This already happened a couple of decades ago, across multiple countries, cultures, religions, etc. It’s one of the ways that our species has been really, really lucky, in that it turned out that the population bomb isn’t something that we have to worry about in countries that get to 2nd world status or above. There’s still some areas of the world with high population growth, but basically all of the developed world is at replacement rates or lower.
DoubleG
4826
Pulling this back to Musk, he doesn’t think expanding population is a problem, he thinks the exact opposite.
Yeah, there he’s saying there aren’t enough white babies.
Yup.5
It’s why he and his dad are on a mission to impregnante as many white women as possible.
LeeAbe
4829
This is a common concern not unique to Musk though.
Sure. Racists have that view, too.
LeeAbe
4831
No it’s a general finance thing. And the government wants it so there are enough young people to pay for the old. As well as ever increasing GDP.
I remember learning about it in Econ 101 years ago.
Immigration solves that problem just fine, but the people aren’t generally white.
jsnell
4833
That doesn’t really make any sense. Musk will be dead before a Mars colony of any kind could be a more hospitable place than Earth, no matter what kind of disaster happens on Earth. (For a given resource level; I guess it is possible that in twenty years some people on Mars will be less precarious than some people on Earth, but not a billionaire.)
Isn’t that called supply and demand?
It’s not clear to me that Musks understands this. And if he does, it’s quite a slow-developing realization.
Timex
4836
Lol ok, I guess my notion of “forever” is actually a period of time well before the point where all molecular movement ends.
If we make it a million years, for instance, that’d be cool. But we almost certainly could never exist that long on Earth alone, I don’t think.
Ok, so two things here… First, Elon Musk is an idiot, so we aren’t in disagreement about that. But I have more belief in the general idea of human space exploration and expansion to other planets than you do, it seems.
Second, even if only rich people somehow moved to Mars (which seems… Not at all how it would play out, since life on Mars world not likely be a life of luxury) that would still serve potential purpose in terms of helping humanity survive an extinction event.
And yet…
I’m confused. If you already know that advanced countries have reproduction rates below replacement levels, voluntarily, why did you write this:
I mean, you’ve seen it can be done without imposing breeding limits by force. It just takes development and resulting relative prosperity. Why would you insist the opposite? I’m genuinely confused.
DoubleG
4838
I think the interesting discussion is whether Musk honestly believes he’ll go to Mars or if it’s always been a self serving marketing ploy. I would have said marketing before this year, but man has the guy proven himself to be delusional.
Timex
4839
Because that’s not most of the world?
I mean, sure dude, if you have a magic wand that will somehow bring everyone in the world up to the most advanced development level, immediately, you need to get on that!
But since you don’t likely have that, I do not think there is any chance of that kind of transformation happening anytime soon, which means that near vertical line showing population growth is going to continue to skyrocket.
I wager it’d be substantially easier than offloading a significant chunk of the population to a different planet.
This is a great example of the way people like Elon have of looking at the problem. Faced with the fact that poor societies have very high, perhaps unsustainable population growth rates we can:
- wave a magic wand and make those societies developed and prosperous, or
- wave a magic wand and make Mars like Earth so some rich people can escape the sewer
It’s not obvious to me that the latter option is the workable one.
Yes, absolutely.
KWhit
4842
Lol. Yes.
And if we’re trying for a contingency plan to keep the human race ongoing after an extinction level event on Earth, it has to be a perpetually self-sustaining colony as well. It’s madness at this point.
My understanding is that the graph that you posted is off by a lot. We’re at the end of 2022 and the global population is at 8 billion right now.
jsnell
4844
I mean, Musk is an idiot and all, but “Musk is an idiot and an idiot could plausibly believe this” seems a bit weak. Has he e.g. at some point made some kind of statement that implies he is in it for the personal survival? (Genuine question: I’ve never read anything first hand on what his motives are.)
