How to get to 10 trillion people in this solar system?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Darren wrote:
>
> Robert,
>
> I have been following this thread for from the start and while and
it seems
> to me that you are being just a bit too negative.

not really negative, but when ppl start bringing out the Utopian
dreams, i feel a dose of the darker side should show up.
>
> Maybe the ppl you have populated your habitats with are not as
smart as the
> people I would prefer in mine but you would have to be really dumb
to dig in
> your back yard, they when you hit the thick metal hull bring in the
power
> tools and cut a hole into it and then pull out the explosives to
blast
> through the rock.

so your planning on having a high IQ as a requisite to living there.
remember that 100 is the average. when you have a certain percentage
of ppl with higher IQ's, there are going to be those with lower. even
then you have the problem with ppl with high IQ, but low lvl of
common sense.

something from my past might demonstrate what I'm referring too. i
was in the air force, and at one base i worked in close quarters with
several former crew chiefs. these guys had gone to school to learn
about aerodynamics. after they made comments about my lack of common
sense and suggested i was not that smart, i pulled out an old junior
high science project idea. i made a bet with one of them that i could
make a table tennis ball (ping pong) stay up inside a funnel. i won a
five dollar bet using hydrodynamics which is a close cousin of
aerodynamic. its the same principle that keeps aircraft in the air,
but he could not understand it. a few minutes later, he won a 10
dollar bet with another expert in aerodynamic using the same thing.
just because someone is trained in it does not mean that they will
understand it.

>Or perhaps you are using a different design, Mr ppl digs
> in his yard and after a few metres of dirt hits concrete or
sintercrete or
> fused Luna slag or whatever they are using for bulk mass and keeps
digging
> (while his neighbours ignore him and the radiation sensors fail to
note any
> increase in count) and when he hits the metal hull pulls out the
power
> tools. A magic hole in the radiation shield will not kill everybody
in
> seconds, except of course in the most rare of circumstances, now
ppl might
> not notice somebody making a breach in you radiation shield but
people would
> and they would stop it from happening.

my understanding is that they would used pulverized slag as radiation
shield. since he is doing this inside his house, his neighbors would
not notice anything right away. by the time the radiation detectors
could notice it, and localize it to the house, it might be too late
to keep ppl from receiving a lethal dose. it might take weeks for
them to die, but the damage is already done
>
> Now for your automatic doors, once again it seems that ppl are not
very
> bright or maybe just very slow,

there have been many stories of ppl that blocked fire doors from
closing for one reason or another and causing a lot more deaths that
would have been done if they had not block the doors. the space doors
would be the same.

any rocks big enough to cause rapid
> decompression and heading for your habitat should be noticed long
before
> they hit, smaller rocks would make holes so small that it would
take days,
> weeks or months to be a problem, your house will not need an
automatic door
> to close and turn each dwelling into a mini space ship.

the problem would not be a single rock, it would be a dust cloud, one
that may or may not be seen and if it were seen, might not be
expected to do much damage. then there are the accidents, such as a
ship losing its engines as it approaches or the engine gets stuck on
when it should not be on. the list of risks is long. few of them will
happen often, but you can ignore them. there has to be laws that will
be there just in case. for the most part few of them would be notice.
example in Texas there is a law about carrying a pair of wire cutters
in your pocket. this steams from the time that ppl would do this
would mostly be cutting farmers fences so they could drive their
cattle across rather than take them around. the law is still on the
books and could send many a telephone repairman, power line
repairman, or electrician to jail. no one pays any attention to it,
but if some one ever uses it to do harm, they would find that law
still has teeth. i remember reading about a rapist, that they could
not catch with sufficient evidence to send him to jail for his crime.
then they caught him with wire cutters. i believe he is still serving
his sentence, for concealed wire cutters.
>
> As for your cult leader being a mega father with hundreds of
children,
> really? How many are his and how many said to be his?...

according to the stories in the papers, he ran all the possible
fathers out of the church and off the property before the children
were sired.

...Unless we are again
> talking about some strange difference between ppl and people, I
dont know
> that this is much or a worry, maybe a cult leader could manage to
father a
> huge number of children but unless this habitat has a population of
just a
> few hundred, this will not be something to bother with, how many
cults with
> only a few hundred followers (be they ppl or people) are going to
be able to
> afford to build a habitat?
>

a habitat of 100,000 ppl would mean 50000 couples. considering that
they would be basically replacing themselves (with their children)
every 35 years, there would be about 1428 couples getting married
every year. if this cult leader was in charge (one stories suggest
that one of his own daughters had his grandchild), he might be
attempting to create what he believed was a god ordered superior race
by having his children marry. its been done before. on earth it would
have little impact due to the size of the population. the result of
course would be children with defective genes.

> Im sorry, all of your points are valid but only in the sense of
being
> possible in the extreme but they are not really a big worry, at
lest not
> until we have a large population of ppl building their own habitats.

the thing is that all the points I've made have occurred on earth,
where they would do little damage. in space a small number could
easily jeperdise the whole. while i do believe that there the space
station could and will be the future of man, i have trouble seeing
it as Utopian dream that others have.
>
> I have been a member of this list almost from the very start, even
if not a
> very vocal one, when I first joined I had many discussions with
Lucio of
> what it would be like living in an Island Three and he convinced me
that it
> beat planets hands down (salutations Lucio), in one discussion I
told him
> that I would do just about anything to be able to live in a
habitat, even
> down to shovelling excrement it thats what it took but I dont
think I
> would want to live in your habitat Robert, a place where it is
policy to lie
> to the population, just to make a few extra women pregnant and you
use
> draconian laws rather than educate people about basics of living in
a
> habitat, all for their own good of course. Still, I dont think I
have too
> much to worry about, being a level headed person and not a lvl
headed ppl.
>
> Darren
>
i would love to be able to see the future as a Utopian paradise, but
to paraphrase a well know DJ "where ever humans go, there humans
are." until you can change human nature you will have to deal with
the fact that the future will be ran by humans with the same nature
that we have. just look at the politicians and tell me that they
don't lie to ppl "for their own good", and where the leaders would
come up with criteria for immigration that would support their
beliefs and make their own power base that much stronger.

i love the dream of a star trek like future, but until you take
humans as we know them out of the picture, your going to have to deal
with their foibles. if i have created a picture that is that
negative, i appologize. i dont beleive the future is that dark, but
its not going to be utopian either.