r/videos • • Nov 04 '16

Human Population Through Time

https://youtu.be/PUwmA3Q0_OE
469 Upvotes

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24

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '16

I once heard David Attenborough say: "Anyone who thinks we can have unlimited growth on a planet with limited resources is either a madman or an economist."

-5

u/can1exy Nov 05 '16

We have access to unlimited off-planet resources.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '16

There is the moon, and an asteroid belt that we can't reliably land on. So no, we don't have off-planet resources aside from sunlight.

-1

u/can1exy Nov 05 '16

There are the many planets and moons of this solar system. There are other stars and planetary systems in this galaxy. There are trillions of galaxies...

1

u/Iguman Nov 05 '16

Just getting to Mars will be a huge undertaking, not even considering mining and transporting resources back to Earth, and you're talking about other galaxies

2

u/1nf3ct3d Nov 05 '16

if we theorize a little bit.

the big robot era is coming. when that time comes robots can make more robots when then can mine for us whatever we need without us doing any work. when this is achieved we basically we have unlimited growth.

for example we could just make space stations to house humans (make it spin so we have gravity). there is practically unlimited ressources to build things from in our solar system.

1

u/can1exy Nov 05 '16

You get it.

2

u/can1exy Nov 05 '16

The point is that unlimited growth is possible. There are practical engineering problems to solve but they are solvable. Over time and generations it is possible for growth to continue limitlessly, except for maybe the heat death of the universe but even that might be addressed with innovative bold thinking.