Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> I'd *still* like to see some informed calculations showing curves for
> different postulated changes in population growth given different versions
> of rejuvenated longevity, etc. The Hanson Runaway Upload Option is clearly
> so drastic and, um, fertile that almost any outcome will be plausible, but
> I assume that less discontinuous changes are more accessible to precise
> treatment (along the lines of Dan's claim that one exponential curve is
> much like another, something that sticks in my innumerate craw).
>
Well, my example was intended to generate identical absolute population
curves, not just self-similar curves. The example was a couple who
duplicates (the woman has four kids) at age twenty and dies at forty,
versus a couple that has a pair of kids every twenty years and lives
forever. it turns out I was wrong. For this example, the mortal
population is exactly half again as large as the immortal one. To
get exactly equal curves, the mortals would have to commit suicide
immediately after spawning the four kids. it's easy to see that this
is equal: for each population, every twenty years each couple goes
into the spawning room and four people come out. In the mortal
case, two adults go in and four babies come out. In the immortal case,
two adults go in and come back out carrying a baby each. Same population
growth.