The world is finite but the amount of resources are astronomical.
In the United States 75% of the population lives on 2.7% of the total land area. And in the last century we figured out how to harness unlimited energy, produce as much clean drinking water as we could ever need, practically unlimited food production, raised the quality of life for the average human a thousand times over, not even getting into the fact that we are on the cusp of cheap, reusable access to space. I would consider the human population unbounded.
Our aquifers are being permanently drained, our most productive regions are rapidly desertifying, our growing seasons are becoming increasingly unstable as the climate shifts, our crops are genetically homogenous and therefore catastrophically susceptible to disease, our rampant use of pesticides is unraveling the food chain, we're 100% reliant on the use of artificial fertilizers which is dependent on functioning global supply chains and fossil fuels, and even if you can grow the food there's no guarantee that you have the logistics network necessary to distribute it before it rots.
Which is all to say, food is far from a solved problem. And there's nothing in space that's going to address that particular need.
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The world is finite but the amount of resources are astronomical.
In the United States 75% of the population lives on 2.7% of the total land area. And in the last century we figured out how to harness unlimited energy, produce as much clean drinking water as we could ever need, practically unlimited food production, raised the quality of life for the average human a thousand times over, not even getting into the fact that we are on the cusp of cheap, reusable access to space. I would consider the human population unbounded.
> practically unlimited food production
Our aquifers are being permanently drained, our most productive regions are rapidly desertifying, our growing seasons are becoming increasingly unstable as the climate shifts, our crops are genetically homogenous and therefore catastrophically susceptible to disease, our rampant use of pesticides is unraveling the food chain, we're 100% reliant on the use of artificial fertilizers which is dependent on functioning global supply chains and fossil fuels, and even if you can grow the food there's no guarantee that you have the logistics network necessary to distribute it before it rots.
Which is all to say, food is far from a solved problem. And there's nothing in space that's going to address that particular need.