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[counting]

I remember once I asking myself - How many people are there in the future world, like a world in star trek series. And what's the projection of the world population will be in the year of 2500. Using a basic mathematical extrapolation, that with simply 1% of annual population growth rate. (Currently about 1.1%). It will take less than 500 years for the world population growing from 7 billions to 1 trillion, if there is no major event that ends the civilizations.

However it's base on the assumption that everything is perfect, and the technologies in the future will solve the food production problems, and people start moving out of the Earth surface. But if people only stay on the Earth with technologies and industries remained the same as we currently have, then a rough calculation[1] can tell us that the agriculture department can only sustain about 50 billions on Earth (the carrying capacity of Earth under current method). And the world population estimation is about 9 to 11 billions on 2050.

This is a passive view about how the world can not sustain more than certain populations. (ranging from 3 billions to 100 billions). But it's all done on the base that technology will not advanced beyond current capacity. It's clearly not the case. In the beginning of the 20th century before green evolution, people predicted that the world population can not exceeded 3 billions, and we did. And there is no stopping for the development of new techs to produce more food and create more living space. There are numerous imaginations in the sifi world, and even in real world revolution right now to topple the limit. (Like mariculture revolution to create food from the ocean which covers 70% of earth surface).

So What do you think a world in the future that can support 1 trillion people would look like? Will it be a space colonization world that earth import foods from Mars? Or people dig out massive underground space, and making the Earth look like the Caves of Steel, farming microbes to synthesize food? What's your vision of the future?

[1] There are about 15 million kilometer squares of farming land available right not. And 1 km2 can produce about 5,00 to 900 tons of crops annually. And 1 adult need to consume about 200 kg (0.2 tons) of crops annually for the 2,000 Kcal/day basic requirements (everyone is vege, no meat). Put the number in you will get 15,000,000 * (500 ~ 900) / 0.2 = 38 ~ 68 billions, hence an average about 50 billions.

[Reverie]

We will eventually hit a technological plateau, for one, and the rate at which population grows would suffer as a result. There is a limit to how long the human body can last with advanced medicine, even with the eradication of disease and human stupidity.

[kaijyuu]

The population won't continue rising exponentially.

The reason for this is as education and wealth spreads, the birth rate lowers. An average family in the USA has ~2.5 children, while one in India has many more (~7 I think? Not too sure on those numbers). It could even go so far as to have the population start to drop, like it currently is in Japan.

The last analysis I read suspected the population would plateau out at around ~11 billion people. That was a while ago though.

[Heron TSG]

We will eventually hit a technological plataeu, for one, and the rate at which population grows would suffer as a result. There is a limit to how long the human body can last with advanced medicine, even with the eradication of disease and human stupidity.

Unless we can halt the degradation of telomeres, in which case we can live for ages.

[mainiac]

If we did space colonization we wouldn't move to mars, we would move to artificial habitats in space.  There are enough materials in the moon and the asteroid belt to easily sustain a trillion people and many more besides.

[Jacob/Lee]

The hard part is actually getting there without blowing tons of money.

[RedKing]

There's also the issue of pure physical space. With 1 trillion people and only 148 million square kilometers of actual land surface, that works out to some 6714 people per km^2. Or if you prefer, slightly higher than the population density of Hong Kong--across the ENTIRE planet.

If you add the oceans, so that literally every square inch of the planet's surface is inhabited, it falls to 1960.5 people per km^2. Still higher than Vatican City, and roughly three times as dense as Taiwan, for instance.

Not a world I'd want to live in.

[Jacob/Lee]

Yeah, but (hopefully) in over a thousand years we'll be walking the stars fairly easily. We literally will never run out of space in space provided the endurance of ships can hold up and we can create artificial gravity.

But yeah, the world would suck if there was 1 trillion people. We have enough population issues as-is.

[Reverie]

There's also the issue of pure physical space. With 1 trillion people and only 148 million square kilometers of actual land surface, that works out to some 6714 people per km^2. Or if you prefer, slightly higher than the population density of Hong Kong--across the ENTIRE planet.

If you add the oceans, so that literally every square inch of the planet's surface is inhabited, it falls to 1960.5 people per km^2. Still higher than Vatican City, and roughly three times as dense as Taiwan, for instance.

Not a world I'd want to live in.

I am sure by the time we reach a population of that size, we would have succeeded in giving Mars a breathable atmosphere.
NASA powers, activate! Oh, wait--that requires money.

[Impending Doom]

The hard part is actually getting there without blowing tons of money.

Every metal that we mine out of the earth that is essential to human progress was at one point or another brought here in an asteroid/meteor/whatever. A relatively small metallic asteroid (the most common kind) about a mile across, stripped down into its basic materials will net you right around $20 trillion. Unless you're the US government, you literally cannot blow enough money to take a loss on an investment like that.

[mainiac]

The hard part is actually getting there without blowing tons of money.

Every metal that we mine out of the earth that is essential to human progress was at one point or another brought here in an asteroid/meteor/whatever. A relatively small metallic asteroid (the most common kind) about a mile across, stripped down into its basic materials will net you right around $20 trillion. Unless you're the US government, you literally cannot blow enough money to take a loss on an investment like that.

Yes, and use it in space, where the zero gravity makes manufacturing and construction much easier and it becomes even more valuable.

[Reverie]

The hard part is actually getting there without blowing tons of money.

Every metal that we mine out of the earth that is essential to human progress was at one point or another brought here in an asteroid/meteor/whatever. A relatively small metallic asteroid (the most common kind) about a mile across, stripped down into its basic materials will net you right around $20 trillion. Unless you're the US government, you literally cannot blow enough money to take a loss on an investment like that.

Metallic asteroids are not common, though. Every once in a while a fragment the size of, say, a golf ball will rain down and make some collector very happy, but a mile-diameter rock is something to worry about if it decides to come close enough to harvest.

[Jacob/Lee]

The hard part is actually getting there without blowing tons of money.

Every metal that we mine out of the earth that is essential to human progress was at one point or another brought here in an asteroid/meteor/whatever. A relatively small metallic asteroid (the most common kind) about a mile across, stripped down into its basic materials will net you right around $20 trillion. Unless you're the US government, you literally cannot blow enough money to take a loss on an investment like that.

Yeah, but right now it is really expensive to send anything to space, and let's not forgot unless we have a sudden new technology that allows for cheap, fast, light space travel it will be hard to bring enough stuff out there to actually mine.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Once Earth reaches Zero Population Growth, the population should be about 8 Billion. If we colonize Antarcica, the Ocean floor, and the Ocean surface that should add on around 3 Billion, as a rough estimate. The Moon is the size of the USA, which is nearing ZPM, so I'd estimate it would hold around 350 Million. Mars is 2/3rds the size of Earth, so that should be about 6 Billion at ZPM. Phobos and Deimos are fairly small, only a few million at best.  Venus is about the same size as Earth, so we can chalk on another 11 Billion there. Mercury could only really support life in the regions that are in constant night, so it could probably only have a population of around 1 Billion.

Altogether, the inner solar system should end up holding about 29.36 Billion people, not counting space stations. In short, reaching a Trillion will take a long time indeed.

[RedKing]

Should fit pretty well inside a Dyson Sphere. Although if we've achieved that level of technology, we probably don't need a Dyson Sphere.