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Jeff Bezos Predicts We'll Have 1 Trillion Humans in the Solar System, and Blue Origin Wants To Help Get Us There (cnbc.com)

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos predicted Monday that we'll have one trillion humans in the solar system one day -- and he showed off how the rocket company plans to help get there. "I won't be alive to see the fulfillment of that long term mission," Bezos said at the Wired 25th anniversary summit in San Francisco. "We are starting to bump up against the absolute true fact that Earth is finite." From a report: Blue Origin's aim is to lower the cost of access to space, Bezos said. Elon Musk's SpaceX and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic are also eyeing commercial space travel. "The dynamism that I have seen over the last 20 years in the internet where incredible things have happened in really short periods of time," Bezos said. "We need thousands of companies. We need the same dynamism in space that we've seen online over the last 20 years. And we can do that." Further reading: Jeff Bezos Wants Us All to Leave Earth -- for Good.

102 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. Re: So what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Only the ones that can spell.

    Eluded means evaded.

    Allude means recall

  3. Boring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Getting sick of these sociopathic Big Tech billionaires trying to "space-wash" their unfettered greed with sci-fi fantasies of "taking humanity to live in AI machines on Mars"

    This fucking cunt could end world hunger with his pocket change today, but wont.

    He is not the savior of the human race.

    Neither is Elon Musk. Neither is Richard Branson. Neither is Mark Zuckerberg.

    Learn to spot a confidence job.

    1. Re:Boring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ending world hunger will make you feel good in the short term, but in the medium and long term you would realize it was a short-sighted idealistic dream.

      End world hunger today and people will start reproducing en masse again.

      If people start reproducing en masse again, you're only postponing world hunger for a few years or decades at the most. You also put more pressure on the planet for all other ressources: water, trash, occupied land, goods manufacturing, etc.

      The Earth is a closed system with finite ressources. You can't keep adding more people and just hope for the best. The only way to save ourselves is to either stop population growth now, kill millions of people later through famine/warfare/etc, or find ways to get them to other planets - which is exactly what Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are trying to do.

    2. Re:Boring by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Ending world hunger includes educating people. This will reduce reproduction. The idea that hungry people won't reproduce is silly. Just look around. He OP is right: the megalomaniac Internet "moguls" need to focus on Earth, not outer space. No one is living anywhere else but on Earth. We can't: we evolved to live here and our entire physiology depends on it.

    3. Re:Boring by Sperbels · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Education doesn't reduce population. Offering birth control to women is extremely effective...but you must control all the governments to make this possible...and not a lot of people are on board with this idea anyway. Bringing everyone up to the decadent standards of living we have in the west helps too...unfortunately the planet simply can't sustain that many people living that wastefully. Honestly, we're probably just headed more warfare and famine regardless of what we do. And transplanting vast numbers of people off planet is just stupid. It can't happen with current technology. Colonization will happen with small numbers of people building out infrastructure and filling it with their own children.

    4. Re:Boring by lgw · · Score: 5, Funny

      This fucking cunt could end world hunger with his pocket change today, but wont.

      He could give ... $5 to everyone? Man, world hunger, solved.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    5. Re:Boring by thePsychologist · · Score: 1

      There are people in North America who have the theoretical means to live a comfortable life but instead go hungry because of a lack of education.

      There is a lot more to improving the living conditions of a country than just a few hundred billion dollars. If that's all it took, someone would have done it by now because the benefits from having a prosperous ally for trade would be enormous.

      --
      "What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
    6. Re:Boring by quanminoan · · Score: 2

      Laughed out loud, wish I had mod points today.

    7. Re:Boring by smagruder · · Score: 1

      Well, both are subjective concepts. The bottom line, objectively, is limited resources and how best to distribute them.

      --
      Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
    8. Re:Boring by smagruder · · Score: 1

      ^Someone who hasn't seen socialism work rather well in most places, and even more importantly, doesn't seem to realize he's soaking in it, and soaking it like a sponge to get ahead.

      --
      Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
    9. Re:Boring by Kjella · · Score: 1

      This fucking cunt could end world hunger with his pocket change today, but wont.

      World hunger ended. We didn't have a single declared famine from 2011 to 2017 and the problem areas are all semi-active war zones. Of course the UN will continue to talk of undernourished and malnourished people but the mortality has dropped by over 90%. With the advances in farming we have no problem keeping up with the 1.1% growth/year, there's lots of other limited resources but growing a few percent more food is not a problem. Of course exponential growth can't go on forever but the long term solution is to invest in education and prosperity to reduce birth rates, apart from Africa we're very close to replacement rates already.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    10. Re:Boring by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, lets stick to this rock in space, like a fungus, focusing our genitals and poseur status, woo hoo. Lets see who gets the biggest masturbation score, who gets masturbated the most, hell, not even trying to procreate, just practicing to fail at it?!?

      Personally I go with, lets colonise the stars and let future generations see what humanity will become. Fuck breeding out of control, fuck having sex the most and fuck poseur status. The stars represent real challenge and Bezos might well be a dick in every other regard but at least he has some vision for the future of humanity.

      People starving in a region, hey you dumb fuckers plan ahead, stop breeding, if you are hungry and have children, they will be hungrier and their children will be even hungrier. Why are they really starving because US/UK/EU regimes established corrupt governance in those locales to access the resources and labour as cheaply as possible to maximise profitable access to those locations resources and fuck the people. Perhaps we should just stop interfering and problems will sort themselves out because most of the problems are the fault of our governments past and present.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    11. Re:Boring by king+neckbeard · · Score: 1

      Population growth actually shrinks when you have a stable standard of living and certain basic rights and amenities. That's why Europe, America, and Japan have either replacement of sub-replacement birth rates.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    12. Re:Boring by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      So... give them a good place to live, a good job, and cake?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    13. Re:Boring by idji · · Score: 1

      Educating girls does reduce birthrates, and it's been know for decades..
      https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/press...
      https://www.independent.co.uk/...
      http://www.earth-policy.org/da...

    14. Re:Boring by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      He could give ... $5 to everyone?

      $23 or $24 dollars to everyone. He's pretty rich.

      And, that would be a silly way to do it. Alternatively, he could buy ~1/3 of all US farmland, and use what it grows to feed starving people.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    15. Re:Boring by lgw · · Score: 1

      $23 or $24 dollars to everyone. He's pretty rich.

      Half of that, if he gave all of his money and not just "pocket change".

      Alternatively, he could buy ~1/3 of all US farmland, and use what it grows to feed starving people.

