I don’t think this is a problem. Because the birth rate in the world has fallen a lot. For example, Japan had about 800 thousand fewer people last year, and China is experiencing a similar fate. Space technologies are also advancing incredibly. Perhaps in the near future, colonization will begin on Mars and the moons of Jupiter, and the excess population will be directed there.
2 Likes
Well space will run out on Earth so we’ll have to build in space, but I haven’t looked at what skeptics think. Jeff Bezos is building the infrastructure for this, mainly becoming the postal service (infrastructure) to launch things into space. Mars and Jupiter are fine too but the space is limited, meanwhile building colonies in space itself might need mining resources and energies from planets, asteroids, etc…
It requires a lot of energy of course so we’ll need nuclear (and if we don’t mind about Earth we can burn hydrocarbons), and of course a lot of labor and intelligence.
4 Likes
For the reasons outlined, I believe that lifespan-extending medications and technologies will never be available to the world’s population, besides a small group of the privileged.
2 Likes
As it stands the deteriorating health of older people is a challenging social issue. Doing things to resolve that will reduce this particular challenge.
1 Like
Laying the groundwork for ever expanding government control of our lives and now deaths.
1 Like
Ehh, they are not invulnerability pills. If the big bosses decide that the pros of people living for hundreds of years outweighs the cons, they will be easily available.
Life on this planet depends on what big bosses decide. Pretty scary indeed.
2 Likes
Pill vs euthinasia? Who will decide?
And of course there is the Singularity where we all go “into the machine”. I’m old fashioned and will hang on to these old bones as long as I can. The younger people will probably go all digital/Matrix style years or decades before I do. 
1 Like
Mind uploading is stupid because your organic brain would still contain your memories and consciousness, it doesn’t “switch over”.
The whiplash is too much and just shows that it’s extremely hard to predict the future. When I was a kid, overpopulation was the existential risk. Then during the last few years, that worry flipped completely to population collapse as birth control proved to work better than anyone ever anticipated. Now with the specter of longevity technology coming, we flip once again to worries about overpopulation.
The truth is we can’t know future population trends until the come to pass. We will have to deal with what comes.
How in the world do you know this?
I am with @Virilius on this. There have been plenty of discussions about whether or not people have a soul. However, I start from the position that my memories and consciousness are linked to my organic brain and I see no evidence that they could switch to a machine such that they no longer existed in the brain.
Furthermore my consciousness and motivation is clearly linked to various hormonal levels in the body. That would not be there.
I think it is magical thinking that it is possible to switch consciousness to a transistor based machine. It may be possible using AI to create a bot that responds in a similar manner to one specific human being, but that is a trick rather than a recreation of consciousness and particularly not a transfer of consciousness.
2 Likes