Will age reversal lead to exponential population growth?

The most effective counter to desire to have children... is to have some.

The number required to shut down any instinctive desire to reproduce will vary from person to person - for some, merely being an aunt or uncle is sufficient; most find that "two's company, three's a crowd"; for others, "eight is enough"; and a very few seem to feel kids are "cheaper by the dozen". But eventually grandkids come along and that cheaper "fix" for infant-addiction, combined with memories of the reality of child-rearing, will almost always be sufficient to shut down the reproductive urge.

As a result, once life extension becomes practical, we'll find that the reproducing fraction of the population will drop steadily until eventually zero growth will be hit as suicides match births. Population will likely grow until that point is reached.

In fact, we'll probably find that for the first century or so after full control over bodily health is possible, population won't grow nearly as fast as it could, as people who grew up thinking that death was inevitable, and perhaps are infected by 'death = heaven' memes, find ways to shuffle off this mortal coil. Not simple suicide - more likely it'll be a death-wish, expressed as exuberant risk-taking "celebrating restored youth", by people who don't realize that they feel guilty about having "cheated God".

Eventually we'll have many alternatives to suicide - uploading, suspending animation with periodic revival if anything interesting happens. Perhaps even an implementation of reincarnation, by allowing an uploaded mind to experience life "from scratch", with memory of previous lives slowly integrating as the child grows older.

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