen in a tiny "elitist" scale.

oh and the chicken population, bad example, cus theyre for eating half of them live in china, and are kicked to death on a daily basis, for food production. other mammals that count in absurd numbers are of course cows and sheep.
in the wild however, most mammal species the size of humans, count in a the few millions, unless theyre poached and hunted, which they usually seem to be. human population around 10 000 BC is estimated at anything between one and ten million, which seems like a typical mammal-our-size number.

from ten to six thousand seven hundred, thats a big leap. also, if im not entirely mistaken, our population went from 3 to 6 billion in only one century :S

theyre good points, but mild factors.
space is the only overpopulation salvation, really, but i have no faith in humanity getting us much beyond mars. theres no point in colonizing space, for the good of our population, if its gonna happen in a tiny "elitist" scale.

[/quote]

Not true. Currently 80 percent of the world's population lives on less than 10 percent of the land area. Space is not the issue. Humans are capable of living in densely populated urban areas and prospering while doing so.

ruveyn

Not true. Currently 80 percent of the world's population lives on less than 10 percent of the land area. Space is not the issue. Humans are capable of living in densely populated urban areas and prospering while doing so.

ruveyn[/quote]

yes, 80 percent of 6,5 billion.
8 million live in NY, 5 or whatever in berlin.

the truly massive urban conturbations are in the poorer parts of the world. those areas lack a skyline, and an economy, and are therefore easily forgotten by us westerners, when considering the general populations of earth.

This is reality. It isn't Stephen King's "The Stand". The near extinction of humanity is not an excuse for fun times and wacky adventures.

yes, 80 percent of 6,5 billion.
8 million live in NY, 5 or whatever in berlin.

the truly massive urban conturbations are in the poorer parts of the world. those areas lack a skyline, and an economy, and are therefore easily forgotten by us westerners, when considering the general populations of earth.[/quote]
Ummm. Many of the world's very poor cities are necessarily very densely populated lacking the kinds of transportation that make the megalopoli found in say the United States possible.