Well, that’s a reasonable point, on the surface. But my thought experiment is: “how many more - where is the limit?” If you admit no limit, then it’s “an infinite number” and that supposes a lot of technology I’m not sure will ever arrive. Apart from anything else, it assumes “ongoing off-planet human existence”. Even if we go there, I’d prefer a numerical limit that gives the natural planet we’ve got at present to have some chance of survival. So whether it’s more or less than we actually have today, I foresee a limit. And personally I wonder if we are close to it already. And population growth is often linked to lower levels of education and economic development. UBI/automation and the rest will lead to higher levels of education and economic development globally and may lead to fewer people anyway.
(No doubt my general thrust can be countered with selected statistics, but as a general thrust I stick to it. Fewer people would be better for the planet and better for the people.)
Even taking into account right-wingers’ preferred solution (a final one, if you will) for ensuring there are fewer people?
Well, having a long enough wall to put the right-wingers up against (for the usual demise), come the revolution, would be a preferable alternative. 
But, glib comments (where I started) and joking aside, the latter half of my previous comment is more applicable - a natural decline in population growth as a result of improved education and economic development.
True, more prosperous people tend to have fewer children. In the end, it’s at least as much a question of quality as it is of quantity. Barring replicator-like technology the planet can only support so many human individuals living at a mid-20th-century American middle-class consumer lifestyle. But that lifestyle tends to result in a lower birth rate, so it kind of self-corrects.
they did in that episode. an injured space jellyfish.
that pretty much is how the mirror universe’s terran empire was described.
possibly by organizing enough people to make it so.
the original series didn’t have replicators the way the next generation did. even if they did, you’d still need to fab an antimatter engine, have enough stock to feed it, di-lithium, enough space ( those space docks are gigantic! ) to fab the parts, the labor to put everything together…
the federation is that organization which makes starships possible - inspired by (according to the show) common vision and principle. so, basically… create that first, then youre all set.
Fast enough?
On that question hangs the entire future of your species.
Excellent question. Out of curiosity, how did your species solve it?
I’ve never seriously considered out-of-control consumerism in the name of profit as a Great Filter mechanism, but maybe they had a point in Wall-E.
I agree. I was pointing out that this isn’t a good allegory for the system being suggested in the initial post, which the commenter I was replying to claimed it to be.
As long as you know who your comrades are, I’m moveable on the hammer/sickle. I have a nice black flag for my own purposes. But I’m very sympathetic to the idea that the USSR never owned it, and there plenty of people who act like the USSR never owned it, and those people are my comrades too.
Soft power is still power.
Somebody indeed appears to move the goalposts around. All I wanted was to draw the members of this thread of recent political events in France which concerned a proposal for basic income by the candidate for the socialist party. That is an historical event which you may or may not want to ignore. I prefer to learn about events.
Moreover, you present the idea that “the Joneses would be on the dole”. That would imply that everybody would be on the dole, as people would always compare themselves to the most desirable (for them) Joneses. It was never supposed that nobody would have to work in any basic income proposal, for the simple reason that we would still need someone to build and maintain the robots. Therefore, we would still be in a society were some people would live on basic income and some would have a job. That, in itself, creates some inequality. As society would need some means to convince some people to work building and maintaining the robots, it would also need to make that position desirable or nobody would do it. That, in turn, makes having a job, whichever it is, more desirable than not having one, at least for some people. That is the psychological equivalent of Veblen goods, where something becomes desirable because of scarcity.
My feeling is that this situation is already happening in France (and probably other countries as well): having a job becomes desirable in itself because of the social status it confers. That is my interpretation of the recent events I referred to.
https://twitter.com/danriffle/status/1104801309172133889?s=21
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
But absolute powerlessness does the same
It’s not the poverty, it’s the inequality
We live with every day that will turn us insane
Wealth = political power.
Unless you solve the problem of inequality of power, the same old problems are going to reoccur. This is the fundamental divide between socialism and liberalism.
Buying off the workers is insufficient. The working class needs to hold sufficient power to prevent exploitation from occurring.
As I’ve said before, a neoliberal UBI can be set up that sufficiently provides the basics of life for all while also preserving (if not increasing) the existing unequal distribution of wealth and power. It’s one of the reasons that establishment figures feel slightly more comfortable talking about a UBI, now that they’ve been forced to discuss it.
Yours, too. F. catus threw in its lot with H. sapiens thousands of years ago. If we go down, who’s going to farm catnip for you? C. lupus familiaris?
I wouldn’t worry. Cats are the most likely to successfully conscript whatever’s left on earth in some cuteness-enabling pyramid scheme, to ensure an uninterrupted schedule of feeding times.
The comment, for anyone who is interested
And my amendment to it
Welcome to the BoingBoing BBS! Thank you for your insight
Just point me to a 24th century makerspace, and GoFundMe.
Her twitter feed mostly. Journalists from a variety of news sites communicate directly with here on her feed.
Try reading it sometime. I agree with her, but there are many valid criticisms of her.
And now she is getting tight with a billionaire who lives in the most tax regressive state in the US to get all socialisty.
uh huh.
(What are you talking about?
Are you replying to me or someone else? Because your comment makes no sense in reply to mine.)
