In the next 12 months, the U.S. Presidential candidates will spout off sound bites on a lot of issues – global warming, global economy, the war in Iraq, etc. One thing they will not be talking about is population control. And yet, overpopulation is at the root of many, if not all, of humanity’s current crises.
In 1998, I bought a book called Too Many People by Roy Calne. It was in the last few months that I lived in New York, on that crowded island of Manhattan. Back then, I had a sense that the world was getting ready to end, or at least go through some major upheaval. In that last year of my residence, a great number of building facades were falling from their structures (including one whole outer wall of Kurt Vonnegut’s apartment building). I felt the city was trying to tell me something. “Get away. Live a simpler life. Slow down a bit.” I heeded that advice and moved to the West Coast. The world didn’t end, but I was finally able to breathe.
Back to the book. Although I never actually read the book – spent too much time reading and thinking about Viktor Frankl instead – I thought a lot about the message within its pages. It sat on my bookshelf for years, perhaps stimulating some thought in those people visibly curious about my reading materials. Recently, I’ve been thinking about that book a lot more.
People talk about global warming. They talk about all the ways we can reverse the effects. Ride the bus, ride a bicycle, recycle paper and plastic and glass, find alternative fuels, the list goes on. No one ever says stop having babies.
People talk about health care. They talk about socialization, privatization, but never about sterilization.
People talk about how dumb our kids are getting. About our society being addicted to reality shows and celebrity gossip. They don’t talk about the watering down of the gene pool.
All of the problems our society has can be positively affected by limiting our procreation. Whether enforced or voluntary, we don’t need all of us. We’d be better off without some of us.
I’ve pulled that book off my shelf and am going to read it finally. Hopefully it will get my mind juices flowing, and I will elaborate on each of the above points. Maybe more.
oh, man that will never happen. our capitalist economy depends on population growth. and we can’t accomplish population growth by letting in foreigners.
you’re up against every corporation and government office on this one.
Even the nations hard pressed to keep population in control (i.e. China) haven’t been able to maintain that control. Sad to say, until we start running out of resources we won’t see much of a change in perception on breeding relentlessly.
And this brings to mind a quote by the great Heston;
“Soylent Green is people!”
population control is pre-emptive action. on our present course, there will be bubbles bursting, peaks reaching . . . the collapse of our society will not help a single corporation or government office. it is in their best interest, in the interest of self-preservation, to encourage population control so that people will still have the resources to buy and function cohesively.
the problem with China (the only country i’m aware of that has/had enforced population control) is that they were fighting a culture that valued one gender over another. their other problem was that they took too extreme of an approach. now they are faced with disproportionate age distribution.
ideally, we should have a system like what is described in Orson Scott Card’s Ender series, in that couples have to apply to the government to procreate.