In its defense, Torchwood has always used imbecilic storylines

[james_davis_nicoll]

Spotted over on Tor:

the premise of Miracle Day, the upcoming American Torchwood series; people stop dying and as this comment from the reviewer asserts:

the planet’s population threatens to increase by millions as the weeks go on, so the world turns to the only person who has experience with not dying: Captain Jack Harkness.

[nobody mention Death Takes a Holiday]

The human death rate on Earth is about 60 million a year IIRC, so the net effect of people not dying is for the net population growth rate to go up by about 0.9% per year. That doesn't seem like it should lead to calamitous overcrowding in the short run (although that is a significant bump in net population growth).

Dear the science fiction community: why do so many of your books, shows, movies and articles read like they were written by the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, in which one of the worst possible outcomes is for there to be more people?

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Dear the science fiction community: why do so many of your books, shows, movies and articles read like they were written by the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, in which one of the worst possible outcomes is for there to be more people?

I believe Germaine Greer had quite a lot to say on this subject in "Sex and Destiny" (1984) -- not about the Science Fiction community, but about the toxic meme pool of social Darwinism/Eugenics/Population Control -- and for some reason, folks like John W. Campbell seemed to be dabbling their toes in that water. (Racism, probably. After all, the teeming millions aren't a problem unless they're Other. Right?)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Because, short of volume shipment of people to other habitable planets, space resource extraction at high levels, or upload, there is a carrying capacity limit on this planet. I can't find the fire-marshal's occupancy limit sign telling me what it is just at the moment, but I'm quite confident there is one.

Maybe it's 5 times the current population, or even more. But I don't believe it.

And I think far too much of the population is cheerfully charging for the edge of that cliff.

Yeah, maybe I imprinted too much on Club of Rome nonsense in my school days. What I'm really afraid of is that those confident-sounding nonsensical predictions have badly damaged the idea of there being limits. And I think the limits are still there. (I think "there are limits" is definitely, absolutely, true.) AND I think the limits are close enough to be worth thinking about some (that's certainly a claim that can be disagreed with).

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Apologies for linking to the comics, but: We can feed 9 billion people in 2050 according to a large modelling exercise by the French agricultural and development research agencies; we've already got all the engineering and agricultural tools and techniques we need, and the obstacles are primarily political or driven by market failures.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I was talking about somewhere short of 5x the current population as being quite possibly a problem. I'm not at all surprised that we can support 1.3x the current population.

Also, "engineering and agricultural tools and techniques" take us further and further into what I think of as hyper-efficiency territory. We've got less and less safety margin, and a couple of years bad weather could really mess up that kind of projections.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Five times the current population -- somewhere in the 30-35Bn -- would be a problem (a) if we were going there and (b) if we didn't improve our energy and agricultural efficiency.

Current UN population projections are that we're going to max out at around 9.5Bn, then drop back towards 6Bn by the end of the 21st century. Moreover, they've been revising the population peak downwards every decade like clockwork for as long as I've been watching. Every culture seems to undergo the demographic transition, sooner or later. I reckon that unless we come up with a cure for old age, people in the 22nd century will be complaining about the slowing of progress and deflation and how hard it is to hire home helps -- although housing is cheap -- because there'll be significantly fewer of them than there are of us.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

All the most recent UN projection models have world population in the range of 9Gperson at 2050 (+/- 1Gp). However, while some show the population stabilizing there for a century, others have it dropping to 5 Gp or increasing to 25 Gp over that period.

(See the chart on page 4 of this PDF at the
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs . If there's a more recent document, I can't find it on the site.)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, naturally feeding all the people there are is the only possible problem associated with population growth. There are no other resources or planetary systems that could possibly be impacted. Say, how many planets would it take for the whole population as it is now to live at your present level of energy consumption? Five? Or only four?

And with more people, political and market problems will magically disappear. Because people-driven problems always clear up when you add more people.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Because people-driven problems always clear up when you add more people.

Correlation is not causation but in fact most nations are both more populated and better places to live than they were a hundred years.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Indeed, correlation is not causation, and, up to a point -- the point where living gets so good and women so educated that birthrates drop enormously -- it seems to me far more plausible to suppose that they are more populated because they are better places to live, than vice versa. And, in any event, whether things are better and more populous in most places does not really speak to whether they are more populous AND better in the places where political and economic failures are the main cause of human starvation.

[(Anonymous)]

My eyes roll uncontrollably when people talk about political obstacles as if they are something you can handwave away. I'd bet on commercial fusion power arriving before the US political/economic system manages to free itself of its lush overgrowth of parasites...

Bruce

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Population growth has been decelerating in absolute number terms since the 1980s and in percentage terms since the 1960s. The only countries with exploding population any more are the absolute poorest of the poor: mostly in Africa south of the Sahara, and some other places like Afghanistan.

Which means that any stress we put on the carrying capacity of the planet has little to do with population growth and everything to do with the consumption habits of rich people. But rich people tend not to breed much, except in some anomalous places like Utah. We can do more by concentrating on material incentives for the rich (including the future newly rich, who may well do better than we have) to live more efficiently than by fretting about population control; population's controlling itself just fine.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

La la la, there is and shall be no such thing as an American Torchwood. It is from the same fictitious alternate universe that contains Highlander sequels and a Starship Troopers movie.

