[esarbe]

> maybe some amebas will evolve into something more peaceful that the savages we have become.

That's very unlikely. Our behavior is rooted in our biological need to consume resources and reproduce. Our failure to moderate our behavior is the same as the rabbit that's unable to reproduce once the environment's carrying capacity has been reached.

I'm pretty sure that this fundamental biological behavior (compete for resources to reproduce) is the Big Filter. So I reckon that every species going planetary apex will make the same mistake.

[candiodari]

Why? Clearly we have more resources than we need, and a bunch of energy sources we can start to master. If even one of those pans out (and even if it doesn't Nuclear fuel reserves will get us well into 3000 even with exponential growth)

So how do you know your prediction is any different from John Malthus' ? You're assuming quite a lot of efforts will fail. I don't understand how you justify that assumption.

Especially since, if those efforts succeed and we massively increase the energy resources available to the human species, we can trade energy for just about any other resource (including reducing co2, or purifying water, or ...). At that point having hundreds of billions of humans becomes realistic.