Alien civilisations - less likely?

[Anthony G Williams]

we're fast using up our own earth's resources - we could always use more minerals, water, etc. not to mention that our ever-expanding population needs more places to live. land is something that our species has always needed and been hungry for, so it's only a matter of time before we acquire land on other planets. and w/ our expansion into outer space, there will likely come an increased knowledge of space travel, the universe in general, and of life on other planets.

That's a tad optimistic. I find it impossible to conceive of any such emigration making any noticeable difference to the Earth's population. At the moment the population is increasing by over 200,000 every day. Just think about that - to keep the population constant we would not only have to find a way to transport 200,000+ people per day, every day of the year, we would have to find somewhere to put them all - fancy trying to build accommodation for 200,000 on a new planet, every day? Plus the extra farmland needed to feed them? It's just inconceivable.

We're going to have to solve the Earth's problems on Earth.

 

[TL Rese]

That's a tad optimistic. I find it impossible to conceive of any such emigration making any noticeable difference to the Earth's population. At the moment the population is increasing by over 200,000 every day. Just think about that - to keep the population constant we would not only have to find a way to transport 200,000+ people per day, every day of the year, we would have to find somewhere to put them all - fancy trying to build accommodation for 200,000 on a new planet, every day? Plus the extra farmland needed to feed them? It's just inconceivable.

We're going to have to solve the Earth's problems on Earth.

of course we have to take care of mother earth, and i'm not saying we're going to start colonizing other planets tomorrow, but like you said, "population is increasing by over 200,000 every day" - where is everyone going to go if not to outer space? unless you suggest murdering off some people or telling people not to have children. we can't stay on earth forever. what if something catastrophic happens to earth, like a comet? we'll face the very real possibility of extinction. stephen hawkings himself said that expanding to other planets is key to our species's survival.

those numbers mite seem big to us now, but not long ago, cities consisted of only a few thousand people - now they're home to millions. in a few centuries, what seems impossible to us now may very well be possible.

 

[J-Sun]

Exactly - I'm all for solving Earth's problems but, if we fail, I'd like to have some clumps of 200,000 humans somewhere else rather than just piling up here.

 

[Quokka]

I don't think space colonisation can ever be significant in affecting total population on Earth, the numbers are too large and we'd fill any void too quickly. If England had moved a larger percentage of it's population to America initially, even say 10% (and today that would be ~700 million in global population), I wouldn't think that their current population today would be significantly lower?

I agree that it will increase humanity's chance of survival and I think the first step is relatively simple. If there was a need great enough to make failed attempts and loss of life politically/socially acceptable I think we'd have a fair chance of setting up a (initially very small) self sustaining population on mars even today. Colonising our solar system (planets, moons and artificial satelites) has to be achiveable, not 2012 but within 1000 years?, if our science and knowledge continues on as you'd expect it to... and history would suggest it may well jump ahead and into places we'd consider impossible now.

It's that next step, to other stars that is just so immense from our current point of view. The distances are so great that traversing it by a stargate/wormhole type invention doesn't seem any sillier than flying there in a space ship but maybe by that point we'll have created a big enough beacon fire to get some help .




All just imo of course...

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I agree about the desirability of establishing self-sustaining colonies elsewhere in case some disaster (natural or man-made) strikes the Earth, but that's an entirely different issue from solving our population problems by shipping people to another planet. As Quokka says, the numbers are too large (not just of people, but in terms of distances to be travelled).

The Earth's population is currently 7 billion. It will almost certainly rise to 9-10 billion by the middle of this century (simply because there are so many children who will inevitably have children of their own) but after that, no-one knows. The UN's current "low" estimate by 2100 is 6 billion, their "high" estimate is 15 billion. We can control our population by the decisions we make, and that is what we need to do. The best approach is to provide education, contraception and economic opportunities for women in the developed world, where the numbers are rising fast. Experience shows that when women have these, they resist having large numbers of children.

Apart from anything else, the technical and human problems of sending people even to the nearest stars are so immense that they are not likely to be solved this century - let alone the vastly greater problems involved in mass emigration. So as I said, we have to solve our problems on our planet - there's no other option available to us.

 

[Rob Sanders]

Perhaps unrestrained breeding / overpopulation is a natural phenomenon in human beings and part of the biological forces that push our race to successfully (if sometimes immorally) expand and occupy new territories.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Well, breeding's certainly natural and any species expands as far as it can until limited by predation (no longer a worry for humans - except by other humans, of course) or disease, or lack of natural resources.

