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Meanwhile, as the world's population increases and we are crushed closer together, our social and political arrangements move towards tighter control, says JimQ on Washington's Blog, developing the ideas of Aldous Huxley, who "foretold all the indicators of a world descending into totalitarianism due to overpopulation, propaganda, brainwashing, consumerism, and dumbing down of a distracted populace in his 1958 reassessment of his 1931 novel Brave New World."
In the animal world, a population "correction" can be devastating:
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But that is because animals lack foresight and management. In the event of global social breakdown - civil war or anarchy - such a disaster might happen to us.
The UN offers a range of projections:
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And a heavily interconnected world is more vulnerable, in all sorts of ways. Rulers seem to think that centralisation is the answer, whereas diversification and dispersion may offer the best chance for species survival.
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Horrific situation isn't it?
ReplyDeleteOf course we're not supposed to discuss that all population growth originates from the developing world and most significantly from two ethnic groups.
Few have pointed out that the arrival of ISIS is in fact a symptom of a wider problem in the region with little to do with religion. They instinctively know that its now a zero-sum game and I just wonder how long its going to take the ever-so-fragrant developed world to realize this.
It will come to war and if the west doesn't win mankind will not survive the aftermath. We created the technology to extend our carrying-capacity but the growth-rate now far extends technological advance.
Hi Sack
ReplyDeleteYou might not need a war.
The lack of food for the expanding populations coupled with disease could be the end of all of us.
Wars have boundaries, people fleeing disease have none.
People starving in a distant country seem far removed from us, but it is their undernourished bodies that will culture the germs that could destroy a great many of us.
One airplane ticket could spell the end, for those of us in the well-to-do part of the world.
I could be wrong, and I hope I am.
Wolfie: as people get richer they become less inclined to have children. Also countries at peace. Maybe we should be promoting good governance, though how to do that when we're hardly manage to do that for ourselves ourselves I don't know.
ReplyDeleteJim: nice to hear from you again. Yes, historically pandemics seem to have come via wars and trade, global interconnectedness has its dangers.
Hi Sack
ReplyDeleteI don't think that you answered Wolfies query. ISIS in Iraq is an issue of terrorisms.
What he suggests is we have created the technology for survival, but we cannot handle the rate of increase.
I think that old canard is a falsehood, only western people reduced their birth-rate as they got wealthier. Its simply not happening in the developing world and only marginally slows when they emigrate here. In my London borough 4 children was the minimum family for African migrants, even with the smallest council flats.
ReplyDeleteCrop failure or oil shortage, followed by war over resources, followed by starvation and epidemics.
ReplyDelete