You've overlooked cultured meats, which has the potential to radically change how we use the arable land. If we can create the majority of meats in a lab, we can stop the wasteful practice of keeping livestock. I'm unsure how big the energy-loss when using farmland to create a growth culture for the meats, but i'm pretty sure it's vastly more effective since you don't have to power the entire animal for several years to reap the results.

Otherwise a great post. Overpopulation has always been a moot point in my book, coming from a country with a population density of 12/sq km, and a county with 2/sq km.

Well, my grandfather who was a Berry Goldwater conservative, non the less spoke of the population problem from a quality of life perspective. Like when driving to Santa Monica from Pasadena California was almost always a pleasant venture in 1946 or so, and a nightmare in 1991 ( the last time I did it).

The idea that because there is open land that we can just pave over it is not totally valid. I want to see open space on this planet.

But, the above being said, we see some of the best news in over 12,000 years! Birth rates are down in most industrial societies, and even nose diving in Germany, most of the former Warsaw Block nations, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and beginning to drop just above replacement rates in Thailand, Brazil ect.

Isn't it wonderful that just about the time radical life extension becomes a reasonable prospect, the culture transforms in such a way as to make it socially disirable in the same societies that are most likely to have extended health span.

Of course, I mentioned on other threads that the trend will get even better because of the fact children are not a capital asset but a financial liability.

Oh, and by the way guys, a really bad investment here in the States because you almost always have to pay for it if there is a divorce.LOL!

Years ago, back when Tom Leykis was on KFI 640 A.M. (amplitude modulation medium wave commercial broadcast band) a gentleman called in saying that he discovered an investment that cost only $600.00 and resulted in a $250,000.00 capital gain in the 20 years that followed.

What was it?

A vasectomy.

"Isn't it wonderful that just about the time radical life extension becomes a reasonable prospect, the culture transforms in such a way as to make it socially disirable in the same societies that are most likely to have extended health span."

Contraception does not reduce birth rates. It simply selects in favour of those who can not or will not use it.

When you consider who those people are, I think the urgency of radical life extension becomes rather obvious.