What will be on the menu 6,000 years from now?

[What will be on the menu 6,000]

What will be on the menu another 6,000 years from now if our population keeps doubling at its recent pace?
Perhaps not much.
Certainly not many wild animals.

The recent World Wildlife Fund report about the drastic decline in the population of wild animals prompted me to try to take readers through a version of an old eye-opening math exercise extrapolating humanity's population trend. The report can be downloaded from:

assets.worldwildlife.org/publications/723/files/original/LPR2014_low_res-2.pdf


I once heard a claim that if population growth were to somehow keep on it's current trajectory, then in less than 6,000 years humanity would weigh more than Earth. Hard to believe, eh?

Let's check out the claim using some numbers from Wikipedia's page at:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_milestones

Year population reached 6 billion: 1999
Year population reached 3billion: 1959
Time period for that recent doubling of population: ~40 years
Number of doubling periods in 6,000 years = 6000/40 = 150

If you double a number and then double that result over and over for a total of 150 doublings, the original number would be multiplied by a number a bit larger than this:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
which is 1 followed by 45 zeros (also expressed as 1E45 in scientific format)

The same wikipedia page indicates that the world population has already surpassed 7 billion. Even if we assume the average mass of a human is a fairly low value of 50kg (rather skinny for a healthy adult), then the current mass of humanity is at least:

7 billion x 50kg = 350000000000 kg (3.5E11 kg in scientific format)

∴The mass of humanity after 6,000 years of doubling every 40 years would be at least:

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x 350000000000 kg
which is 35 followed by 56 zeros (or 3.5E57 kg in scientific format)

Not only is this much larger than the mass of Earth, but it's significantly larger than the total mass of ALL of the ordinary matter in the entire observable universe which is currently cited as "just" 1053 kg (1 followed by 53 zeros) on the wikipedia page at:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Mass_of_ordinary_matter

So what might be left on menu after 6,000 years at the rate we're going?

Nothing.
Not even dark matter.
It's highly unlikely that our population can keep growing at the current rate for anywhere near 6,000 years without at least nibbling on Earth's crust. Fighting over Earth's tastier bits seems far more likely unless the population trend can peacefully reverse.

Since silicon is the most common element in Earth's crust (other than oxygen), silicon based life may actually end up enjoying what's left on the menu well before 6,000 years from now. Consider:

www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/science/new-computer-chip-is-designed-to-work-like-the-brain.html?_r=0

www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/brainpower/

[anni]

Well, what will be on the menu 6,000, you've just made my head explode at,
"100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 which is 1 followed by 45 zeros (also expressed as 1E45 in scientific format)."

So that's one less to think about. Ps. I didn't replicate in my lifetime...for what it's worth...

[Anon Breedar]

Thanks, Anni.

In a certain sense, your non-replication will have kept the world's population smaller by more than the current population of the planet 1320 years from now! If the population doublings somehow continued at their 40 year pace, each extra child would lead to over 8 billion people in about 1320 years (33 doublings). Of course, the doubling rate cannot continue, but it's hard to think of anything "greener" or more anti-war than simply deciding not to have an extra child. Humanity is already failing to take good care of far too many of its children. It's quite sad to think of the problems ahead.

[Oss Rae]

I liked the movie Idiocracy. There's a good chapter, I think, on population in Alan Weisman's The World Without Us (Weisman since wrote an entire book on population, Countdown, which I've yet to read).

This movie was shown by the Glendale Peace Vigil a few years ago. For a time it was available online for free, but not anymore. It's pretty well done, I think.

[Sharon W]

I have a DVD of the movie if anyone would like to see it. We bought it with public performance rights as long as there is no admission charged and we're happy to loan it out for screenings.

[Oss Rae]

A few years ago I came across an old issue of Mad magazine (summer 1975). This is on the back cover.

[Anon Breedar]

The links at the bottom of the original post suggest that artificial life based on silicon may prosper further into the future than an overpopulated mass of humanity.

The most typical final states wherever the spark of life achieves intelligence may very well be either extinction (from nuclear annihilation, disease, planetary impact, etc.) OR artificial intelligent life. 
 
I hope this link works to the official site of a recent excellent Dilbert cartoon since it brilliantly captures an interesting factor that enables the latter:
 



Dilbert describes his day at work saying "I taught robots how to emotionally manipulate people and thus guaranteed that homo sapiens will become slaves to machines." His girlfriend replies "I don't want to think about that" and he answers: "That's why it works."
 
If intelligent artificial life is merely the natural outcome of biological life, perhaps it won't actually be artificial in the long run.
 
 
Enjoy (while you can),
Anon Breedar

[SayNo ToSkyNet]

Also related to issue of ever-improving Artificial Intelligence (AI), there have been a series articles on the net that are similar to this one:


www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2015/07/say-no-skynet-hawking-wozniak-lead-ai-experts-who-want-ban-killer-robots?et_cid=4698635&et_rid=54735566&location=top

[SayNo ToSkyNet]

To followup further on the issue of ever-improving Artificial Intelligence (AI), TV ads like the first one linked below (which ran during the last GOP debate) make me wonder whether machine based life might already be alive. I would have thought that the advent of machine based life would easily freak out the public, but now I see how smart it would be to get people thoroughly tired of ads making such obviously inflated claims about artificial life well before the inevitable time when machines will have thoroughly surpassed us. Brilliant! A well calculated strategy indeed.



There may also be a trend to befriend:



Assuming the privacy issues get handled, toys like Hello Barbie may someday become best friends for kids:



Will computer self deprecation help people accept machine intelligence?




Somebody couldn't resist bragging and printed "outthink" onto the last few frames those IBM ads.

I encourage other readers to reply with other links to ads that brag about not-so-artificial machine intelligence.

To link this back to the main topic of the original post, machine intelligence will almost certainly be a big part of solving one of our our biggest problems: over-population.