[spiritomb]

sorry, i don't share his vision of technology grandeur.

- the moon and mars (let alone the other planets) are _not_ hospitable to humans. pure fantasy to consider fruitful colonization.

- the next stop outside of our solar system is lifetimes away, who would actually want to live in a moving space station? yuck

- more efficient energy and transportation systems - why? so we can cram even more people onto this planet? how many is enough (or too much)?

- more/better gadgets? games? sad - aim higher.

the big questions we need to solve are those pertaining to sustainable living (as a population). the only people giving this thought these days are crackpots.

we have significant peak-this-or-that issues staring us right in the face. if we don't stop farting around w/ 'golden age' SF fantasies, and start working on the real problems we face .. we'll be looking at another dark age rather than crying about not playing frisbee on Neptune.

[shabble]

efficient energy and transportation systems aren't part of sustainable living? How quite sure how that fits.

The crackpots tend to be the "Everyone, back to nature! Let's all dress in mouldy sheep, mine mud, and eat fallen apples" variety.

True sustainability is about managing both individual impact, and global impact. Efficient energy systems, transportation, and food production might allow a global population of 10Bn to operate on a smaller whatever-footprint than where we are now.

Dealing with a population increase is going to be easier than convincing everyone what is, and how to maintain, a stable population. 1-child-per-family rules are unlikely to hold much sway in what we currently consider 'civilised countries'.

[spiritomb]

your 10Bn will either grow (yet again) after another round of efficiency measures or collapse from disease/war. again, take the long view - where does this lead?

btw, i don't have the answer .. i don't want to go back to the mud, and i don't want to live in some kind of 'Logan's Run' scenario either. but i recognize that something has to give. the trajectory is alarming and my point is that technology won't be the answer because we ultimately live on a planet of finite resources.