Considering the fact that you can put every human that's ever lived, alive or not, within visual range of the Washington Monument, I'd say we're probably not going to run out of room any time soon.

Might have some food issues, though...

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Mine: "Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that."

Heinlein's: "Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." "Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite."

I once heard, if you give every household in the US a modest-sized house and small yard and moved them to Texas into a tight cluster, most of Texas would still be unoccupied. Living space isn't anywhere close to the limiting factor yet.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

Las Vegas gets most of its water from that big lake behind the Hoover dam. Unfortunately, that big lake's (Lake Meade) water levels are rapidly getting lower and lower. It's currently at just 50.44% of it's capacity due to draughts in Colorado and steady population increases in both Las Vegas and LA (which pipes it's water from Lake Meade).

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Mine: "Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that."

Heinlein's: "Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." "Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite."

So maybe LA and Vegas ought to invest in desalinization plants and not use water-hungry plants in its landscaping. There's nothing inherent in a water shortage that a little technology can't solve. And please don't say that there won't be any initiative to get something like that on the boards, for history has shown that when push comes to shove, things like that do get initiated simply due to public demand.

So while I seriously doubt that the US's population will hit 1B any time in the future, I also seriously doubt that will be a problem if we do get there.

- Maha Vailo

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When you get down to it, Science answers how. Religion answers why. - hippietrekx

maybe we shouldn't let people live in the driest part of our country.



man, if the power ever goes out those people are in for a rude and quick awakening.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

I'm in favor of people living where they want--but if they choose to live in the desert, no fair asking those who don't live there for subsidies! I think technology can make desert living feasible---or, perhaps, it already has, just with some inconveniences from water shortages. (not actually "real" water shortages where whole communities die, and by a community dying, I mean individuals dying, not everybody moving to less dry places).

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

I think they are a necessity now, and have been since they became possible. But they will not be a solution to overpopulation (ever), just a lifeboat for some to suvive the inevitable meltdown caused by umpteen billions fighting over ever-smaller slices of a non-growing pie.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I don't agree with anything you just said: Except that they are a necessity.
The reasons I believe so is the progression of science and experimentation. It has nothing to do with surface life or a pessimistic or an optimistic view of the surface.

I'm not talking about pessimism or optimism. I'm talking about threat assesment. The possibility exists, therefore it should be planned for. Practicality, not pessimism, says you never keep all your eggs in one basket. Especially when they're the only eggs in the universe.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Better yet, just inform everyone that the Mississippi empties many, many times that volume of water into the Gulf, so if you want a fresh supply of water, don't move to Vegas or LA, just move somewhere within a hundred miles or so of the Southern end of of the mighty Mississippi.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Mine: "Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that."

Heinlein's: "Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." "Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite."

How about reasonable threat assessment? Just because a threat could happen doesn't make it reasonable- I could get struck by lightning but I'm not walking around with a lightning rod screwed to my scalp.

How much is an umpteen billion? Is that 13 billion or higher? Peak world population is projected to be considerably below this. Do you have a reason to believe the world's population will reach 13 billion or higher or is it just a feeling you have?

World economic growth per capitia has been 2.1% per capitia from 1950-2003. This period included the world's greatest rate of population growth which peaked in 1963. Do you have any reasons to believe that the pie will suddenly stop growing? Reasons that didn't apply in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, or 2000? Or is this just a feeling you have?

In 2002 world motality due to war was 0.3%. Do you have reasons to believe there will be a large increase in this number, or is it just a feeling?

Resource depletion.

Could you explain further? How will resource depletion suddenly stop the pie from growing?

That would be an unfortunate response to that particular threat.

great, New Orleans, the new Las Vegas.

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Agreed! Especially since a lightning rod, contrary to popular belief, does not prevent lightning strikes. Instead, it attracts lightning to strike it, rather than nearby buildings!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Yep. That's pretty much my point.

Hi all, been away for a bit.

Since a lot of you are my friends, I'll add it wasn't due to illness. Been working hard on my parent's garden. Mom doesn't have too much longer and she always loved a pretty garden.

Came back to post another "war story" and saw this thread while looking around.

Believe it or not, I went blogging about to get the other POV to the Tibet issue, since the Tibetans themsevles cheesed me off by politicizing the Olympics. I thought that was bull since the Carter administration.

BUT I had a very interesting evening talking to a Chinese sociologist. (If I was born in Beijing, would I be Chinese too?) Took me three tries to get him to stop spouting anti-US jargon and actually converse. I didn't care about his sentiments, everybodies intitled, I just wanted to pump him for information. Heck, I've heard worse from our own citizens.

He said that he studied the United States as an analyst for his own goverment, just like we have them to study China.

According to China's studies the big population mark for the United States will be 600 million. And he explained why this number is special. At 600 million people your country has to come up with 100,000 new perminant jobs every single day.

According to this Chinese guy we would also have to do away with our absurd (to them) prison system at that point. Executing anyone that would cost more resources to house and "rehabilitate" than the cost to educate and train somebody who isn't a screw-up. Because you no longer have the resources to do both.

(I know the Chinese are just as human as any of us, though now I have to wonder how they deal with the clinically insane and the perminantly crippled.)

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah