From: The Butterfly (salsbury_at_bootstrap.sculptors.com)
Date: 05/12/98
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 12:37:53 -0700 Message-Id: <199805121937.MAA08899@bootstrap.sculptors.com> From: The Butterfly <salsbury_at_bootstrap.sculptors.com> Subject: Re: floating houses / floating villages
-From: Chris_McCoy_at_sigmanet.com
-Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:37:31 -0700
-
-***If we leave the surface alone, it would completely heal itself within a
-century.
-The real problem at this point is...what do you do to lower the population
-to
-about 2 billion. Unless we can curb our population growth and act like
-sentient beings, there will be 10billion of us by 2010! Even if we live
-smarter,
-the surface will be hard pressed to support that kind of population.
Oh, this one is easy. Just provide decent living standards to third
world people. It's been shown time and time again that the way to lower a
population's birthrate is to raise their standard of living. Something as
simple as running an electric wire into a village brings heat, light,
communications, education, cooking, water pumps & purification, etc.
These things reduce the need for a family of 8-10 childred to help
on the farm, and population decreases.
Also, when you've got a modern society, and you're not expecting
1/3 of the kids to die before they're grown, there are more incentives to
have fewer. (If you have to pay for dental/medical/school/etc., then 2 kids
are cheaper than 10.)
There is discussion of this on p.203 of J. Baldwin's book,
"BuckyWorks". It's an excellent book, and you can find more info about it
at http://www.sculptors.com/~salsbury/Articles/BuckyWorks.review.final.html
Also, cross-linking the electricity of the world's civilizations is
the mission of GENI - Global Energy Network International. You can find out
more about them at http://www.geni.org/
-***If you want any personal space, or freedom of movement, you will have to
-go into the atmosphere.
Or out past that, into space.
- And there have been studies that show already that some of the
-larger domes that have been constructed weigh less ONCE THEY ARE
-CONSTRUCTED than their components weighed before building began. This is
-due to the lifting force of the air mass inside the completed dome.
-
-***This is a cool little factoid Pat. Do you have a source? I would like to
-read it.
-
-Chris
I've just been looking, and haven't found it, yet. I'll check with
the folks on GEODESIC, and see if they remember. (I've read about 20 Bucky
books, so it's all kind of a mix in my head, and I don't remember where I
saw that bit.)
--
Pat
___________________Think For Yourself____________________
Patrick G. Salsbury - http://www.sculptors.com/~salsbury/
Check out the Reality Sculptors Project: http://www.sculptors.com/
---------------------------------------------------------
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
-- Thomas Edison