Quote:
Originally Posted by kingsway
In general terms, and with obvious exceptions, living standards are rising across the world.
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Agree ... even the poorest person today is better off than the poorest person from 100 or 1,000 years ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kingsway
(and the pace is still accelerating.) why should we not be optimistic about the future?
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While I agree there is progress being made and some reason to be optimistic about some things ... I disagree about the pace is still accelerating.
I see it showing signs of slowing ... I bought a PC with the first Pentium I chip in it back in 1995 ... 5 years later by 2000 I bought a Pentium IV ... more ~20x faster than what I could buy just ~5 years before ... today 12 years later they have not yet increased the speed to 20x what is was ~12 years ago back in 2000... there has been improvement ... but from what I see the pace of improvement is slowing not accelerating anymore.
Not just in electronics , but the ICE efficiency improvements are continuing ... but the pace of those improvements is slowing ... harder and harder to squeeze out another 10% efficiency ... etc.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vman455
with a world population forecast to reach 9 billion by the middle of the century and 14 billion by 2100 at the current growth rate
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Current Trends show the global population of the entire earth is slowing ... yes there are more people , and we are still producing more ... the growth rate is still positive ... but the current rate of growth itself is in decline ... ie reducing / slowing ... and has been for a while now ( sense the late 70's ) ... So I don't see evidence supporting the growth rate will suddenly stop it's current decreasing trend in favor of leveling off.