The World at 7 Billion

[Angelo]

Good one, we get 2.5% of nothing and he gets 80% of god knows how much. ( wer'e all in this together ) !

[Papaumau]

To look at the possibilities at what Our planet could turn into I would recommend any one to watch Solent Green a (Charlet Heston)  movie and read the books of Issac Asimov a scientist and Science Fiction Writer.
Foundation & Empire Trilogy being one.

Yes Old Timer, Soylent Green was an excellent view of what might happen if the world becomes overpopulated. I found it a great twist at the end of that story when we found out that the Soylent Green super-food was actually made out of the bodies of human beings that were supposed to be going for cremation.

I think that as the world's population keeps on increasing we are going to see many ideas, ( maybe not as severe as that one  ), that will be introduced in order to help to keep the population down. The Idea of suicide booths is not so far fetched when we realise just how awful life will be in any such world.

I have also read all of the Asimov books and found that the "I, Robot" short stories were particularly excellent.

As technology is moving at such a pace I don't think it will be long before we are using androids or even pure robots to do our bidding and our grunt work. Mind you I hope that they also use Asimov's "Three laws of Robotics" too.

For anyone who does not know of these three famous laws, here they are:

Asimov:

The Three Laws are:

1 ). A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2 ). A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3 ). A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

[Angelo]

In the recent Stephen Hawkins series there were some truly wonderfull projects and some scary ones. Some Dutch scientists were growing meat in dishes using a animal seed.
They said they would produce a hamburger next year for some American company. But the scientist said he would not be tasting it. Meat without Animals.
I think this is an example of not delaing with the problem,( population size) rather accomodating the results.
I think I will becoming Veggie when this takes off.
Oh and Robots are getting very clever,Honda's for instance.

[Oldtimer]

Assimov wrote many scientific books also I Robot was one of his best!

[Angelo]

Did he, Assimof have any ideas on decreasing the world population ?

[Papaumau]

I don't think so even if Asimov was well aware via his many books that such a situation could eventually exist.

If we do not do something soon we are going to find that the world will just not be able to sustain the numbers that the population will rise to.

It is certainly a worry.

My idea of voluntary euthanasia might be more readily accepted when we start to run out of food and clean air. 

[Oldtimer]

Asimoff in Foundation an Empire had a scientist called Harry Seldon who worked out future possibilities
Using mathmatics?

[Papaumau]

Yes, and as I said above, many of the real scientists/physicists are now looking at ways of being able to travel faster than light, ( and even in time, as time and space relativity are connected ), now that they, ( the people at the Cern laboratory ), have proved that a particle found in the atom can do this after Einstein said that it was not possible.

It's a whole new ballgame if Einstein's theory of relativity is proved to be wrong. They will have to rewrite all of the physics manuals.

I LIKE the sound of that, don't you ?

[Angelo]

Not sure if I want to be around when all this starts !
The scientific view presumes we don't destroy ourselves before all this wonderfull stuff happens.
Hope they find the Higgs Particle first. Then what ?

[Oldtimer]

What you need is a decent Black Hole or Wormhole in space and a means of getting through them.

[Papaumau]

Yes, that is another of the speculative ideas of the astronomers and astrophysicists.

Some of them seem to think that if we could survive the great crush of the event horizon of a black hole that we could slip through into another time-stream.

The thing is...who is going to be the first volunteer to try that one ?

[Angelo]

Easy, we can Nominate the pioneers we want to send.
Lets start with the current goverment and MPs.

[Rita Postlethwaite]

Great idea Angelo!

[Oldtimer]

And make them pay for their tickets!!