Jim Fehlinger writes:
> [...] Clarke says (p. 273):
>
> "The astronomer Fred Hoyle once remarked to me that
> it was pointless for the world to hold more people than one
> could get to know in a single lifetime. Even if one were president
> of United Earth, that would set the figure somewhere between ten
> thousand and one hundred thousand; with a very generous allowance
> for duplication, wastage, special talents, and so forth, there
> really seems no requirement for what has been called the global
> village of the future to hold more than a million people
> scattered over the face of the planet.
>
This reminds me of a line from near the end of the short story "The Gentle
Seduction" (from a collection of the same name by Stiegler (sp?)). I don't
have the book handy at the moment but to paraphrase it said something
like:
"The population of the solar system had eventually stabalized at around a
trillion people. This was enough to provide some room for diversity, while
being few enough that you could still get to know everyone personally."
Yet another place where posthuman capabilities change the balance.
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.
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