So, when does Soylent Green hit the supermarkets?

[Cryptoengineer]

Now we are 7 ... billion.

We're supposed to get human number 7,000,000,000 somewhere around
Halloween. That was the population of the Earth in 'Make Room! Make
Room!',
filmed as 'Soylent Green'.

What SF stories have dealt with gross overpopulation? Which one
posited the highest population for the planet?

These come to mind immediately:

Make Room! Make Room! 7 billion (in 1999)
The Caves of Steel 8 billion
Foundation (on Trantor) 45 billion
The World Inside 75 billion
A Torrent of Faces Trillion(s?)

I also remember one non-fiction speculative essay ("The Ruddy Limit")
which went far, far higher, but it required reconstructing the Earth
into a much larger multi-decked sphere, and had heat dissipation as
the limiting factor.

I don't count stories that change humans to something smaller and
easier to pack, such as in Blood Music (10^15 or so).

pt

[Evelyn Leeper]

I think STAND ON ZANZIBAR postulated 7 billion.

--
Evelyn C. Leeper
"In literature, as in love, we are astonished by
what is chosen by others." --Andre Maurois

[Keith F. Lynch]

Evelyn Leeper <ele...@optonline.net> wrote:
> Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> Now we are 7 ... billion.

>> We're supposed to get human number 7,000,000,000 somewhere around
>> Halloween.

I'm skeptical that it can be known that closely. I can believe that
the world population is probably somewhere between six and eight
billion, but I take claims of higher precision with a grain of salt.

>> I also remember one non-fiction speculative essay ("The Ruddy
>> Limit") which went far, far higher, but it required reconstructing
>> the Earth into a much larger multi-decked sphere, and had heat
>> dissipation as the limiting factor.

Makes sense. You could pack the whole world population into a cube a
few miles on a side, but that cube had better be in the mouth of the
Amazon river, as nowhere else in the whole solar system has sufficient
cooling capacity.

> I think STAND ON ZANZIBAR postulated 7 billion.

Given the highest existing urban population densities, extended to
the whole planet, you could easily house more than a trillion. Given
cheap energy, food crops can be grown in urban high-rises, watered
by distilled sea water and lit by banks of grow lights. If a giant
orbital sunshade is used to block all sunlight from reaching the
Earth, you'll have less excess heat to deal with.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[Cryptoengineer]

On Oct 3, 7:59 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

> Evelyn Leeper <elee...@optonline.net> wrote:
> > Cryptoengineer wrote:
> >> Now we are 7 ... billion.
> >> We're supposed to get human number 7,000,000,000 somewhere around
> >> Halloween.
>
> I'm skeptical that it can be known that closely.  I can believe that
> the world population is probably somewhere between six and eight
> billion, but I take claims of higher precision with a grain of salt.
>
> >> I also remember one non-fiction speculative essay ("The Ruddy
> >> Limit") which went far, far higher, but it required reconstructing
> >> the Earth into a much larger multi-decked sphere, and had heat
> >> dissipation as the limiting factor.
>
> Makes sense.  You could pack the whole world population into a cube a
> few miles on a side, but that cube had better be in the mouth of the
> Amazon river, as nowhere else in the whole solar system has sufficient
> cooling capacity.
>
> > I think STAND ON ZANZIBAR postulated 7 billion.
>
> Given the highest existing urban population densities, extended to
> the whole planet, you could easily house more than a trillion.

Do the math - if you populated the entire surface of the Earth (land
and sea) at Manhattan-level density, you'd have about 10 trillion
people.

pt

[Martha Adams]

On 10/3/2011 6:22 PM, Evelyn Leeper wrote:
> On 10/3/11 5:32 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> Now we are 7 ... billion.
>>
>> We're supposed to get human number 7,000,000,000 somewhere around
>> Halloween. That was the population of the Earth in 'Make Room! Make
>> Room!',
>> filmed as 'Soylent Green'.
>>
>> What SF stories have dealt with gross overpopulation? Which one
>> posited the highest population for the planet?
>>
>> These come to mind immediately:
>>
>> Make Room! Make Room! 7 billion (in 1999)
>> The Caves of Steel 8 billion
>> Foundation (on Trantor) 45 billion
>> The World Inside 75 billion
>> A Torrent of Faces Trillion(s?)
>>
>> I also remember one non-fiction speculative essay ("The Ruddy Limit")
>> which went far, far higher, but it required reconstructing the Earth
>> into a much larger multi-decked sphere, and had heat dissipation as
>> the limiting factor.
>>
>> I don't count stories that change humans to something smaller and
>> easier to pack, such as in Blood Music (10^15 or so).
>>
>> pt
>
> I think STAND ON ZANZIBAR postulated 7 billion.

