bc@sri-unix (10/30/82)
Jerry Pournelle: ". . .we can sure as hell learn what population pressure is REALLY like if we stay here. . ." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he was suggesting we ship all the excess (who chooses?) population out into space, but rather that the drastic increase in *average* standard of living for the entire planet, due to the increase in available energy, materials, and processing techniques, would cause the birth rate to drop. We have some data that show a correlation between increasing standard of living and decreasing birth rate both in the long-industrialized nations of North America and Europe as well as the recently developed nations of Asia. This hardly constitutes discovery of a universal principle, but hell, it's the best hope we've got that population won't continue to increase to a massive die-off from one or all of the Four Horsemen. I personally do not think that Planned Parenthood is going to be able to make a dent in the birth rate by reasoned discourse with any large fraction of the world's fertile adults.