Elon Musk worried about population collapse; says we need massive families to become space-faring

This was a fascinating comment from maybe the most brilliant businessman of our times. He goes against the standard narrative of cheering population collapse; he's very worried about it. Says the future will be very grim and we won't be able to enter the space-faring future, if population collapse trends continue.

In other words, in order to enter into the future, we must have large families again!

An amazing Natural Law parallel to the traditional "big families" Christian view. Let me know what you all think.

 

I'd say an appeal to space-faring is a bad starting point for family planning

 

an alternative view​

 

It's the other way: he wants to say that because of space-faring, we have to diminish "family planning" / "family limiting". He is a major counter-point to the chorus of voices urging the world to basically stop producing children, and wants to say that we aren't having enough children, for the world that's coming.

 

I understand that. I'm just saying that if a couple is considering family planning (as most do), it might seem a bit off to try to convince them otherwise by making an appeal to space-fairing.

 

Everyone screaming over over population has to face the fact that probably around mid century the worlds population will be falling.

 

The number of people who will actually get into space will inevitably be far outnumbered by the number of people who would be required to provide the means to get them there. At least that is how it has been so far. Space travel is going to be by far the least essential problem solving exercise for the human race during the next 3 decades.
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I don't think you guys are seeing the magnitude of what space means for a lot of liberal/secular propaganda. Since at least the 1970s, they have been screaming that the world is about to end, that by the 1980s the world food will run out. That by the 1990s all the polar ice caps will melt. Al Gore in the 2000s was promising that unless we limit human population, by 2020 Greenland will be gone, and there will be no food left.

And despite the patent failure of their prognostications, they will continue screeching that humanity must be limited, because there's only so much space on our planet. Eventually it's "inevitable" that we'd run out.

UNLESS.... We had the whole solar planet actually, realistically, at our fingertrips. In that case, there's absolutely zero case for limiting human population and infringing on Christian morality and the natural family structures for humans. Elon Musk is creating a scenario where the infallible secular propaganda against Christianity becomes moot!

 

What planet is that, you are talking about? This is the only one within reach at the moment to provide for the needs of the human race and everthing else as well, and we are fast running out of things that used to be in abundance. Like Cod for instance in some regions of the USA, to name just one population crash that your government failed to notice until it was too late. Now they're gone. Many things are being hunted to extinction and we are losing rain forest and all the unique species of flora and fauna that go with it, at an alarming rate, but Elon Musk, the 'expert' has his mind on other things I suppose.
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I think you are missing the fact that soon the population trend will be reversing itself and as countries become more urban, land is returning to the wild.

 

An acre of concreted redundant factory floors does not replace an acre of rain forest matey.

 

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Place a few fruit flies in a bottle with a layer of honey at the bottom, and they will quickly multiply to an enormous number, and then, just as quickly, die off to the very last, poisoned by their wastes. Similarly, add a few yeast cells to grape juice, seal the bottle, and the cells will consume the sugar and turn it into alcohol. When the alcohol rises to 12.5% it will kill off all the yeast, and the wine will be ready for the table.

Fruit flies and yeast in a bottle are embarked upon suicidal endeavors. They can’t help it. They don’t know any better, lacking the cognitive equipment to “know” anything at all.

Human beings, we are told, are different. Humans can utilize their accumulated knowledge, evaluate evidence and apply reason, and with these skills and accomplishments they can imagine alternative futures and choose among them to their advantage.

Human beings have these capacities. But history teaches us that all too often, human beings simply refuse to apply them and, like the mindless fruit flies, march blindly into oblivion. For example:

• None of the antagonists in the First World War wanted the war. It was touched off by the assassination of an Austrian Duke in the Balkans. And when it was all over four years later and sixteen million had died, one German politician asked another, “How did it all happen?” The second replied, “Ach, if we only knew!” (Tuchman)
  
  
• When the Nazi pogrom against the Jews accelerated, a few wise Jews fled Germany, leaving friends, professions and all their possessions behind. The others, reflecting that “This can’t be all that bad, after all, I am a loyal German,” remained. When in January 1942 “the final solution” was decided at the Wansee conference, it was too late.
  
  
• Industrialized fishing techniques have drastically reduced both the quality and quantity of the world-wide catch. As Elizabeth Kolbert reports in The New Yorker, “In the late nineteen eighties, the total world catch topped out at about eighty-five million tons… For the past two decades, the global catch has been steadily declining … by around five hundred thousand tons a year.” This is a paradigm example of Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons,” whereby “ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest…” While a global agreement to limit fishing might restore the take to sustainable levels, there are ominous indications that, in addition to over-fishing, climate change might be significantly responsible for these reductions. (More about this below).

Finally, consider Easter Island. When Polynesian explorers discovered and colonized Easter Island at about 900 AD, they arrived at an island that was fully forested, with huge trees that supplied essential resources for canoes, houses, food, fuel, ropes and textiles. With these resources, the islanders built more than eight-hundred stone statues (moai) for which Easter Island is famous. When the first Europeans arrived in 1722, they found a barren island totally devoid of trees. The peak population of this sixty-six square mile island is estimated to have been as much as thirty thousand. In 1872, only one hundred and eleven native islanders remained. (Diamond). Could the Easter Islanders foresee the consequences of the destruction of their forests? If not, then why not? If so, why did they not act to protect this essential resource before it was too late?

 

Botolph what if the flies no longer have to be stuck inside the glass; but can live across the known universe? Then they should return to the natural law of having as many children as possible, and stop violating human nature with abortion/contraception/family planning/masturbation, and get to the task of settling the solar system and beyond.

I’m talking about the future while you’re still stuck on the past, the worn-out 50 years of liberal/secular propaganda. Even good Christians like you are taken by it. But that propaganda has no merit, because there is no limited resources, there’s no “glass”, there’s no “one” planet, there’s limitless lands to explore and settle.

 

In general I am not opposed to space exploration etc, however doubt that our failure to manage the resources of home planet 1 responsibly suggest, to me at least, we have little right to go find and trash another one as well. To the best of our knowledge so far, any planet within reach and capable to hosting a colony of humans would require better management of resources than we have shown to date.

I like Elon Musk, and if I had the money I would have a Tesla, though they are challenged by the tyranny of distance which describes Australia.

 

I meant stuff like this.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/13/worlds-lost-forests-returning-trees
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...how-europe-is-greener-now-than-100-years-ago/

 

Very encouraging, but not a fix yet for the amount of rain forest still being destroyed. It takes forever to recover, even if allowed to.