Asimov was prophetic in his speech. He mentioned an extraordinary number of problems that we face today in his speech, including global warming, the Malthusian Catastrophe, and the aging population. It was clear from the speech that Asimov was a polymath synaptic philosopher. His expertise ranged from science to politics to philosophy, which quite impressed me. The world that he envisioned, while stood on firm logical and theoretical footing, was however unrealistic. Population growth rates are already down in many parts of the world—mostly in the developed countries, with the U.S. being the only major developed country with a significant natural population growth rate—and this kind of population rate is not achieved through eugenics or any sort of population-control schemes. However, the population in the developed countries are growing quickly, and it is almost impossible to check this growth, owing to the fact that there is no effective world government to enforce any sort of universal population regulation. Population will continue to grow until child rearing costs (usually stemming from a higher level of education) increase significantly as the developing countries emerge from poverty.
Asimov also fails to mention one major factor in the changing demographics as population decline and the old increase their share of the population—the unaffordable welfare bill that will inevitably be saddled to the world’s governments. Less population means fewer younger men to generate tax revenue, and an aging demographics mean more expenditure on a variety of elderly necessities—health care, recreation, retirement funds… and this problem is already straining many of the governments in the developed world. Tax rates inevitably becomes more extortionary (Sweden, for example, pays 55% of its GNP into taxes), which in turn stifles development. This system at a long term is unsustainable, in other words. The only viable solution is to keep a stable population while the developing world emerge from poverty. One viable solution is to keep population growth at a stable level while the developing world emerges from poverty—this may mean the goodbye of the suburbia, but the City is very capable of supporting population—the mega-conglomerate of Tokyo (pop. 25,000,000+)exists on a plot of land the size of Connecticut (pop. 3,000,000). Meanwhile, we should work on genetically-modified agriculture, hydroponics, and the use of salt-resistant crops that will raise the output of our land and reduce agriculture’s resource intensity. Eventually, when the gap between the developing world and the developed world closes, we will have a stable population and the quasi-utopia of Asimov (and really, Karl Marx) will finally be reality.