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Captain
I was going to add this to my 'How Improbable' thread but I think there's enough meat here for a separate topic.
It seems to be the assumption in most Science Fiction universes that there'll be a whole lot more of us in the future. Often this is combined with the idea that, to the extent that the technology of the universe allows, humanity will spread from Earth to other worlds, solar systems, etc. An extreme version of this idea would be Herbert's Dune universe in which the "million planets" constitute merely that universe's "Old World".
These seem to be reasonable assumptions. Certainly they fit with most of what we know of the history of the species. Yet there are certain recent trends which give us cause to doubt this vision of our future.
Zero-Population Growth was first observed in Scandinavia in the 70s and then Japan and then Korea, but today it is marching across Europe and Central Asia. Indeed, nearly everywhere we are observing declining birth rates. China's enormous population is at a virtual standstill and will begin to decline by the middle of the century. Even India is applying the brakes - albeit not fast enough to prevent it from overshooting China as the most populous nation a few decades from now. In short, the long boom the human population has experienced since the wane of the Black Death in the 14th century is drawing to a close. The peak is in sight, and its number is shy of 10 billion souls.
What then? Projections are murkier the further afield one goes, but it is certainly possible that we will face the prospect of permanent sub-replacement levels of fertility and corresponding declining populations. The 2004 Series 3 (Lo) projection from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs describes a human population in 2300 of 'only' 2.3 billion souls.
One of the other great demographic trends of the last two centuries has been the concentration of populations. In 1800 less than 5% of the world's population lived in urban areas. In 1900 that became 14% and then 30% by 1950. Today it's 50% and expected to continue to rise.
Whether the factors which make living with lots of other people 'attractive' today continue to hold hundreds or thousands of years down the track is anyone's guess, but the factors tending towards low fertility rates seem fairly stable:
- Declining value of labour (industrialisation)
- Increasing emphasis on education
- Increasing societal support networks
- The above factors together making children less of an asset and more of a burden than they have historically been
- Increasing empowerment of women in society
- Increasing availability of contraception
In this light I question the assumption that "we" are going to go anywhere at all. Mining, exploration, research, sure. But a widespread diaspora of the species, with small groups of colonists hurling themselves to distant lands and then breeding like rabbits? I don't see it.
It seems to be the assumption in most Science Fiction universes that there'll be a whole lot more of us in the future. Often this is combined with the idea that, to the extent that the technology of the universe allows, humanity will spread from Earth to other worlds, solar systems, etc. An extreme version of this idea would be Herbert's Dune universe in which the "million planets" constitute merely that universe's "Old World".
These seem to be reasonable assumptions. Certainly they fit with most of what we know of the history of the species. Yet there are certain recent trends which give us cause to doubt this vision of our future.
Zero-Population Growth was first observed in Scandinavia in the 70s and then Japan and then Korea, but today it is marching across Europe and Central Asia. Indeed, nearly everywhere we are observing declining birth rates. China's enormous population is at a virtual standstill and will begin to decline by the middle of the century. Even India is applying the brakes - albeit not fast enough to prevent it from overshooting China as the most populous nation a few decades from now. In short, the long boom the human population has experienced since the wane of the Black Death in the 14th century is drawing to a close. The peak is in sight, and its number is shy of 10 billion souls.
What then? Projections are murkier the further afield one goes, but it is certainly possible that we will face the prospect of permanent sub-replacement levels of fertility and corresponding declining populations. The 2004 Series 3 (Lo) projection from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs describes a human population in 2300 of 'only' 2.3 billion souls.
One of the other great demographic trends of the last two centuries has been the concentration of populations. In 1800 less than 5% of the world's population lived in urban areas. In 1900 that became 14% and then 30% by 1950. Today it's 50% and expected to continue to rise.
Whether the factors which make living with lots of other people 'attractive' today continue to hold hundreds or thousands of years down the track is anyone's guess, but the factors tending towards low fertility rates seem fairly stable:
- Declining value of labour (industrialisation)
- Increasing emphasis on education
- Increasing societal support networks
- The above factors together making children less of an asset and more of a burden than they have historically been
- Increasing empowerment of women in society
- Increasing availability of contraception
In this light I question the assumption that "we" are going to go anywhere at all. Mining, exploration, research, sure. But a widespread diaspora of the species, with small groups of colonists hurling themselves to distant lands and then breeding like rabbits? I don't see it.
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) And they are promoting superstition, which brings back religion in a big way. 
