Challenges loom as world population hits 7 billion
"the world's population will have passed a momentous milestone. As of Oct. 31, according to the U.N. Population Fund, there will be 7 billion people sharing Earth's land and resources."
http://news.yahoo.com/challenges-loom-world-population-hits-7-billion-040835519.html
I remember when we hit 6 billion.
😄
I remember when we hit 15 billion.
Spoiler:
Oh shit! I wasn't supposed to reveal that I was a time traveler from the future who escaped to the past due to the overcrowding and rampant crime in the future. Meow.
I don't think we will hit overcrowding until 20 billion. Maybe even 30 billion.
When we get there, then, yes, we will be pushing it.
Unless, of course, we live in giant buildings that are self containing and energy producing and use the land to make massive amounts of food.
Originally posted by dadudemon
I don't think we will hit overcrowding until 20 billion. Maybe even 30 billion.When we get there, then, yes, we will be pushing it.
Unless, of course, we live in giant buildings that are self containing and energy producing and use the land to make massive amounts of food.
Twenty billion will take us over a hundred years at this rate, so I wouldn't be worry much about that.
Overcrowding will not be a problem for a long time. The resource problem we have right now is due to logisitical **** ups and general apathy, not because there is an actual shortage of resources.
An example being, with 200 million dollars, you can feed something like 800,000 people every day for a year.
At one point the US was spending something like 50 billion a month financing the wars in the middle east.
Hence, it's obviously well within the worlds means to end world hunger and stuff outright. We just... choose not too.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Twenty billion will take us over a hundred years at this rate, so I wouldn't be worry much about that.
In 20 years, Kurzweil is predicting massive improvements in nano-technology to the point of almost to full biological immortality.
I'm scared about what is going to happen in the next 2-3 decades. (not really scared, but worried).
Originally posted by Robtard
Did you factor in compound f**king?
It is exponential growth.
However, the current logarithmic growth shows it not to occur for a while.
I do not know about massive breakthroughs in infant mortality. There could be some...
Then there's nanotechnology and the mastering of biological aging which is slated to happen in the next 20-50 years. Which would completely throw off the growth rates we currently have now (we could still die by physical trauma, though...so death will still happen).
Then there's the "digitizing" of ourselves and the possibility of AI: AI may count as "population". So we can't really say what's going to happen, for sure, in the next 20-50 years of population growth.
We could completely redefine "population" making the comparisons moot.
Originally posted by Nephthys
Meow!?A-are you me?
No, Meow is my thing. I say "meow" randomly. I also bark at people, randomly.
Yes, I am that weird.
Originally posted by Robtard
Did you factor in compound f**king?
Yes.
People forget that the instantaneous rate of growth is meaningless in terms of population prediction. The rate of growth has been slowing for a long time. Professional estimates put a population of 10 billion around 2050, "compound ****ing" estimates put 10 billion around the year 2000.
Originally posted by dadudemon
In 20 years, Kurzweil is predicting massive improvements in nano-technology to the point of almost to full biological immortality.
In five years a guy in Time's Square is predicting the conquest of humanity by nine dimensional aliens. I'm inclined to believe him over Kurzweil.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Professional estimates put a population of 10 billion around 2050, "compound ****ing" estimates put 10 billion around the year 2000.
😆 😆 😆 😆
Win.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
In five years a guy in Time's Square is predicting the conquest of humanity by nine dimensional aliens. I'm inclined to believe him over Kurzweil.
Well, put Kurzweil's predictions up next to that guy's and then see how many times Kurzweil was correct (with about a 1-2 year leeway, of course) versus how many times that guy has been correct about his predictions concerning the aliens.
Let me know which one come out as more credible.
http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/04/kurzweil-defends-his-predictions-again-was-he-86-correct/
Let's go with 86% out of 147 predictions correct.
That's better than blind guessing if you consider than none of his predictions were binary.
It makes more sense that Kurzweil would be correct since his predictions are based on math and real models rather than just blind guessing or "spirits".
Originally posted by dadudemon
http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/04/kurzweil-defends-his-predictions-again-was-he-86-correct/Let's go with 86% out of 147 predictions correct.
Well lets see, I'll go ask the guy in Times Square to self report on how accurate he thinks he is. I get 100%.
100% is a whole 14% better than 86%.
Also did you scroll down any? Kurzweil includes things like "education will be an important part of many jobs" and "we will study the brain" as a predictions.
Or look at this prediction: "Warfare is dominated by unmanned intelligent airborne devices." He counts this as correct based on the use of unintelligent drones as a supplement to military operations.
Reading the report further he inflates his numbers in the computer section with four predictions that are really just different part of "most people will have and use digital objects".
"The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition (CSR) dictation software." Is counted as Partially Correct on page 24 despite his own explicit statement that it was wrong (actually on page 40 he notes an identical prediction as being wrong... the man needs an editor, or at least a proof reader)
Of course we don't even need to go that far. Unless we assume that his predictions only count lower middle class and up western people as "people" a lot of the predictions falter.
TL;DR He makes some very astute predictions, to be sure, especially about the progress of networking and wireless technology but, frankly, he's the last person in the world who you should ask about how effective he is as a prophet.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
TL;DR He makes some very astute predictions, to be sure, especially about the progress of networking and wireless technology but, frankly, he's the last person in the world who you should ask about how effective he is as a prophet.
Since he never claimed to be a prophet and actually uses science in his predictions (if you even want to call half of them predictions...it's more like trending analysis which is closer to being a statistician rather than being a "prophet"😉...
Instead, let's stick with what my original point was instead of the strawman you just tried to use:
"In 20 years, Kurzweil is predicting massive improvements in nano-technology to the point of almost to full biological immortality."
Instead of pretending I called him a prophet*, let's stick with what I really said he was doing:
"It makes more sense that Kurzweil would be correct since his predictions are based on math and real models rather than just blind guessing or "spirits".
*I made a joke (naughty of me) about him not using spirits to guess. That was not only slight against my very own religion, but it was a slight against any religion, ever, that makes predictions about the future.