      As opposed to what that land does now? Or do you mean he could destroy the livelyhood of farmers in poor nations by giving that food away for free? And who would he be taking that food away from in order to do that - you know, who buys that food today? And how would he convince local dictators, who are blocking current charities in order to control their people? How many divisions does Bezos have, and how many do you want him to have?

      Man, I don't think you thought that one through.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    16. Re:Boring by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Half of that, if he gave all of his money and not just "pocket change".

      $168 billion, divided by 7.5 billion people on earth, gives $23-24/person.

      Alternatively, he could buy ~1/3 of all US farmland, and use what it grows to feed starving people.

      As opposed to what that land does now?

      Right, he could sell corn for human consumption as opposed to turning it into ethanol, or letting it sit idle to get the tax subsidies, using it for livestock feed. He could ship it directly to wherever it's needed.

      And how would he convince local dictators, who are blocking current charities in order to control their people?

      You can just overwhelm them with more than enough food. Dictators only use food distribution for control because it's all tehy can leverage. If they could leverage medicine or something else instead, they would. If they didn't need to buy food, they would buy something else to leverage.

      North Koreans are starving cause Kim cannot afford to feed them and doesn't care to figure out how. He can already shoot them in the head, and has radios that are always on and always singing his praises in every house.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  4. Re: So what by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Total Allude
    with Arnold Schwarzenegger

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  5. How do you figure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Look, the planet will peak out at about 9.5m people, and within the lifetime of most people posting here today (2050ish). Lucky if we don't all follow the Japanese (ever more elderly, ever more conservatively decaying).

    Since the invention of even halfway functional birth control, no civilization capable of anything as high-tech as space travel has had a fertility rate above replacement, and it's not about to start now. Even the 'developing world'... China is WAY below replacement even with the end of the one-child policy. Most of southern (i.e., reasonably functional) India is below 2. Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Bangladesh. All below 2.

    There's some demographic overhang (more teens and 20-something, so some growth even if their fertility is down), but countries who could actually contribute to 12x-ing the population are Nigerians, Congolese, Afghanis, Filpinos, and Guatemalans. That's. It.

    1. Re:How do you figure? by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Population growth is more cultural. The problem is these "Industrialized Nations" had created an economy where a child is considered an expense vs an asset. Then you combine the fact that people are expected to grow older and get married ave a steady work before having children, otherwise society will outcast you.
      However this is on the persons individual level.
      On the grand scheme, more people born in the society, the better the economy (Hence why much of the racist protectionist ideas is just stupid), because we bread more customers, who will need to get job, and buy more things.

      Now There is an environmental impact too. Where our population may be too big then what supply can meet. Thus creating High Demand and Low Supply = A lot of trouble.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  6. Re:So what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's "alluded" not "eluded" https://www.diffen.com/difference/Allude_vs_Elude/ but anyway, the idea goes back at least as far as Olaf Stapledon
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

    A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output ... Building structures encircling a star would enable a civilization to harvest far more energy.

    The first contemporary description of the structure was by Olaf Stapledon in his science fiction novel Star Maker (1937)

  7. Humanity... Meh... by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 1

    We're long overdue for a pandemic to keep the population in check. It's been a hundred years since the flu killed 50M to 100M people, and over 600 years since the black plague pandemic killed 75M to .200M people. Climate change might do a better job than a pandemic.

    1. Re:Humanity... Meh... by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Whatever.... Please, be lucky if a dozen or so remain without tearing themselves apart over resources.

      "You can take man from nature, but you can't take the nature out of man." -Digishaman

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Humanity... Meh... by smooth+wombat · · Score: 1

      I keep saying what this world needs is a good Ebola outbreak, but nooooo, those darn doctors keep messing with natural selection.

      What we really need is to cross Ebola with the common cold, even though that would be a terrible, terrible thing. It would certainly help in population reduction.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    3. Re:Humanity... Meh... by mentil · · Score: 1

      The CDC is scarily good at preventing pandemics, so not likely. Even if that failed, it'd have to be caused by a prion, because vaccines and antibiotics are too effective. And no, a mythical superbacterium won't work because there are so darn many antibiotics, and avenues of research for new ones. If financial incentive (plague threatening western civilization) were to appear, lots of new antibiotics would come out in time.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    4. Re:Humanity... Meh... by quonset · · Score: 1

      Even if that failed, it'd have to be caused by a prion, because vaccines and antibiotics are too effective.

      Fine. We'll just have to develop a substance which can be sprayed into the atmosphere to make people more docile and receptive. Then we can begin real population control.

      What could possibly go wrong?

    5. Re:Humanity... Meh... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Given CRISPR tech, I can see how this might actually be made to work. We modify the human reproductive system to add crowding as a negative input parameter, such that the more people there are, the more sex it would take to "mine" each new baby. There would not only set an automatic limit on the expansion of the population, but it would be exponentially romantic and would actually reduce the incidence of rioting as time went on.

  8. Real space companies... by hondo77 · · Score: 1

    ...ship (cargo, people, something). The rest just talk about it.

    --
    I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
  9. Re:Megalomaniac predicts growth will never stop. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    Even with massive improvements in Space Flight, Earth is going to take the brunt of the population. At best I can only see a space colonies of a few million people. (The size of a large city)
    On these planets/moons where we cannot survive outside a pressurized container. There will be no suburb or rural area, a colony would be like a City. And like most cities there is a population limit. Because if a City grows too big, it cannot sustain itself. Hence why we a have these "Tri-City" areas. where there are multiple cities formed next to each other, often with some sort of boundary, such as a river. Connected with a different infrastructure, and different governance. But for Big City areas, there is hundreds of miles of agriculture to support such cities.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  10. Show us.... by Zorro · · Score: 1

    Anything you have put in orbit. How about beyond Earth Orbit?

  11. Musk vs. Bezos by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 2

    Elon Musk: weâ(TM)ll send humans to mars in 2024.

    Jeff Bezos: Hold my beer...

  12. Less than 1 Trillion in the Solar System by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Not for many millennia. Even if we colonise the moons and the planets and the asteroids. No planet is going to be able to support as many as Earth for millennia- and population growth is slowing on earth due to resource costs of raising children here. When we hit 1 trillion we will be a multi-system race. We may never hit 1 trillion within our solar system because there really isn't enough resources here to justify that many people.

    There may be 1 trillion living humans oneday but I doubt it will all be in our solar system- not for millennia at least.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    1. Re:Less than 1 Trillion in the Solar System by AnotherBlackHat · · Score: 1

      O'Neill Cylinder Space Settlement.

      Convert asteroids into space stations, and there's more than a 1000 times as much floor space as the Earth. (At least, in theory.)
      There's plenty of energy (sunlight), and lots of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
      Lots iron and carbon to make the steel for the walls, and lots of other filler to provide shielding.
      The only element that is in short supply is nitrogen, and you can get that from Titan. (or Earth if people will let you)

      If you could move 10,000 people from Earth to the belt per year, and assuming a yearly growth rate of 1.02%, you reach 1 trillion in under 400 years.
      100,000 per year, and a growth rate of 1.03% and it only takes 200 years.

      AFAIK, with current tech, it's possible to reach 1 trillion in system in less than 1 millennium.
      Traveling to another star system in less than 1 millennium with current tech, isn't.

    2. Re:Less than 1 Trillion in the Solar System by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      Not for many millennia.

      With a net population growth of 0.1% per year, it'll be less than 5000 years.

      For 10k years, it'll require a net population growth of 0.05% per year.

      So, absent some factor limiting our population (being unable to get off this rock comes to mind), it won't be "many millenia" till we hit a trillion.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    3. Re:Less than 1 Trillion in the Solar System by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Not for many millennia.

      With a net population growth of 0.1% per year, it'll be less than 5000 years.

      For 10k years, it'll require a net population growth of 0.05% per year.

      So, absent some factor limiting our population (being unable to get off this rock comes to mind), it won't be "many millenia" till we hit a trillion.

      The technology to move beyond our solar system will happen before the technology to support 1 trillion people in this solar system though.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    4. Re:Less than 1 Trillion in the Solar System by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      O'Neill Cylinder Space Settlement.

      Convert asteroids into space stations, and there's more than a 1000 times as much floor space as the Earth. (At least, in theory.)
      There's plenty of energy (sunlight), and lots of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
      Lots iron and carbon to make the steel for the walls, and lots of other filler to provide shielding.
      The only element that is in short supply is nitrogen, and you can get that from Titan. (or Earth if people will let you)

      If you could move 10,000 people from Earth to the belt per year, and assuming a yearly growth rate of 1.02%, you reach 1 trillion in under 400 years.
      100,000 per year, and a growth rate of 1.03% and it only takes 200 years.

      AFAIK, with current tech, it's possible to reach 1 trillion in system in less than 1 millennium.
      Traveling to another star system in less than 1 millennium with current tech, isn't.

      By the time we have the ability to do all that though, we'll also have the ability to go out of our solar system- if our species lasts long enough when we hit 1 trillion- we will probably be spread out amongst several solar systems when it happens. Who knows what technology we will have 1000 years from now; but a population would be more safe on a planet than an asteroid. Certainly, I know I'd rather live on a planet than an asteroid even an unterraformed one which would suggest moving extra-solar system.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  13. Narcissistic fuck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    How about we work with what we've already got beneath our feet before we go trampling over the rest of it?

    Takes a fat glass of ignorance for anyone on this planet right now to say that we are not affecting the planet's systems by being here and doing what we are doing.

    Everything that ever happens has a fucking effect on everything else and people ought to sooner than later quit with the narcissistic need to be right and realize these SIMPLE FUCKING TRUTHS.

    Like I've said in other posts, Earth is self-regulating. We are not some blemish on the planet, not innately. It's fucking ludicrous from a cosmic perspective to think that we are some pest to the planet. It's our unchecked alteration of its physical systems ON TOP OF the planet's natural regulatory cycles, which indude the measure of climate change that will be no longer deniable in the near future.

    Feedback systems. It's not fucking rocket science you fucking bigots. But it IS fucking SCIENCE. "SCIENCE, BITCH."

    Also science: the sun will someday explode, and this solar system will be no more, not as we know it.

    But that's not on the radar right now. We have millions upon millions of years until that happens.

    Half eaten bread. That's how wastefully these narcissistic space-billionare fucks look at this planet.

    Warm it up (the bread, not the planet, pun intended) and fucking eat it you ignorant motherfuckers.

    Love you too.

    p.s.

    If you're not aware that we are already in space, and exploring far far FAR more of our solar system than the public relations branch of NASA gets to talk to us about, why don't you read a little bit about superconductivity, toroidal magnetic field dynamics, or just go back to high school and take your fucking physics class again.

    No pun intended here but IT IS *NOT* FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE.

    OPEN YOUR GOD DAMNED FUCKING EYES

  14. only takes 6mil by bobmagicii · · Score: 1

    so many ruined planets. one day some aliens are going to develop a pesticide just to deal with humans.

  15. Re: So what by forkfail · · Score: 1
    --
    Check your premises.
  16. How much energy will it take? by plopez · · Score: 2

    I keep asking that question. Setting up colonies and supporting them will take a large amount of energy. Is there enough energy available on Earth to sustain this? Even with solar and wind. Remember all rocket fuel we have now is petroleum based. Would the energy required leave the planet a raped burnt out husk?

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    1. Re:How much energy will it take? by strikethree · · Score: 1

      Is there enough energy available on Earth to sustain this?

      Why would you use energy from /earth for sustaining an off world colony?

      Remember all rocket fuel we have now is petroleum based.

      Almost completely wrong. Liquid oxygen has no petroleum in it. Kerosene is partially used which is a petrochemical.

      Would the energy required leave the planet a raped burnt out husk?

      We could not possibly lift all humans off of this planet. The population is growing faster than we could possibly remove them. If you are born on this planet, you will likely stay on this planet.

      The greatest expansion in space faring humans will be humans that are born in space. No energy from Earth will be required.

      The final nail in the coffin for your concerns is that there is enough energy on Earth to kickstart completely independent societies outside of Earth's resources. Meaning once those societies are constructed, they will not need any more energy from Earth and will be able to kickstart new societies on their own. Once that is achieved, expansion is essentially limitless within the galaxy and likely to other galaxies as well.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    2. Re:How much energy will it take? by plopez · · Score: 1

      +kerosene. Oh, and solid rockets.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  17. Quality not quantity by jd · · Score: 2

    We ideally should have at most 1-2 billion on Earth, which equates to 10 billion in the solar system.

    And that requires preventing all resources being drained by excessive copies of any given mutation.

    Since we cannot know future needs, we cannot say anything is useless other than excess.

    As for living in Mars, that's easy. We know how to live on Mars. Deep underground. Been known for years. Only idiots talk about surface dwellings. There's nothing interesting on the surface, just a lot of radiation and toxins.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    1. Re:Quality not quantity by mark-t · · Score: 1

      We ideally should have at most 1-2 billion on Earth

      Citation?

    2. Re:Quality not quantity by Radical+Moderate · · Score: 1

      If we're just going to live underground anyway, wouldn't it be a lot easier to create underground colonies on Earth?

      --
      Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
    3. Re:Quality not quantity by mark-t · · Score: 1

      It's supported by the general theory that we presently consume more resources than Earth is capable of replenishing

      Theories don't tend to be very easy to disprove.

      We have more than enough resources on this planet to serve everyone on it, and historically, the more people there are, the more efficient we get at producing, so the production capacity of the planet goes up with it.

      Obviously the planet still has finite resources and this can be taken only so far, but at the moment and for the foreseeable future, this planet is quite capable of replenishing what we consume. Any problems we experience are a consequence of the limitation on distributation capability, not limitations on the quantity of resources themselves.

      Seriously, the collective biomass of humans is nowhere near the collective biomasses of some other species.... and some people think that *WE* are the problem? Admittedly we consume more than our fair share (only 0.01% of earth's biomass, but consuming roughly a quarter of the planet's resources), but we are still not endangering the sustainability of things because of our population.

      There are other things we are doing to this planet that may easily have a detrimental effect on our long term survivability than breeding too quickly.

  18. Or alternately by plopez · · Score: 2

    He could pay his people a living wage. Which could then drive space tourism and create the market conditions needed for long term space development.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    1. Re:Or alternately by cmseagle · · Score: 1

      Isn't $15/hr the amount that minimum wage activists have been suggesting for the past year or two?

    2. Re:Or alternately by plopez · · Score: 1

      Ridiculously low. I ran some numbers and if you want adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, retirement, and a decent education for the kids you need about $50k to $60k. In other words there are many professionals making minimum wage or less.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    3. Re:Or alternately by cmseagle · · Score: 1

      A household with two breadwinners would be bringing home $60k/yr at $15/hr. Or is your suggestion that the minimum wage for Amazon's warehouse workers be $30/hr?

    4. Re:Or alternately by plopez · · Score: 1

      I knew some jerk was going to say this. Why can't one parent stay home and take acre of the kids? Kids need care. Why do you hate that idea?

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    5. Re:Or alternately by cmseagle · · Score: 1

      The single-income family started dying out a long time before Jeff Bezos started opening his fulfillment centers.

      Even if we accept that a single-income family should be a minimum standard, I disagree that increasing the minimum wage is the way to do it. Either Amazon starts drastically overpaying high school kids working in their warehouses as a summer job, or the minimum wage comes on a sliding scale that disincentivizes hiring the people who most need the work. I think a more appropriate solution are income top-up programs, or a negative income tax. Implementing such a system is more complicated than Bezos deciding he wants to pay his employees more.

  19. Agreed . . . but will be The Expanse or Star Trek? by darth_borehd · · Score: 1

    Will be like The Expanse, where politics and greed are the same, just with better technology and larger scales, or like Star Trek, a post-scarcity meritocracy where replicators can make anything you want and internal strife is rare?

  20. Re:So what by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Funny

    Or do math. A Dyson Sphere at one AU has an interior surface area of 2.8e17 km^2. A population of a trillion would mean an area the size of Montana for every individual. That's ridiculous. Nobody needs that much space.

    The solar system could easily support a quadrillion people, or even a quintillion.

    Jeff needs to stop thinking small.

  21. Is Jeff Bezos a sufficiently capable manager? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    My opinion: Jeff Bezos is not a sufficiently capable manager. Evidence: Look at any Amazon web page. As you are researching some product that is interesting, you are often distracted by other products. One fix: Put any distractions at the bottom of the page.

    There are many other shortcomings of the Amazon web site.

    Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (New York Times, Aug. 15, 2015)

    Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

    Amazon warehouse jobs push workers to physical limit (Seattle Times, April 3, 2012)

    Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (Salon.com, Feb. 23, 2014)

    Amazon paid no US income taxes for 2017 (SeattlePI, Feb. 27, 2018)

    Undercover author finds Amazon warehouse workers in UK 'peed in bottles' over fears of being punished for taking a break (Business Insider, April 16, 2018)

    The undercover author who discovered Amazon warehouse workers were peeing in bottles tells us the culture was like a 'prison' (Business Insider, April 18, 2018)

    Amazon Gets Tax Breaks While Its Employees Rely on Food Stamps, New Data Shows (The Intercept, April 19, 2018)

    Quote: "Though the company now employs 200,000 people in the United States, many of its workers are not making enough money to put food on the table."

    Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (bloomberg.com, Feb 19, 2013)

    Would you fly into space with a company managed by someone who makes those mistakes and doesn't detect them? Note that Blue Origins does not have the capability of orbiting the earth.

    1. Re:Is Jeff Bezos a sufficiently capable manager? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      . Evidence: Look at any Amazon web page. As you are researching some product that is interesting, you are often distracted by other products.

      That's not a problem for Amazon Those distractions are hugely profitable. Like, almost as huge a profit center as AWS.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  22. Solar system or Milky way? by aod7br7932 · · Score: 1

    I wonder if he confused Solar system with Milky way..There is clearly no way 1 trillion humans could inhabit the Solar system, since I believe most of those would live on Earth. Are we able to terraform all solar system yet?

    1. Re:Solar system or Milky way? by jwhyche · · Score: 2

      The solar system, in theory, can easily support 1 trillion humans. In fact with the resources of asteroids, moons, and Oort cloud I imagine the solar system could support many times that.

      Your first mistake is assuming they would all live here on earth. I don't even believe there is a enough physical space to hold 1 trillion humans. Your second mistake seems to be that we will be doing with with today's technology. Which we won't.

      There is enough space and resources out there, and given time it could happen. Does that mean it will? Not a chance.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    2. Re:Solar system or Milky way? by smagruder · · Score: 1

      Where do you buy your crystal balls? pure speculation bordering on fantasy.

      --
      Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
    3. Re:Solar system or Milky way? by jwhyche · · Score: 2

      What part of "in theory" do you not understand?

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  23. More resources between Earth and Mars by huckamania · · Score: 4, Interesting

    than exists currently on Earth. What we need is robotic gatherers, robotic smelters, etc that can get the resources and store them for us when we are ready to move off this rock.

    Other planets and moons are just gravity wells that future inhabitants will need to climb out of. We need to learn to survive in space. If we do that, we have a shot at long term survival. Otherwise, we are just waiting for the next extinction level impact.

    1. Re:More resources between Earth and Mars by Sperbels · · Score: 1

      What we need is self replicating robotic gatherers, robotic smelters

      ftfy

  24. Re: Immortality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nope, this is the correct order. Get the species multi-planet before extended lifespans because otherwise you have to deal with idiots asking "what do you mean I can't have kids if I get a life extension? , I don't care if it was in the fine print "

  25. Re:So what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    an area the size of Montana for every individual. That's ridiculous. Nobody needs that much space.

    As a Montanan, I strongly disagree with this statement. Many Montanans don't think Montana is enough space for one person.

  26. WHERE, ASSHOLE? by Hallux-F-Sinister · · Score: 2

    Have you ever noticed that people who have no clue what the fuck they are talking about often speak the loudest? Jeff Bezos and his gobs of pilfered cash speak awfully loudly, and someone tell me what he knows besides how to exploit a nascent technological niche and lack of taxes to leverage a slight edge, and how lacking scruples facilitates amassing the largest personal fortune in human history? (If those tax loopholes did not exist, Amazon would be a quaint little online bookseller today, and nothing more.)

    Bezos must know of some other Earthlike planet in our solar system that can somehow support over 100 times the cureent human population of planet Earth, and is simply refusing to share news of the discovery with the rest of humanity.

    This reminds me of what Bill Maher said about Matt Damon and his shit-potatoes, (in that movie about some poor schmuck getting stuck on Mars or whatever, that was not worth my time to watch because the premise is fucking stupid so hence I did not watch it).

    First, it takes a fuck of a lot more than the equivalent of 2000 calories per day per person to sustain people. The average, 2000 calories/day generally quoted, assumes a consistently sedentary life, meaning no manual labor of any kind, and no working-out to get in or stay in shape, physically. Say hello to muscle atrophy and bone wasting, and all the attendant health and mental problems THAT causes. According to Dr. Thomas Malthus, (as I recollect his famous Rule of 10,) it takes about 10 times the mass of each kind of food, on average, to produce that much mass of an organism. So for a human who eats fish that eat smaller fish or bugs, that inturn feed on bugs, plankton, aquatic plants, etc., that energy came from the sun, originally. For each resulting pound of human, the requirement is 10 pounds of fish, and for each pound of fish there must be 10 pounds of either smaller fish, or bugs, or whatever. For each pound of that, there must be about 10 pounds, (and of course these are all approximations,) 10 pounds of something photosynthetic, i.e. plant-matter. So until we can master synthetic photo-meat-ogenesis, each pound of human grown off-world will require between 1,000 and 10,000 pounds of plant-matter grown, devoted solely to raising food that goes into a human gut. The rules are similar for any other kind of meat, even if the chain of custody for the energy is shorter in terms of number of links, i.e., blades of grass photosynthesize light into cellulose fibers, etc, cattle eat the grass, and become delicious steaks, the energy expended to live per unit mass seems to climb steadily once a being gets to be much larger than the minimum required volume to be what we think of as macroscopic. So unless these trillion humans are all vegans, (which only reduces the bare-ass-minimum amount of energy required by a single order of magnitude, down to MERELY INCONCEIVABLE, from the higher value of FUCKING INCONCEIVABLE!) which obliges us to consider the question, how much extra energy must a vegan consume or expend as a penalty for eschewing a whole vast category of foods we have evolved to need, some of them are going to have to subsist on the very next animal up the food chain from grass, i.e., bugs, or resort to an extreme form of recycling called, cannibalism. More Soylent Green, anyone?

    Second, what precisely the fuck is the point of even as many humans as we have? I am not advocating for murdering people because I arbitrarily think there are too many humans, or even telling people they cannot reproduce anymore... but why would you WISH, on purpose, to HAVE that many? Does Bezos long for the day when he could be, and weep bitterly over the thought that he may never realize his dream of being... a quadrillionaire? A quintillionaire? How the fuck much money is enough, and can such hoarding behavior be deemed a form of mental illness? Maybe it is not his fault. Maybe he is sick... though the hiring ambulances to take people to the hospital when they collapse from heatstroke rather than shel

    --
    Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
    1. Re:WHERE, ASSHOLE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      These rants are killing me. Elon says it and the knob gobblers lose their minds. Bezos says it and HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE DUMBEST THING EVAR!

      Truth is, as one of the plebes, I do hope we get off this rock somehow. And sadly, at the moment, it's in the hands of the bazillionaires because our governments are far more concerned with lining pockets than with actually accomplishing something. So, let the arrogant, rich bastards have their rants. Hope one or more of them succeed and we actually establish SOMETHING outside earth as a permanent habitation. I won't be here that much longer, and that's all fine and dandy, but the idea that the entirety of human history should be lost because we have so damned many people more concerned with their belly button lint than the long term impact of all we've learned and all we've accomplished despite our negative side is asinine.

      Get a grip folks. Even the pie-in-the-sky dreamer here is saying it's gonna be long after his lifetime. Nobody said this is happening tomorrow.

    2. Re:WHERE, ASSHOLE? by strikethree · · Score: 1

      You seem angry bro. Relax. It all goes away sooner or later.

      Bezos must know of some other Earthlike planet in our solar system that can somehow support over 100 times the cureent human population of planet Earth

      Why would you want to grow a population in a gravity well? The outward growth will likely start with orbiting the Earth, grow to orbiting other planets/moons with resources, then fill out the asteroid belts, then directly orbiting the Sun, and eventually habitats will be moved to nebulas. In other words, the habitats will go where the raw materials and energy sources exist. There is no point in living in a gravity well. It is better to be mobile.

      In long enough timelines, the Universe itself ceases to exist, but on much shorter timelines, planets become uninhabitable, stars become unstable, and nebulas "dry up". Being mobile allows you to deal with all of these issues.

      Colony ships that would look something like the Death Star from Star Wars will be the long term future of humanity... if we can reach it.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    3. Re:WHERE, ASSHOLE? by Hallux-F-Sinister · · Score: 1

      You seem angry bro. Relax. It all goes away sooner or later.

      Bezos must know of some other Earthlike planet in our solar system that can somehow support over 100 times the cureent human population of planet Earth

      Why would you want to grow a population in a gravity well? The outward growth will likely start with orbiting the Earth, grow to orbiting other planets/moons with resources, then fill out the asteroid belts, then directly orbiting the Sun, and eventually habitats will be moved to nebulas. In other words, the habitats will go where the raw materials and energy sources exist. There is no point in living in a gravity well. It is better to be mobile.

      In long enough timelines, the Universe itself ceases to exist, but on much shorter timelines, planets become uninhabitable, stars become unstable, and nebulas "dry up". Being mobile allows you to deal with all of these issues.

      Colony ships that would look something like the Death Star from Star Wars will be the long term future of humanity... if we can reach it.

      Do this calculation yourself: how many joules will it take to lift each person plus hardware required to sustain his or her life indefinitely, plus the ship itself out of Earth’s gravity well, add to that the energy still needed to reach each of at least two escape velocities, (that of the earth-moon system, and then the sun’s (and planets’, etc.) combined pull,) then add to account for any additional fuel needed to adjust velocity on arrival in another solar system, (and add extra if you’re escaping the galaxy itself,) to match motion of the moon, planet, etc., of your destination, and explain who is going to pay for all that, and who is going to pay for, (and ensure the repair of,) all the environmental damage caused by all the pollution from constructing the spacecraft, fueling it, sending it off into space, etc., for all the people who don’t opt to get on this thing.

      Oh and also are you going to take any building materials with you, or are you counting on Alderan or Vulcan or whatever having like, a Walmart or a Home Depot? Need to add fuel for that, too.

      What is the minimum size population you need to sustain one or more (one per destination, minimum, obviously,) human populations, to make a viable human extraterrestrial colony? Make sure to account for losses due to infertility, infant mortality, health complications due to mutations, individuals murdering each other, and of course, WAR... unless you can solve all those problems first, before you leave Earth.

      Then, with at least all those questions answered, maybe start looking for volunteers.

      What this looks like to me is people exploiting an economic system that could and should ensure the greatest economic opportunity for everyone, resulting in dwindling opportunities for most, and a small cadre of inconceivably rich people, looking for some big, grand, stupid thing to squander their mostly stolen, hoarded treasure on while people freeze and starve to death on Earth, and the Earth meanwhile gets increasingly trashed, (which disproportionately harms those without giant gobs of money, legitimately earned or not,) which problems people like Bezos COULD be working to help solve, and instead they’re looking for ways to have fun while the world burns, so yeah... I’m kinda pissed off.

      If Bezos, (and people like him) on the other hand, said, “I’m going to use my fortune to reverse global anthropogenic climate change, ocean acidification and garbagification, air and water pollution, end famines and hunger, help stop or ameliorate droughts, work to end wars and rape and murder, and undo some of the damage from colonialism and end human trafficking and modern slavery, FGM, and ease human suffering wherever I can find it, and help people live in harmony with the natural world around them,” and if I could believe he meant it... I’d be first in line singing his praises, instead of saying, “christ what a fucking asshole.”

      But he wants to help a species that can’t get its shit together on one planet, to spread to others, so... christ, what a fucking asshole.

      --
      Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
  27. Fuck by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 1

    Even more annoying assholes I have to deal with.

    --
    http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
  28. Rockets won't get us there. by dicobalt · · Score: 1

    People, stop wasting your time with rockets. They're dangerous, delicate, prone to failure, inefficient, obscenely expensive, and just waiting to explode.

    1. Re:Rockets won't get us there. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sometimes you have to go to space with the technology you have.

    2. Re:Rockets won't get us there. by mentil · · Score: 1

      How else are you going to get that space elevator into orbit?

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  29. Let's be realistic here by Misagon · · Score: 1

    I don't think it would be even theoretically possible to house 1 trillon, not even 10 billion humans in the entire solar system even with advanced technology. 10 billion is the projected population of Earth within a human lifespan from now.

    First, this planet we are living on, which is the best suited for human survival is already a couple times overpopulated with humans. We are in the beginning of an ecosystem collapse right now because of how many of us there are.

    Earth has some unique conditions in the solar system. It's location protects it from incoming meteors and comets: most being absorbed by the outer planets and the asteroid fields. It is at a nice distance from the sun. It is geologically stable, with both land and water. A magnetic field prevents the atmosphere from being blown away by solar wind, and the atmosphere and magnetic field protects its inhabitants from radiation.
    These together have made living conditions very stable compared to other bodies.

    Among the other bodies in the solar system, there is only one that is even remotely suitable for advanced human habitation in the long term: Mars. Mars has only the location going for it: being inside the asteroid field. That's it. People would have to live underground or in domed cities. With a surface area a quarter of Earth's, it should go without saying that you won't be able to fit 9'996 billion people there.
    Note also that a lot of that space would be needed for biosystem services, like on Earth: the oceans and plantlife provide the oxygen needed for breathing.

    But first, we would have to survive the current crisis to even start thinking of colonising other planets.

    --
    "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
  30. Re:Megalomaniac predicts growth will never stop. by Sperbels · · Score: 1

    But we're friends with Putin now. Shouldn't we do as the Putinians do?

  31. Earth is finite, and the rest isn't? by holophrastic · · Score: 1

    So, Earth is finite. Good to know. Alas, the bottleneck isn't the finite land, it's the finite materials -- water, food, air.

    Mars has exactly zero water, food, and air.

    It'll be, oh, about two hundred years before we can support a million humans outside of earth. and when I say "can", what I actually mean is "choose to".

    A trillion people huh? How many of those are christian children fund starving children in africa? If we're shipping them to neptune, will we also ship some horseflies to land on their faces for the commercials?

    My point is simply that we don't care about things that happen far away. This proposes multiplying that distance by about a million. Exactly how much of my unisef dollar is going to make it to neptune's starving children?

    So, let's talk about desire.

    Six hundred years ago. It was a time of plagues and pestilence and very bland english food. So bland, in fact, that they roamed far and wide to explore and to find flavourful food. They eventually found india and indian spices, and traveled months in each direction. It was worth it.

    It was so worthwhile that people thought they'd find a shorter route by literally sailing off the edge of the world.

    Now tell me, how many people actually tried to find the americas? How many people didn't give a shit. How long did it take before enough people tried that any succeeded at all? How long until there were enough to populate a small town?

    Now how many would be required to populate a small town given no air, no water, and no food to start.

    Enjoy.

    1. Re:Earth is finite, and the rest isn't? by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      It's not hard to find women. It's not hard to find lawyers. It's not hard to find women lawyers. I have one of you at home.

      How about you try to follow the spirit of the argument. Let me help you out:

      Going to Mars won't yield more resources per capita. Expanding across the solar system won't solve the problem of "we're running out of resources".

      Only one thing ever has. And it's worked for every species since the dawn of time.

    2. Re:Earth is finite, and the rest isn't? by kzwork · · Score: 1

      Bezos will be glad to sell you food, air, water and whatnot he is a salesman after all, he is just working to send you there. Trump will charge the tariffs for all that at the "border". Putin will protect you from aliens. B.Gates will sell you vaccines and nets - oops wrong, maybe a computer but no updates only advertising.
      The only thing you will need is cash, but Jeff is unable to provide you that (ask his employees about).

      Somebody should tell him he can not take all the trillions with him when kicks the bucket, he obviously doesn't know that.

  32. Utter and complete nonsense by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

    We're at just about 7 billion, and we can't even get along, and we're nowhere near having permanent colonies anywhere else in our own planetary system -- nor are we even close to 100% sure that we can safely exist in colonies off Earth for entire lifetimes, let alone reproduce successfully there, and still be healthy. Aside from the technical challenges there's also vast uncertainty as to whether or not we've sabotaged our own ecosphere to the point where we can't depend on being able to live in it for the long term (meaning: at least the next 1000 years). In the meantime we still wage war against our own kind, and that's just going to get worse as resouces and land you can live on becomes more scare, and wars are huge wasters of resources as well as lives. People like this Jeff Bezos don't seem to be living in reality, he's got some high-minded ideas that are more science fiction than they are science fact, and that seem to ignore the human part of the equation. Even if what he says becomes reality, our entire socio-political paradigm will have to drastically change in order for 1 trillion humans to all get along and reach any sort of consensus on anything, even if they're not living on the same planet. Unless there is a dramatic leap forward in our own evolution as a species I can see us waging war in our own solar system -- can you say 'bombard from orbit'? Would make nuclear weapons seem like amateur night by comparison. My recommendation to Mister Bezos? Let's work on not wrecking the Earth, and also not wrecking ourselves, as a species, then maybe we can think about colonizing our solar system. Horse before the cart, please.

    1. Re:Utter and complete nonsense by yusing · · Score: 1

      Couldn't agree more. Ask yourself: where will the energy come from to power this vast expansion? Most of the easily-exploited energy sources have been pillaged and largely wasted, leaving us ready to fight over what's left.

      Maybe in a thousand years that option will exist. But where? there are NO other easily colonized locations. Colonies in space? Transporting megatons of physical resources into space? Herding asteroids together ... with what? Space mining? Space forging? Space welding?

      Pure fiction, science need not apply.

      --

      "You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson

    2. Re:Utter and complete nonsense by neoRUR · · Score: 1

      Humm, so, we should have spend the billions of dollars we put into the Apollo program and space race into feeding the poor and helping people on earth, instead of landing on the Moon?
      By the same analogy we should be putting all our energy and resources into feeding and homing people on earth now?

      You do know that all the technology we have today, from GPS to cell phones to genetic engineering to medicine (with some exceptions) came out of the space programs and investigating how to live in space?

      If your not helping, your just in the way, so take your negative conservative views and get out of the way for the rest of us.

    3. Re:Utter and complete nonsense by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      "Negative conservative views" my ass, fucker, you apparently don't know shit. "Conservatives" don't want to feed the poor or take care of the homeless, they want to just dump them somewhere they don't have to look at them, and meanwhile gentrify everything so 'The Poor' can't afford any of it and become more homeless -- so they can just dump them somewhere they can't be seen, too. So you don't know shit about 'conservatism' and should STFU about that.

      Now, going to the Moon wasn't about advancing technology, it was purely political, to beat Russia there, to bolster world opinion of the United States. Any technology that came from that was mere happenstance and would have eventually happened anyway. Also, going to the Moon, staying a little while, then coming back to Earth, is nothing even close to having entire self-sustaining permanent colonies in our solar system, so you don't know shit about the Moon missions either and should STFU about that, too.

      Finally, GPS technology was developed for the military and had nothing to do with NASA. Genetic engineering is completely out of left field and has nothing to do with anything.

      So, you see: you're completely full of shit, don't know a damn thing, and are just posting textual diarrhea instead of actual useful content.
      My rating of your comment: "-1 Troll". You may now bugger off.

  33. Re:So what by lgw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Or do math. A Dyson Sphere at one AU has an interior surface area of 2.8e17 km^2. A population of a trillion would mean an area the size of Montana for every individual. That's ridiculous. Nobody needs that much space.

    The solar system could easily support a quadrillion people, or even a quintillion.

    Dyson Spheres don't actually make sense, though. Dyson Swarms do work, can be built incrementally, and give similar living room.

    The population of a Kardashev Type 2 civilization is mind-boggling. We may not have found one, but if there is one they've found us - a civilization that large could have a million astronomers per potentially inhabited world in the galaxy, without astronomers being more common per capita than today. They could also build a telescope large enough to see the cities light up the night side of Earth.

    We humans don't seem to be doing much in increase our population,though - most industrialized nations now have negative population growth before immigration. Perhaps it's the lack of frontiers?

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  34. Unlikely... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

    Jeff Bezos predicted Monday thatÂwe'll have one trillion humans in the solar system one day

    Unless things change a lot at some point, I don't see how that's going to happen. It's going to take a lot of tech advances if we going to somehow populate anything besides our current planet. It's becoming apparent that after a society reaches a certain level of advancement the population plateaus or even shrinks. Just look at Japan.

    If this is in fact the case, then in order to keep growing the population, we're going to need a good size portion to not reach that point. In which case we're going to have a lot of fighting between different classes, races, tribes, and whatnot. Hell, just look at how the different political parties are with each other in the US right now. Unless something happens to change the curent trajectory, things are not going to get better

    Then, if we somehow manage to actually populate somewhere else, how long will it take before the population of the moon, Mars, or whatever feel they are being treated unfairly by Earth? I would guess that once the population becomes self sufficient, or has a product that only they can supply they will want independance. That seems to be the way of things here on earth. At least historically. If that turns into a war, then someone could start lobbing rocks from above,. Which won't turn out well.

    But all of that is moot until we over come all of the technical hurdles. Which are not going to be easy in any way. Getting enough mass out of the earth's gravity well is going to be expensive. We could probably do that currently if there was enough public support. But needing to carry all of the stuff needed to survive is costly and no easy task. Surviving radiation once we leave the protection of earth's magnitosphere is also something we don't know how to do in a practical manner. If we manage all of that, we still need a way to keep a perpetual life support system going at the destination. Long term, it's likely that no one will ever be able to return to earth either. Anyone born on one of these colonies will not develop to do well in earth's environment.

    I like science fiction as much as would be expected for someone on /. but we're not going to be leaving the planet to settle somewhere else any time soon. Not without some huge leaps in our technology. It'smore likely that we turn into a planet of Borg like lifeforms in order to grow our population to a trillion than we do so by colonizing other planets and moons.

  35. Re: So what by lgw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But we are not all heads of massive corperations. And we all can't have legions of people behind us pushing us into the stars. And the further we get away from Earth, the harder it will get, up until we can make jt to a other island eathlike planet.

    Robots. We can all have legions of robots. Any long-term off-Earth habitation beyond ISS scale would require robotic asteroid mining to be practical, but the whole system opens up to us once we're doing that. Unlimited fuel and building materials in high orbit changes everything.

    Mostly-autonomous robotic mining (and simple heavy industry) no longer sounds far-fetched. Would it surprise anyone here if all the mining jobs were lost to robots in the next 20 years?