==========================================================

I think this topic risks becoming a *really interesting* topic. As
I've been watching the news over recent years, I thought I heard vibes
of a new antiwar counterculture emerging, but then it evaporated. I
thought about that, and about today's computer tech and personal info
collecting; and concluded then that to kill a movement, you somehow
uh ...deactivate a very few key people. At the beginning when it is
small. And I thought that *that* was why no movement like late
Vietnam developed then.

But the problem continued: more war; more economic issues; then came
Bush, I mean Obama who below the public radar, emulated Bush in some
core matters, and the problems grew. Then the Republicans shocked
Washington and Congress fell in the public reckoning -- tonight's TV
news had Congress at 11% approval which is the lowest on record --
and now we are seeing a few protests in the streets. With possibility
of more: *We are living in interesting times.* Of course, if fewer
people then fewer social problems. Are we maybe, arrived at reality
that is "Make room! Make room!" and in a few months we hark back
sadly to the more peaceful times of early to mid 2011? Or does
Washington take control of the situation and in a year we begin to
see Orwell's '1984' as a desirable utopia?

A very interesting detail of tonight's news was mentioned by one or
another observer: the apparently leaderless character of what is going
on. Is that because some people have worked it out that to be seen
as a leader, might become terminal? ??

I don't expect to see Soylent Green on store shelves, but I wonder if
in their back rooms, the makers of dog and cat foods are perhaps
thinking about new and larger markets? *Much* larger?

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Mon 2011 Oct 03]

===============================================
** Space Frontier Now! **
http://www.mhada.info
===============================================

[Kip Williams]

Keith F. Lynch wrote:

> Makes sense. You could pack the whole world population into a cube a
> few miles on a side, but that cube had better be in the mouth of the
> Amazon river, as nowhere else in the whole solar system has sufficient
> cooling capacity.

A Book O' Wonders in my hometown library offered the factoid that you
could put all of humanity into a cubic box a mile on a side. In a
dramatic tone, reminiscent of Criswell (who came later), it went on to
suggest that this cube could be placed on the edge of the Grand Canyon,
where a puppy could give it a small push and — voila! — no more
humanity; just a mound of grass some time later to mark the final
resting spot of the human race.

Dun Dun DUNNNN!

It didn't show its work, of course.


Kip W

[Keith F. Lynch]

Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A Book O' Wonders in my hometown library offered the factoid that
> you could put all of humanity into a cubic box a mile on a side.

That would be about 21 cubic feet per person. Snug, but possible.

> In a dramatic tone, reminiscent of Criswell (who came later), it
> went on to suggest that this cube could be placed on the edge of

> the Grand Canyon, where a puppy could give it a small push and \227
> voila! \227 no more humanity; just a mound of grass some time later

> to mark the final resting spot of the human race.

But how long would it take to get everyone to enter the box? How many
entrances would there be, and how many people per second would enter
each one?

I'm sure it would take long enough to fill that the first people
inside would starve long before everyone was onboard. Except of
course that people would suffocate or die of heatstroke far sooner.

[David Loewe, Jr.]

¿Que?

Soylent Green is available *now*.

http://www.parallax-corp.com/portfolio/soylent-green/

At least two in jokes are in play there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parallax_View

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
--
"Will you come quietly, or must I use earplugs?"
- Russ Cage

[James Nicoll]

In article <Xhtiq.1635$Gu....@newsfe14.iad>,

Humans are mostly made of water so a 100 kg human is about 1/10th
of a cubic meter. Seven billion people are about 700 million cubic
meters or a cube about 890 m on an edge.

