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Comment by Maursault | Hacker News Reader

There are way too many people for the available resources on Earth as it is. What's going to happen when old people can get younger and live indefinitely? I don't mind as long as they live somewhere else.

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> There are way too many people for the available resources on Earth as it is.

This is just simply nonsense. A far -better- argument would be essentially Steve Job's take on death. Which was "I think death is the most wonderful invention of life. It purges the system of these old models that are obsolete....Without death, there would be very little progress." Your argument has been disproven countless times, and will continue to be.

I agree. I think people that envision a world without death as a good thing are basically insinuating that the quadrillions of phases of evolution that brought them the intelligence and ability and forethought to make that comment in the first place are no longer relevant anymore. “We have evolved as far as we need to” is the basic statement. To call that arrogant would be a charitable take.

> This is just simply nonsense.

Your head is full of nonsense. Something like 85% of animal and plant diversity on Earth has disappeared in the last 50 years. According to a study by the World Wildlife Fund, more than a third of Earth's natural resources have been destroyed by humans in just thirty years. And yet deforestation has increased to an alarming rate. Have you heard of Climate Change? Guess what's causing that? It is estimated that humans use 173% of the earth's resources every year. You mind explaining how that is sustainable? We're pretty much screwed, and the last thing we need is more people.

None of this is a problem. Earth can easily support 1000x more people, and that should be our goal. We are the only intelligent species in this part of the universe, and we are the only species which can protect other lifeforms and take them to other planets. We should multiply and spread life throughout the galaxy.

Biocapacity can be increased with technology and sustainable energy. Our impact on environment can be eliminated with technology and sustainable energy. These are not a problem at all; we just need to utilize more energy.

You are barking mad, son.

People have claimed humans couldn't sustain themselves for hundreds of years now, yet we have grown, and made major advancements to support more people. The air in many parts of the world is cleaner now than they were just 20 years ago, water is cleaner in many parts of the world than 30 years ago, etc. It's not like humans are stagnant. Things are actually getting better for most people on earth. Less poverty, less war, less hunger, less disease.

One devil’s advocate I haven’t seen discussed: let’s say 99% of species die off via a harmful intervention. Once the harmful intervention stops, new species will naturally branch out from the survivors to fill the now-vacant environmental niches. This will result in an increase in the number of “species” back to the original level or beyond.

Assuming humans never destroy literally all multi celled organisms on Earth, I think this rediversification is guaranteed to happen after some amount of time.

Is the number of species really important at all, or is the preservation of the basic genetic drive the important thing?

There is a race between humans destroying their own capacity to destroy and humans destroying all life on Earth. I would bet on the former.

Less people live in poverty now than at any point in human history, but we have more people. There is more food now than at any point in human history, but we have more people. Nothing you've said has anything to do with there being "too many people." The "too many people" argument is just a hidden genocidal argument, as usually people only want -certain- people to stop reproducing (hint, it's the poor). Everything you've mentioned can be addressed through human progress, and some of the species dying can't even be attributed to humans at all. Prior to humans, 99% of all species that ever lived on earth had become extinct.

Aren't you guys saying the same thing?

The parent says, "There's too many people on earth already", you reply "Steve Jobs said Death is great and necessary", these seem like sympathetic points to points.

Agree. I'm having trouble following the discussion.

What's hard to follow? Too many people exist vs old ideas need to die which often requires death...is not remotely the same argument. One says we need to cull the herd out of an imaginary number that is viewed as "too many people;" the other says you can have tons more people and have no problems, but old ideas can hold back social and scientific progress which is a problem death of older generations helps to alleviate.

No, that isn't the same at all. One is about ideas evolving through new generations of thought not held back by the old, the other is about there being overpopulation. Imagine if we still had people still alive from the Civil War...advancement would have likely been less (many old ideas, people stuck in their ways would have thwarted human progress.) What does that have to be with there being too many humans on earth? I don't see how you can even say these are the same argument, if you had actually copied the FULL quote, it would have been very apparent.

And yet, as population continues to grow, people keep living longer and better lives.

My interpretation is that the most important resource is not minerals or land, but people! The more people who work on improving things, the better the world becomes.

8 billion heads is better than [your preferred population number]!

> What's going to happen when old people can get younger and live indefinitely? I don't mind as long as they live somewhere else.

If this happens, that's your future, you will be the old person that you're consigning to "live somewhere else".

As the saying goes, time is a pyramid scheme. People who are alive when indefinite life becomes possible (if ever) will be at its top. It's a valid concern despite OP not noticing own chance of being a candidate for that role

Society spends a lot of resources educating people. This would mean society can get much greater ROI, possibly compensating with technological progress any additional resource consumption.

On the other hand, think of career politicians and of dictators for life. Later-borns will have a hard time catching up to the experience, life-savviness, networks, and other moats, of the multi-centennials they’re competing against. Also, who will be allowed to have children when the population can’t grow indefinitely? Things could get pretty dystopian.

The basic social structure would have to be completely rethought. A good model might exist, we just don’t know what it is yet.

For one thing, many developed nations would have solved their projected geriatric population problem where way more people are retired and have all those old-age health problems compared to the working population compared to today.

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