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  36. Re:So what by postbigbang · · Score: 2

    Humans are a collective unto themselves. They comprise billions of cells per human. An exponentiation of humanity and their cells sounds like an interesting idea until you look at the very narrow ambient conditions that humans can tolerate without dismay or death.

    Jeff just wants to keep selling selling selling, and the more customers the merrier, so please continue having sex, and none of that birth control, abortion, or homo stuff, please. Jeff needs more Amazon customers, and clearly, the solar system won't be enough.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
  37. Re: So what by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    Here's the thing though, every damn thing requires power to do and maintain.

    No problem. We will just build the Dyson Sphere around a 100 yotta-watt fusion generator.

    If we have a quintillion people, that is 100 megawatts per person.

  38. Re:Note to Jeff and Elon by MachineShedFred · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The difference is that Elon Musk has a company that actually has put something into orbit, so he at least has the ability to talk.

    Blue Origin has yet to even make one orbital flight, at all.

    --
    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  39. Re:So what by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    most industrialized nations now have negative population growth before immigration. Perhaps it's the lack of frontiers?

    A big factor is urbanization. Cities have always been population sinks, sucking in people from the farms.

    If you want to reduce population growth, encourage people to move to the city.

  40. Re:So what by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    population of a trillion would mean an area the size of Montana for every individual. That's ridiculous. Nobody needs that much space.

    Finally, somewhere to pile all my Amazon boxes.

  41. get your moans straight by epine · · Score: 1

    Aside from the technical challenges there's also vast uncertainty as to whether or not we've sabotaged our own ecosphere to the point where we can't depend on being able to live in it for the long term (meaning: at least the next 1000 years).

    No, not really.

    99% of the concern is that we might not be able to live in the current numbers and at the current burn rate. A plague that kills 3 billion people would set human progress back by about 50 years. Meanwhile there would be a great flourishing of all the other life taking advantage of all those resources we were no longer consuming.

    We complain about pollution, but all anthropic pollution added together harms human health less than long-prevailing childbirth and infant mortality rates (survival to age six).

    The Disturbing, Shameful History of Childbirth Deaths — 10 September 2013

    Bearing a child is still one of the most dangerous things a woman can do. It's the sixth most common cause of death among women age 20 to 34 in the United States.

    That's at the current, miraculously improved death rate.

    Given all the dangers, how did deaths in childbirth fall to about one-fiftieth of the historic rate? ...
    In the United States today, about 15 women die in pregnancy or childbirth per 100,000 live births. That's way too many, but a century ago it was more than 600 women per 100,000 births. In the 1600s and 1700s, the death rate was twice that: By some estimates, between 1 and 1.5 percent of women giving birth died. Note that the rate is per birth, so the lifetime risk of dying in childbirth was much higher, perhaps 4 percent.

    United States in 1900: 850 per 100,000 live births. These are young, healthy women dying, not women aged 55 who inhaled too many fumes of some modern industrial varnish.

    Short of tipping the whole planet into nuclear winter, we haven't done any damage to the planetary ecosystem that a great human dying off wouldn't put right in under a few centuries.

    So what if the ice caps melt? It's happened before, and life survived just fine. Might be tragic for fancy apes with beach homes. But let's not imagine any whales are going to complain.

    Historically when 1/3 or 2/3 of the population dies off suddenly, it's not a happy time for anyone who lives through it. We've have to discard a heap-load of useless modern technology, such as Twitter. But we'd keep the essentials running, such as a circa 2005-level Google search —though maybe with a 2000 ms response time instead of 400 ms (and maybe only 25% of the population would have direct access). It would be tough, but we'd all pull together (those of us who were still living) and we'd pull through.

    Even if the entire planet died back to a stable population at the levels of the Roman Empire (circa 100 million people), humans would not loose their cherished conservation status: Least Concern.

    Endangered species criteria (one of many):
    * Population estimated to number fewer than 2,500 mature individuals.

    * Total human breeding population of 2,500 individuals (in sufficiently close proximity) around Moan Level 8 (where 9.99 is one bun in the oven away from species-level exit stage left).
    * Total human breeding population of 100 million individuals (in sufficiently close proximity) around Moan Level 3. (And that might be generous.)
    * Everything below 3.0 is denominated in millimoans.
    * Our biggest ongoing tragedies: about 100 millimoans each (the great plastic gyre, a few degrees C global temperature rise, things like that).
    * A really severe global nuclear winter: maybe 3,000 millimoans. (In my system above, that's a 98.6% global human population loss.)

    Perspective. It's a bitch.

  42. Re:Eww by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    And the aliens would pay for the Dyson sphere.

  43. Dangerous insanity by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

    This is an utterly INSANE remark. We have so many problems just trying to support a few billion with constant concerns over resource depletion and habitat destruction. An energy crisis and this is with oil, carbon reserves etc. No oil, no coal on mars. Where is all of vast amounts of energy going toi come from for what is a much much higher energy survival coast for being able to survive on mars or in these hostile foreign worlds, where you need vast energy supplies just to be able to breath? These insane ideas and remarks actually threaten to make our situation worse by stressing already finite resources on these crazy schemes.

  44. Re:So what by ChatHuant · · Score: 1

    Only the ones who knew how to spell "alluded".

    I think he really meant to say "deluded".

  45. Re:So what by BorisAmmerlaan · · Score: 1

    Speak for yourself Boris.

    Oi!

  46. Re:Agreed . . . but will be The Expanse or Star Tr by IPFreely · · Score: 1

    We're talking about humans here, so ... The Expanse.

    --
    There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
  47. Re:So what by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

    Only the ones who knew how to spell "alluded".

    Maybe they were trying to hide it?

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  48. Re:So what by haruchai · · Score: 1

    Bezos is wrong. We'll never get to 1 trillion humans nor any significant number living off Earth.
    There is no Planet B.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  49. 1 Trillion by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    He's mistaking his ego growth for population growth.

  50. Re:Note to Jeff and Elon by Daralantan · · Score: 1

    Did Bezos ever make is flying yachts that he wanted to do? First he wanted sky yachts.... Now he wants to begin his space yacht?

  51. Economics 101: What happens when supply is limited by q4Fry · · Score: 1

    There would not only set an automatic limit on the expansion of the population, but it would [...] actually reduce the incidence of rioting as time went on.

    There are frustrated people right now who want children but have trouble procreating. Now you tell them that government technocrats are keeping them from raising children... and you expect fewer riots?

    Not only that, you'd materialize a market for stolen babies. After the pool of adoptable children dried up (which is great!), desperate would-be parents will look elsewhere.

    Your grand vision is interesting, but the social costs are too high. Write it up as a sci-fi short.