Heat transfer could be an issue: 7 billion people would generate
about seven hundred billion watts of heat.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

[Ilya2]

> I think this topic risks becoming a *really interesting* topic.  As
> I've been watching the news over recent years, I thought I heard vibes
> of a new antiwar counterculture emerging, but then it evaporated.  I
> thought about that, and about today's computer tech and personal info
> collecting; and concluded then that to kill a movement, you somehow
> uh ...deactivate a very few key people.  At the beginning when it is
> small.  And I thought that *that* was why no movement like late
> Vietnam developed then.

So pray tell, why is Cindy Sheehan still alive and active? Except
nobody pays attention to her?

There is a very simple reason why we have no antiwar movement on
Vietnam scale, without any conspiracy theories. THERE IS NO DRAFT.
Note that Vietnam-era antiwar movement dropped off dramatically when
Nixon ended the draft.

[Ilya2]

In fact, right after draft was repealed some astute left-wing thinkers
warned that in the long term it is a bad thing because all-volunteer
army will make it easier for US government to wage war without
population at large feeling an impact. Which is exactly what happened.

[Ilya2]

> A very interesting detail of tonight's news was mentioned by one or
> another observer: the apparently leaderless character of what is going
> on.  Is that because some people have worked it out that to be seen
> as a leader, might become terminal?  ??

Or because social media made leaders unnecessary. It is also very
difficult to identify specific "leaders" in Arab Spring, yet it is
remarkably successful.

[David Friedman]

In article
<3c0687ad-0698-46b4...@z19g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,

That's one reason. But another is Obama. It was much easier for people
on the left to oppose wars when they could blame them on Bush. A lot of
them still think of Obama as "our guy," although fewer than used to.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:

> Ilya2 <il...@rcn.com> wrote:
>> There is a very simple reason why we have no antiwar movement on
>> Vietnam scale, without any conspiracy theories. THERE IS NO DRAFT.
>> Note that Vietnam-era antiwar movement dropped off dramatically
>> when Nixon ended the draft.

I agree.

> That's one reason. But another is Obama. It was much easier for
> people on the left to oppose wars when they could blame them on
> Bush. A lot of them still think of Obama as "our guy," although
> fewer than used to.

People on the left had no difficulty opposing the Vietnam War when
Johnson was president. "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

[Keith F. Lynch]

Ilya2 <il...@rcn.com> wrote:

Even without social media, I don't see why it would be good to have
leaders. So long as everyone who wants to be a follower can find
someone who wants to be a leader, I'm satisfied. I just wish they'd
leave those of us who want to be neither alone.

[Keith F. Lynch]

Ilya2 <il...@rcn.com> wrote:
> In fact, right after draft was repealed some astute left-wing
> thinkers warned that in the long term it is a bad thing because
> all-volunteer army will make it easier for US government to wage
> war without population at large feeling an impact. Which is
> exactly what happened.

We can see where their priorities were. Similarly, they might argue
that it's good for innocent people to be executed since that builds
opposition to the death penalty.

[Martha Adams]

===================================================================

Followup observation. A small store near a Boston MBTA Red Line
station has, I've noticed, been selling dogfood -- those brown hard
biscuits that are typically bone shaped and are sold without any
wrapping. Well, today I looked closely at the labelling of the
box set out on the counter and I noticed something very interesting.
On that box appears the phrase, "Human tested."

Well!

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Tues 2011 Oct 04]

[Cryptoengineer]

This is not new. Retail cat and dog food has been required to be safe
for human consumption for decades.

I encountered the trope of impoverished old age pensioners living off
cat food back in the 70's.

pt

[Ilya2]

> > That's one reason.  But another is Obama.  It was much easier for
> > people on the left to oppose wars when they could blame them on
> > Bush.  A lot of them still think of Obama as "our guy," although
> > fewer than used to.
>
> People on the left had no difficulty opposing the Vietnam War when
> Johnson was president.  "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

From what I read (obviously, I was not there), in LBJ's time the
difference -- or at least PERCEIVED difference, -- between Republicans
and Democrats was far smaller than today. As far as protestors were
concerned, both were "The Establishment".

Some people feel that way now too, but not nearly as many.
Incidentally, Cindy Sheehan who I mentioned earlier remained as
staunchly anti-war after Obama election, as she was before. Which is a
big reason her popularity dropped.

