Re:Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn
by lutusp on Friday September 13, 2013 @05:35PM
(#6383324)
> [Marvin Minsky:] "I think it [world population] should be about 100 million or maybe 500 million."
If only people were rational. But population doesn't follow rationality, it follows the Logistic function:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function
The Logistic function's left-hand side looks as flat as it does because there are too few organisms to support a larger growth rate.
The Logistic function's right-hand side looks as flat as it does because there are too many starving organisms to support a larger growth rate.
Welcome to natural selection. :)
> Anyway, the question I think people should talk about -- and it's absolutely taboo -- is, how many people should there be? And I think it should be about 100 million or maybe 500 million. And then notice that a great many of these problems disappear. If you had 100 million people properly spread out, then if there's some garbage, you throw it away, preferably where you can't see it, and it will rot. Or you throw it into the ocean and some fish will benefit from it. The problem is, how many people should there be?
http://www.ted.com/talks/marvin_minsky_on_health_and_the_hum...