this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2026
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me_irl
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Hell, we could increase exponentially forever if we wanted. The universe is practically infinite
No. The physics does not allow this. Physics does allow interstellar travel and colonization. However, the resources required are immense. To transport a single human being between star systems would require more energy than it would take to keep them alive in decadent luxury for centuries. We're talking hard limits of physics here. Sure, you can imagine this will be solved by some magical technology outside the known laws of physics, like a perpetual motion machine, but you could then just as easily imagine using that magical technology to keep people alive back at home.
Interstellar colonization would be a wonderful idea, but simply as a means of backing up life. And spreading life through the universe has value in and of itself. It's a wonderful thing to yearn for.
But interstellar travel has absolutely zero utility as a means of addressing population growth.
Oh, and you can only have so many humans living in any given volume of space before the raw output of their body heat cooks them all alive. Regardless of your tech, there are only so many humans you can cram into a volume the size of the solar system.
uhh, yeah, travel takes a whole lot of resources, but you'd only need to transport very few elements around, like a seed of a tree. and when you land on a new planet, you have more resources to utilize and go on. so your image is too limited here.
Please read the thread carefully. You're fundamentally misunderstanding the context of this discussion. We aren't talking about interstellar travel in general. We're talking specifically about the utility of using interstellar travel as a means of keeping exponential growth going forever.
The species can keep growing by extending out to the stars, but an individual star system can't. Eventually your star system reaches a maximum population. In the age of European imperialism, Europe shipped its excess population off to settler colonies Australia and the Americas. That will never be possible between star systems. In the 1800s, Britain could lower its resource demand by sending people off to the Americas. It took far more resources to keep a person alive for their lifetime than it did to send someone across the ocean. But you save no net resources by shipping someone off to Alpha Centauri. Sol will not be able to solve an overpopulation problem by shipping people off to distant Suns. And it's not a matter of how much cargo you bring with. The energy required to move just your body across interstellar distances dwarfs what is required to keep you alive for many lifetimes.
So, no, population cannot grow forever. Eventually Sol will have to stabilize its birth rates, or it will have a problem. Starting new seed colonies around distant stars can probably be done. But it won't allow the population or economy of a single star system to keep growing forever. With interstellar colonization, you're not expanding your civilization to multiple star systems, you're budding off new independent civilizations around those distant Suns.
A seed is actually a perfect metaphor for interstellar colonization. A tree can throw a seed to the wind to make new trees far away, but those seeds don't help that original tree grow any bigger.
yeah and since alls we need is the vaccum of space to thrive its definately doable.