[Ilya2]

On Oct 4, 9:23 pm, Martha Adams <mh...@verizon.net> wrote:

Has been that way since at least 1980. Legal CYA in case someone eats
it, ends up poisoned, and sues the manufacturer.

> Well!
>
> Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams    [Tues 2011 Oct 04]- Hide quoted text -

Martha, can you name some place/time in history where you would wish
to live and think you would NOT be afraid?

[David Friedman]

In article <j6g50i$71j$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> > Ilya2 <il...@rcn.com> wrote:
> >> There is a very simple reason why we have no antiwar movement on
> >> Vietnam scale, without any conspiracy theories. THERE IS NO DRAFT.
> >> Note that Vietnam-era antiwar movement dropped off dramatically
> >> when Nixon ended the draft.
>
> I agree.
>
> > That's one reason. But another is Obama. It was much easier for
> > people on the left to oppose wars when they could blame them on
> > Bush. A lot of them still think of Obama as "our guy," although
> > fewer than used to.
>
> People on the left had no difficulty opposing the Vietnam War when
> Johnson was president. "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

LBJ was viewed as a conservative southern Democrat, not a left wing icon.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/

_Salamander_: http://tinyurl.com/6957y7e
_How to Milk an Almond,..._ http://tinyurl.com/63xg8gx

[Keith F. Lynch]

Ilya2 <il...@rcn.com> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>> People on the left had no difficulty opposing the Vietnam War when
>> Johnson was president.  "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill
>> today?"

> From what I read (obviously, I was not there),

Not obvious. We can't see how old you look. You could be 9 or 99.

> in LBJ's time the difference -- or at least PERCEIVED difference, --
> between Republicans and Democrats was far smaller than today.

I disagree.

[David Harmon]

On Wed, 5 Oct 2011 05:56:09 -0700 (PDT) in rec.arts.sf.fandom,
Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote,

>This is not new. Retail cat and dog food has been required to be safe
>for human consumption for decades.

I suspect that making it safe for cats would go most of the way,
anyway.

>
>I encountered the trope of impoverished old age pensioners living off
>cat food back in the 70's.

Recently purchased:
Purina Cat Chow, $12.98 / 16lb bag
Chicken leg quarters $4.90 / 10lb bag

[karl.j...@gmail.com]

On Oct 4, 4:31 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

> David Friedman <d...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> > Ilya2 <il...@rcn.com> wrote:
> >> There is a very simple reason why we have no antiwar movement on
> >> Vietnam scale, without any conspiracy theories.  THERE IS NO DRAFT.
> >> Note that Vietnam-era antiwar movement dropped off dramatically
> >> when Nixon ended the draft.
>
> I agree.
>
> > That's one reason.  But another is Obama.  It was much easier for
> > people on the left to oppose wars when they could blame them on
> > Bush.  A lot of them still think of Obama as "our guy," although
> > fewer than used to.
>
> People on the left had no difficulty opposing the Vietnam War when
> Johnson was president.  "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

Sure they were leftists & not anarchists? I expect it was a mix of
people myself.

Karl Johanson

[karl.j...@gmail.com]

On Oct 3, 5:27 pm, Martha Adams <mh...@verizon.net> wrote:

> I don't expect to see Soylent Green on store shelves,

**Spoiler for "Soylent Green"**





Soylent was soybeans & lentils, according to "Make Room, Make Room."
According to the movie, soylent green had 'high energy' algae added.
While Heston assumed they were adding human bodies directly to the
soylent wafers, it looked more like they were dumping the bodies in
algae tanks. Oceanic algae was dying off.

Karl Johanson

[karl.j...@gmail.com]

On Oct 3, 6:35 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > A Book O' Wonders in my hometown library offered the factoid that
> > you could put all of humanity into a cubic box a mile on a side.
>
> That would be about 21 cubic feet per person.  Snug, but possible.
>
> > In a dramatic tone, reminiscent of Criswell (who came later), it
> > went on to suggest that this cube could be placed on the edge of
> > the Grand Canyon, where a puppy could give it a small push and \227
> > voila! \227 no more humanity; just a mound of grass some time later
> > to mark the final resting spot of the human race.
>
> But how long would it take to get everyone to enter the box?  How many
> entrances would there be, and how many people per second would enter
> each one?