[andrewducker]

It's being written by, and stars some of the same people who did the one set in Britain, and it follows on directly from it. I can't see it being dramatically better or worse.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Considering that I quit watching so long ago I don't even remember when I quit watching, I'll probably give it a try if it's on when I'm bored.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

No ianto, and I can't see an american production doing anything other than nerfing the bits that made the show hilariously bad (the sex and orientation stuff), and emphasise the bits that made it just plain hard to watch at times (the plots, sf elements and the annoying heterosexual characters) – as a case in point, watch the doctor who movie from the 90s; that's what happens when anything doctor who related gets fiddled with by american executives.

Though it does lead to one very important question: which bit of canada could pass as wales in an american tv production?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

To be fair to the American executives, my impression is that the 90s Doctor Who movie was even worse in its earliest stages of conception (the reboot beginning with a huge dump of Gallifreyan backstory, in which the Doctor and his brother the Master are looking for their lost father Ulysses). Though that itself was a collaboration between the British showrunner and an American writer.

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

If people actually aren't dying at all, then a whole bunch of limitations go away. Unfortunately, I doubt the writers of the show have thought that through. (Nobody dying means nobody's dying of starvation, drowning, malnutrition, or dehydration.)

Of course, maybe ~1M people/week just find themselves suddenly craving human central nervous system tissue.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Of course they haven't thought that through. It's forbidden by the union contract, or something, to think things through if you work in film / television. Maybe it's something in the air in Hollywood?

[raycun.livejournal.com]

Yes, my thoughts when I heard this were
1. How long before this makes a noticeable difference?
2. What does 'not dying' mean here? Terminally ill people remain very sick without dying, okay. People hit by buses? If the model is Captain Jack, they'll pop up again without a scratch on them... so if you are really sick, get someone to shoot you and you'll be fine again (take two bullets to the brain and call me in the morning)
3. Which leads to an interesting reconfiguration of 'resource shortages'

The new DW showrunner seems to give plots that extra 30 seconds thought...

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Apparently there's no invulnerability, agelessness, or superior healing; people just stop dying from the usual causes.

It has to be a problem quickly because television shows can't afford to have anyone do the math. Observe the level of drama in this: "Yes, Prime Minister; if people keep living forever London's population will be over twenty million in..." *pokes at calculator* "One hundred thirty six years."

Given math and Captain Jack's model, governments could reasonably take a few years to examine the problem.

[raycun.livejournal.com]

people just stop dying from the usual causes.

People stop dying from diseases but are still vulnerable to massive damage? In which case, what is the possible dividing line?
Or people get run over by steamrollers but are still alive? In which case, what does that even mean? Their soul has not become separated from their body?

[oh6.livejournal.com]

Harkness, closely examining the specifics of this not-dying, such as how it can even be a well-defined phenomenon without breaking the universe, soon determines that they're all on TV. A spiralling meta-textual regress ensues, culminating in a badminton match with Death.

[(Anonymous)]

And then the match is interrupted by a giant blancmange.

Bruce

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Didn't Xena, Warrior Princess have this problem at some point?

The real problem is probably not population accumulation, but inability to care for increasing numbers of people with terminal illnesses and injuries. (I say people: were animals also affected? That would be even worse.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

"The [people who are] dying, keep dying … but don’t actually die. "

Hmm... The Obamacare Death Panels would be out of work!
This cannot stand!
Call Torchwood!
Because only a super secret British agency can save Doomed America!

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Dear the science fiction community: why do so many of your books, shows, movies and articles read like they were written by the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, in which one of the worst possible outcomes is for there to be more people?

SATSQ: Because most of us are introverts and misanthropes who tend to agree with Sartre? :)

At least, that'd be my reasoning. If I had to live somewhere with, say, the population density of Tokyo, I'd be insane in a week. Maybe less. Apparently there are (lots of) people who are not bugged by having other people living up their noses, but I am not one of them, and I don't like people in general (as a class) to be comfortable with having strangers up close and personal all the time. I don't even like having my friends up close and personal all the time, and don't even get me started about my relatives...

So yeah, I'm quite in favour of there being fewer people, starting with myself -- I do not have children, do not want children, and will not have children. I am not doing this out of racism, or a belief in eugenics (which doesn't have to be racist, btw; from a eugenics point of view, I would, say, much rather Serena Williams have kids than me, and I'm whiter than white), but just out of a general disliking for people (and children) and the thought that everybody deserves to have a little room to breathe (by themselves) now and again.

[death4breakfast.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much this, including the no kids. I've tried city living and I simply couldn't handle the concrete, the traffic noise, the people noise, the pervasive smell of car exhaust, the lack of green growing things and the lack of space.

I understand that some people are perfectly fine with city living and actually enjoy it, and enjoy the proximity to other people, but I'm not one of them.

Zombies[1] as a Boomer metaphor ...

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

Because this is really a thought experiment about the current anxiety about the Boomers - so many of them (us) are getting to be over 50, and for a generation that promote the motto don't trust anyone over 30, they aren't having the decency to die and get out of the way (or at least get out of the plummy jobs) - and pass on their money to their deserving and much-put-upon off-spring.

So this is really about: if the Boomers won't die, what can be done about it?

[1] - and other undeadness.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

From what I'm reading the main problem with the situation as depicted in the series is not population growth but people suffering from the Tithonus curse: surviving eternally in their death agonies.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

That's one of the two traditional treatments of how it goes wrong when you defeat Death, the other being the zombie epidemic.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...so I guess science fiction gives us two more: overpopulation->total war of all against all, and the City and the Stars / Zardoz static society of childless immortals.

[kdemonn.livejournal.com]

...growth rate to go up by about 0.009% per year.

You need to slide the decimal point over a couple places if you're going to include the percent sign.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

AHHHH. I was thinking either/or even as I typed that!