MCGRATH%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Jim McGrath") (03/11/86)
From: jon@csvax.caltech.edu
Space colonies - even if obtained by dismantling all the rocky
bodies of the solar system - can only put off the day of reckoning
for so long. The point is that there is a fixed amount of matter
to build stuff with, while the population keeps increasing. No
matter what the coefficients involved, sooner or later the curves
cross. If population increase is exponential, it's sooner.
Why limit yourself to the solar system? We are talking about hundreds
of years of uninterrupted scientific and technical growth. And if you
can cross the solar system frontier, then you may have an unlimited
amount of matter to play with (what, the universe is finite? Who
says?).
Are we to force people to live in space, or force them to control
their breeding? I don't care for either alternative but the second
seems like less of an imposition.
You could always give them a choice.
Jim
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