You use whatever technique Noah used to get millions of species (two
each of the 'unclean' ones and 14 each of the 'clean' ones) onto his
ark, in one day.

> I'm sure it would take long enough to fill that the first people
> inside would starve long before everyone was onboard.  Except of
> course that people would suffocate or die of heatstroke far sooner.

Karl Johanson

[Keith F. Lynch]

I'm sure it wasn't all leftists, but this was before the anti-war
movement became really broad-based. As for anarchists, they have
unfortunately always been thin on the ground.

[Martha Adams]

On 10/6/2011 11:56 PM, karl.j...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Oct 3, 5:27 pm, Martha Adams<mh...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> I don't expect to see Soylent Green on store shelves,
>
> **Spoiler for "Soylent Green"**
>

> Soylent was soybeans& lentils, according to "Make Room, Make Room."

> According to the movie, soylent green had 'high energy' algae added.
> While Heston assumed they were adding human bodies directly to the
> soylent wafers, it looked more like they were dumping the bodies in
> algae tanks. Oceanic algae was dying off.
>
> Karl Johanson

==============================================================

I saw the movie, but I didn't read the book.

Let's look at this "Soylent Green" from a business point of view
like that seems to be done today. A certain collection of elements
and chemicals goes to make up a human body. We read about all that
in school; in the 1940's someone had reckoned the value of what made
up a human body was about a dollar.

Well, where do you find the most compact collections of that stuff
that makes up into us? It is, of course, *humans.* Which leads to
my guess that someday, this rich lode will get used, thus leading
to ...Soylent Green. Yes, different details, yes, *same objective,*
namely profit but named and described of course as *anything but*
profit.

This is an ugly thought, but well, this is not the world I thought
I saw when I tried to peer years ahead from my (much) younger days.

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sat 2011 Oct 08]

[Jette Goldie]

On 09/10/2011 01:21, Martha Adams wrote:
> On 10/6/2011 11:56 PM, karl.j...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Oct 3, 5:27 pm, Martha Adams<mh...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't expect to see Soylent Green on store shelves,
>>
>> **Spoiler for "Soylent Green"**
>>
>> Soylent was soybeans& lentils, according to "Make Room, Make Room."
>> According to the movie, soylent green had 'high energy' algae added.
>> While Heston assumed they were adding human bodies directly to the
>> soylent wafers, it looked more like they were dumping the bodies in
>> algae tanks. Oceanic algae was dying off.
>>
>> Karl Johanson
> ==============================================================
>
> I saw the movie, but I didn't read the book.

There were major changes from book to movie. So much so that it would
be hard to recognise the book from the movie.

--
Jette Goldie jette....@gmail.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfette/ http://wolfette.livejournal.com/
("reply to" is spamblocked - use the email addy in sig)

[Keith F. Lynch]

Martha Adams <mh...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Let's look at this "Soylent Green" from a business point of view

> like that seems to be done today. ...

> Well, where do you find the most compact collections of that stuff
> that makes up into us? It is, of course, *humans.* Which leads to
> my guess that someday, this rich lode will get used, thus leading
> to ...Soylent Green.

As a food source, animals are at least as good as people, and far
cheaper to raise. So cannibalism makes no economic sense.

[David Loewe, Jr.]

On Sun, 9 Oct 2011 15:26:50 +0000 (UTC), "Keith F. Lynch"
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>Martha Adams <mh...@verizon.net> wrote:

>> Let's look at this "Soylent Green" from a business point of view
>> like that seems to be done today. ...
>
>> Well, where do you find the most compact collections of that stuff
>> that makes up into us? It is, of course, *humans.* Which leads to
>> my guess that someday, this rich lode will get used, thus leading
>> to ...Soylent Green.
>
>As a food source, animals are at least as good as people, and far
>cheaper to raise. So cannibalism makes no economic sense.

I think the premise was that most animals were extinct or nearly so.
Remember that *plankton* was badly depleted.
--
"Why is it, Scott, that we always have to respect their cultural context?
Why is it that they never seem to respect ours?"
President John P. Ryan in Executive Orders