However, in many countries in the developed world, the birthrate has dropped well below the replacement level of an average of 2.1 children per woman. It's the developing world which still has rapid growth. So as the developing world becomes more developed, their birthrates ought to drop.

 

[Rob Sanders]

Anthony, do you think it a sign of a 'developed' culture that it controls its birth rate? : )

 

[TL Rese]

i'm not talking about short-term solutions to population problems - but if we are expanding in numbers, then it seems in our favor to colonize other planets in the coming centuries (plural), rather than having all that population concentrated in one area (ie. earth). but population may not keep increasing at the same rate - people are having smaller families now than back in the day, and many choosing not to have kids at all. "education, contraception and economic opportunities for women in the developed world" are definitely good short-term solutions, but we should definitely also be looking long-term into space colonization for a variety of reasons - even something small, like the recent manned mars simulation, could prove to be v. useful in the long run.

"the numbers are too large (not just of people, but in terms of distances to be travelled)." - shipping people vast distances in giant numbers is not beyond the realm of possibility. - of course, not tomorrow, but in the next few centuries (again, plural). today, the airline industry transports Millions of people every day around the world in a matter of hours. this would have been completely inconceivable to people living 500yrs ago, back in christopher columbus' time, when it took months just to putter across the atlantic - when they didn't even kno the americas existed and when the size of the earth was even in question. if you had suggested airplanes or walking on the moon to these people, they would have laughed in your face. in the same way, the coming centuries can bring similar inconceivable leaps in knowledge and technology.

anyways, i feel like i've started a tangent that's diverted the topic away from alien civilizations, so i'll stop. =P

 

[Boneman]

No, don't stop! This is incredibly helpful for a Utopia essay I've got to do!! And although 200,000 arrive every day, how many depart?

If you leave it, 'Nature' will take care of it - any over-population of a species eventually runs out of enough food to supply them all, and the weakest and the least able die, and the fittest/strongest continue. The problem is, man's superior ( I use that term advisedly) intelligence now means those 'most able' to survive, doesn't mean the 'best'.

We know there's a problem with population, but we do nothing about it. Somewhere down the line famine will reduce the population for us, it's inevitable. Food wars and disease will have a hand in it, of course. Trying to leave the planet in sufficient numbers won't happen before that occurs. It's whether they learn anything from it... or repeat it in another few centuries.

Can you imagine the scenario when mankind arrives on an Alien planet and tells the indiginous population why we've come? Causae belli at its simplest. The collective responsibility for humanity rests with humanity alone.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Anthony, do you think it a sign of a 'developed' culture that it controls its birth rate? : )

Only the Chinese do that (with their "one-child" policy). Everywhere else, women make their own decisions about the number of children they're going to have, based on their circumstances and opportunities. Overwhelmingly, they choose to have few (or no) children when they can.

This is a long-term trend, not a short-term fix - provided of course that some huge spanner isn't thrown in the human works by some major disaster (in which case the population will drop anyway). The problem is that we have a huge population bulge to absorb during this century.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

And although 200,000 arrive every day, how many depart?

200,000 is the net increase - what's left after you've subtracted the deaths from the births.

Google for the Wiki article on population growth.

 

[J-Sun]

I agree about the desirability of establishing self-sustaining colonies elsewhere in case some disaster (natural or man-made) strikes the Earth, but that's an entirely different issue from solving our population problems by shipping people to another planet.

Okay, I got ya. We're in complete accord then. Some people who say "[w]e're going to have to solve the Earth's problems on Earth" mean "cut all space research funding because it's useless" which I don't agree with. And I do think advances in scientific knowledge of whatever kind may be helpful even if the immediate applicability isn't apparent. But I also agree that actual space emigration is not an overpopulation solution, so far as we can project it now.

I will say that if you could imagine some anti-grav space-drive forcefield magic being invented and placed in every car, plane, train, and ship and all of them whizzing off to other stars instantly, it would work wonders for the population. But constructing a Mars survey ship at the cost of billions of dollars that carries a crew of a dozen or so - or even any reasonable extrapolation, such as a fleet of a dozen which carry a couple hundred people - is obviously useless in terms of reducing Earth's population.

-- In fact, while some of the discussion hits on it, one of the problems with population reduction measures is that, insofar as they work, they fail. If you reduce population pressures by some measure people will tend to breed more and cancel it out - any reduction in pressure means a comparative vacuum to fill. Like was basically said - population tends to increase until war, plague and famine say otherwise.

