Comment Re:Are we ready for Immortality? (Score 1) 272
Living longer, healthier, more productive lives might count as a quality of life improvement, yes? Consider then the improvements in the quality of life in the First World countries, and corresponding drop in birthrates that always accompanies it. When life is good and less hazardous the social and biological imperatives to breed become less necessary and urgent, and birthrates plummet. Much of Europe currently has a negative growth rate, and the US would likely be the same without our immigration friendly policies.
So, if cheap and effective means for extending and improving life were distributed globally, world population would most likely decline quickly in just a few decades and resources that are currently imperiled could be built up in surplusses to counter the effects of almost any natural disaster. Much misery could be counteracted or prevented quicky and cheaply given the new proportions of largesse.
Of course for these reasons and others, the nature of national economies (not to mention nations) would certainly transform in size and composition as the populations did. We might not be able to accurately predict or model these with our burning fuse outlook on motality, but it is safe to say the predicting disaster based on the continuation of present trends is dubious at best.
So, if cheap and effective means for extending and improving life were distributed globally, world population would most likely decline quickly in just a few decades and resources that are currently imperiled could be built up in surplusses to counter the effects of almost any natural disaster. Much misery could be counteracted or prevented quicky and cheaply given the new proportions of largesse.
Of course for these reasons and others, the nature of national economies (not to mention nations) would certainly transform in size and composition as the populations did. We might not be able to accurately predict or model these with our burning fuse outlook on motality, but it is safe to say the predicting disaster based on the continuation of present trends is dubious at best.
