Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> More tricky ... is her claim that if we
> double the human life span it will double the peak size of the global
> population. This strikes me as an obvious non sequitur, but I'd like some
> clever mathematics to prove it.
It's not a matter of math. If population is determined by reproduction, it keeps expanding and expanding with no end in sight. If population is determined by carrying capacity, it stops at the same number of long-lived humans as short-lived ones. You're quite right, it doesn't sequit.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way