 

[TL Rese]

Some people who say "[w]e're going to have to solve the Earth's problems on Earth" mean "cut all space research funding because it's useless" which I don't agree with. And I do think advances in scientific knowledge of whatever kind may be helpful even if the immediate applicability isn't apparent.

yup, i definitely agree with this - we cannot just focus on earth.

as for population, as has been said, it'll likely only expand as far as natural resources, etc. allows - but i think it's difficult for us to project what life would be like centuries from now. if population growth slows (which i think is likely, given the current trend of smaller families and the popularity of contraception) AND there is immigration en masse to other planets, then conceivably space colonization will help earth's population. it's definitely better than just staying on earth and encouraging people not to breed.

think about it - if our ancient ancestors had never left africa, then it would be a very crowded continent w/ all 7 billion of us on there. of course, that likely wouldn't happen, due to famine, disease, war - but that's far from a favorable scenario. throughout history, the human species have grown in numbers and spread out - we're the only species to have colonized every corner of the globe. space is the only logical next frontier.

as for natural selection, if you are here, then nature has selected you. humans are just another part of nature, even tho we tend to think of ourselves as somehow magically apart from nature. anthropologists even think that one of the keys to our species' success is our expanding population - you kno what they say, "two heads are better than one", or in our case, "billions of heads".

- sorry for the slow reply, btw - usual excuse, life, bills, work, and all.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

think about it - if our ancient ancestors had never left africa, then it would be a very crowded continent w/ all 7 billion of us on there. of course, that likely wouldn't happen, due to famine, disease, war - but that's far from a favorable scenario. throughout history, the human species have grown in numbers and spread out - we're the only species to have colonized every corner of the globe. space is the only logical next frontier.

But the rest of the world was not colonised by large numbers of people leaving Africa - small numbers left and spread out over the globe, then bred in their new locations.

If Africa had been the only land mass on Earth, then its population would probably be more or less what it is now - limited by resources.

So if we do end up in a few millennia with billions of humans living on other planets, you can be pretty certain that it won't be because billions travelled from Earth - it will be because small numbers travelled and then bred on the new planets.

 

[TL Rese]

well, obviously, back then they were travelling on foot out of africa. w/ space colonization, it'll most likely be a "few" numbers at first, but at the pace things move nowadays, it'll quickly catch on. if we already have the ability to move millions of people around the world daily pretty much effortlessly today, then in 500yrs or so, who knows?

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Travelling on foot out of Africa is an absolute doddle compared with travelling between the stars in any foreseeable future.

Mass migration would only become feasible if something like "stargates" could be established to allow people to step from one planet to another. But that is fantasy rather than science fiction since there is no way that even the most way-out physicists can conceive that it might be even theoretically possible. But still, I notice that you're a fantasy writer so there's no reason why you shouldn't use the idea!

 

[TL Rese]

i think the first satellite to be colonized would be the moon, which obviously does not need a stargate teleportation device to reach.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

It would be immensely difficult (as well as incredibly expensive) to establish a self-sustaining colony on the Moon. Note the "self-sustaining" bit - they would have to generate all of their own air, water and food, plus have all of the facilities needed to equip, maintain and extend their sealed habitat. It would always be vulnerable to disasters like a minor asteroid strike, against which it has no atmosphere to provide protection. The same applies to any other colonies which are not sited on a human-friendly planet.

It we just need more living space it would be vastly easier to colonise the Antarctic, where the air and water come for free, temperatures are much warmer and transport is a miniscule fraction of the cost.

 

[TL Rese]

like i said:

today, the airline industry transports Millions of people every day around the world in a matter of hours. this would have been completely inconceivable to people living 500yrs ago, back in christopher columbus' time, when it took months just to putter across the atlantic - when they didn't even kno the americas existed and when the size of the earth was even in question. if you had suggested airplanes or walking on the moon to these people, they would have laughed in your face. in the same way, the coming centuries can bring similar inconceivable leaps in knowledge and technology.

maybe the antarctic will be colonized at some point - i'm not saying it won't be - but if our species is still around in a few centuries, we will most likely have the means to colonize space. just because it seems impossible/difficult now doesn't mean it will be in the far future. and i think it'll be unlikely that a colony will be "self-sustaining", given the interconnectedness of everything nowadays. even back in american colonial times, we still had trade w/ britain.