An excellent esposition on demographics has been made in several programs by Ben Wattenburg on his show "Think Tank". He's interviewed several experts, whom I listened to from the POV you mentioned, cognizant of the confluence of interests by folks in American eugenics/Nazis/others, and other dark as well as well-meaning efforts.
The most fascinating thing was that the growth curve is NOT headed towards catastrophe, but by all accounts to a max of about 50% more than the current in mid-century, then a steady decline. The decline is already a big worry by countries with declining population. In the worst places, like Africa and Asia, the rate is rapidly normalizing.
I agree -- the whole pivot is whether powerful people involved have any morals or regard for human life. If not, mass genocide inevitably happens. The only protection is full disclosure of what any and all of these public organizations, the US and the UN, are doing, in legislation, but more importantly, in technology and covert operations.
FWIW, I've got a diametrically opposite view to what my brother (who used to be a member at Berkeley of Zero Population Growth!) had, or Ray has today. My view is that we can handle 3x or even 5x the current pop, judging by non-Malthusian metrics, new tech for using desert and ocean areas in the next 100 years. The more the merrier, since IMO there's a collective intelligence that improves with size (if we avoid going collectively insane of course)
More sci-fi is my fervent hope that we get globally healthy enough to build off-world structures. At current rates, in 400 years we'll need that, and we'll have 100 X the current world GDP, and 10,000X the technical capabilities, therefore it will be possible to construct Pournelle Rings. These are structures in orbit around the Earth (or in a vastly larger mode, the Sun) that can contain unlimited populations, and be the equivilent of the New West expansion, to hundreds of billions or even trillions. The materials used are already known to be in orbit, and its less a scientific as an engineering and budget challenge. |
