<p>" Let's say we were to discover a way to live forever, we will eventually die of something if not overpopulation. "</p>
<p>What about overpopulation?</p>
<p>Now that I have conviced you that aging is going to be dramatically slowed, and eventually stopped and reversed, you are probably wondering (as most people do), What about overpopulation? Well, let me put your mind at ease by saying this: Overpopulation is not a problem! I will try to give an overview of just a few reasons why this is the case (bear with me, I will try not to get too technical)</p>
<p>First off, if aging is not slowed down dramatically in the next few years, not only will overpopulation not be a problem, the reverse (shrinking population) will likely be true! World population growth rates have been steadily declining since the year 1960 (see this chart (<a href="http://www.maxlife.org/images/growthrates.jpg))%5B/url%5D">http://www.maxlife.org/images/growthrates.jpg))</a>, and are expected to stabalize (read: equal 0%) around the year 2050, and some estimates show it actually begin falling into the negatives at that point. Basically, throughout history the more technologically advanced a society has become, the lower their population growth. This is due to a wide variety of reasons (birth control, people deciding to wait later in life to have kids, more people deciding not to have kids, people having less kids when they do decide to have kids, etc.), but suffice it to say that population growth is declining (in fact, almost every developed country, including the United States, would right now have a declining population if it were not for immigration).</p>
<p>Secondly, technology will provide for supporting increasing levels of population. Simply put, as technology extends lives, it makes life more livable for larger populations of people. Since the Industrial Revolution, alarmists have screamed doom and gloom about overcrowding and limited resources (backed by misinterpreted "statistics"). However, the opposite has happened. The population increased by 750% since then, and standards of living soared (would you want to live hundreds of years ago before sanitation, modern conveniences, etc.?). It's not so much a question of resources as education, individual productivity and distribution - social engineering problems, not life extension problems. As long as people produce more than they consume, it's impossible to run out of resources. Even if we stayed where we are right now, with no technological improvements whatsoever, we could support at least 6 billion more people than are on the planet right now! Technology is increasing at a rate faster than population is increasing. It is estimated that we increase the amount of people that we can support at a rate of 20-40% faster than population actually increases.</p>
<p>Third, it is a question of morality. I do not think many people today would advocate mass genocide to reduce populations, do you? Then why do we support approximately 100,000 people dying of the disease of aging daily? Let me pose a hypothetical situation to you (credit to Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D. for coming up with this scenario): Put yourself in the position of someone powerful, for instance the prime minister of France, in, say, 1870 or so, when Pasteur was going around saying that hygiene could almost entirely prevent infant deaths from infections and death in childbirth. In your position, you have some influence over how quickly this knowledge gets out, and thus how quickly lives start being saved. But, you realise that the sooner people start adhering to these principles and washing their hands and so on, the sooner the population will start exploding on account of all those children not dying. What would you have done? 1) Got the information out as soon as possible, or 2) Held it back as best you could in order to delay the population crisis? I have yet to meet anyone who says they would have done the latter. With curing aging, there is no difference. None.</p>
<p>This explanation at this point has probably been long winded enough for a brief overview, but it is simply just scratching the surface. I hope you are conviced now, however, that overpopulation is not a problem. </p>
<p>Although you might not choose a option to live say 500 years, other people will, which is revolutionize and completely change the prospective of almost everything we affect.</p>
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