This is a serious contemporary scientific thread. I went to a bookstore and one book caught my eyes with the intriguing title 《继续生存10万年:人类能否做到?》, which literally means “Surviving 1,000 Centuries: Can we do it?” Some of us may recall one of Stephen Chow's most famous line in his filmography in “A Chinese Odyssey” <西遊記>, where the he played as the Monkey King, who reflected at the moment before he put on the magical headband that, maybe there was hope for him to confess his love to fairy Zixia (played by Athena Chu) with a time limit of 10,000 years. And that's exactly 100 Centuries.



Following the advancements of celestial physics and space explorations, the authors provide valuable reference for the future of humanity, reviewed the achievements in various disciplines of the last century, highlighted the critical issues humanity have to face during the progress of technological and social developments, and pointed out the path of sustainable development for human being.

The authors argue that there is indubitable evidence that our Solar System and the Mother Nature are the hotbed of life and the cradle of humanity, but not the perfect paradise. They claim humanity encountered and will continually encounter disasters, hardships and risks in human being’s history of survival and progress. Thus, they contend that facing the uncontrolled growing population, human beings should not be blindly optimistic because we cannot afford to leave the future and destiny of mankind to the free will of individual or small groups. Only the scientific decision-making, scientific management and scientific and technological progress could guarantee the safety of human being and the survivability of our future generations.

So what? I wonder if all the facts claimed by the authors were taken together, would you share with me the wider implications of the developmental strategies and the enhancement of abilities for a country to defend against the natural disasters (e.g. 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor strike) and calamities imposed by human being for 100 Centuries, let alone 1,000 Centuries as investigated by the authors?

And the solution they propose is to let "this" other small group decide everything for everybody on the whole planet.

"It's too risky to let everybody decide for themselves. We should put ALL the eggs in this one basket here ...".

Am I being too much of a cynic?

十萬=100,000=1000x100

BTW, believe in science = make your own future

believe in god = sit and wait for the god to come down

In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus published one of the most influential works of its era, “An Essay on the Principle of Population” under the alias Joseph Johnson. He was ridiculed though the inevitable truth remains valid that his theory suggested that growing population rates would contribute to a rising supply of labor that would inevitably lower wages.

From the graph below, we can see the world population increased from 3 billion in 1959 to 6 billion by 1999, a doubling that occurred over 40 years. The Census Bureau's latest projections imply that population growth will continue into the 21st century, although more slowly. The world population is projected to grow from 6 billion in 1999 to 9 billion by 2044, an increase of 50 percent that is expected to require 45 years.

It's no doubt that the prophecy made by Malthus is of great warn that the world would soon be inhabitable due to
1) Scarce food 2) Pollution that arises from overpopulation - during his time the Industrial Revolution had just began to take speed and Malthus does stand very correct. In "Essay on the Principle of Population", he made two 'postulata' : First, That food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in it present state.

He therefore implies that everyone needs food but people will continue reproducing - at current pace - due to their sex drive. He suggests that while the global food output would grow with arithmetical progression - say in arbitrary unit 10,20,30,40... - the population would proliferate with a geometrical progression - beginning with 2,4,8,16,32,64...-. It's easy to see that according to this reasoning, population would soon outpace food supply in the world, and famine and starvation would set in. IINM, Malthus also mentioned that, war, albeit its harmful ramification, is necessary to reduce the world population to its balance state. However absurd the last statement sounds, the Club of Rome actually commissioned a study on consequences unchecked growth to the world and published its work "The Limits of Growth" in 1972, echoing Malthus' concern and provided a pessimistic outlook of the future, mar by pollution and high living cost.

However, while poor Malthus did take into account the drawback of potential growth of the world population, he certainly overlook technological advances that would gain enormous pace after his work. (In fact, during his time, England's population was booming but never reach a geometrical progression and the food output was always enough to sustain the nation's need. We might say that his assumption was utterly wrong, because people actually plan to lower the number of kids they have regarding their financial options ( Not just their sexual desire) , as we can see family size grows smaller towards the end of industrialization. 200 years later, China even has policy that only allows 1 children in each urban family !) Lastly, technological advances in agricultural field also ensure that food output could keep up with the population boom. Despite an exponential growth in population, the danger of a food crisis eventually was ousted by country finding ways to plant food more efficiently and scientifically according to climate and suitability. Can you believe that Saudi Arabia used to import water from the sea to aid the country's water irrigation ?

All the above are addressed in Tim Harford's "The Logic Of Life" and "New Ideas from the Dead Economists"

In 2000, with the best demographic data, scientists estimated that 6 percent of all humans who have ever walked the face of the earth are still alive today. This is because the human population hovered at around 1 million for most of human history.

Orbits of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA)

At least, NASA claims that humanity is safe from asteroid impact for the next 100 years.



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