POPULATION CONSTRAINTS
Before we get involved today in my feeble attempt to pull something half way interesting out of my butt, I want to thank Lloyd for the snail mail donation. Equal to three days e-book sales, so I’m happy as hell. And a hearty thanks to Gene for the overly generous donation. Again. Seriously, I love you man, but stop donating. I can’t resist keeping the money and you have already become the number one donator this year. I wanted to send back the check, but visions of 12v LED bulbs were swimming in my dreams and I can’t so no. So stop tempting me. If you want to donate, once a year is more than enough. And don’t send more than you can comfortably part with. Also, a guest article tomorrow, so tune in to the same bat channel.
*
I really didn’t have much to thrill you with today, so I’ll just throw this at you and hope for the best. There are a certain number of constraints on population growth. In the voluntary column we have contraception, abortion and small families, or immigration. On the involuntary side you have disease, war and famine. If you don’t up to do it on your own, or if policies aren’t implemented to force those relatively painless ways, then the harsh reality of resource limitability become starkly apparent. We have talked before about the general trend throughout the Agriculture Revolution of overpopulating. More people meant bigger armies meant you could steal your neighbors food. Being smart and living within the carrying capacity of the land put you at a military disadvantage. It is a self perpetuating cycle of growth and crash, but almost impossible to avoid. Since the solar energy age ended and the carbon fuel age began, consumption and growth of debt have provided the same forces of population growth.
*
Just look at almost all organized religions. They actively promote population explosion. We look on to Africa and their overpopulation and cluck our tongues disapprovingly over their inability to avoid starvation because of their insistence on large families, but we in the West are just as bad. The Catholic church prohibits anything that would keep population in check. And just in case you don’t want rug rats anyway, they promise eternal damnation if you practice abstinence ( okay, I’m not exactly sure about that, but the fact remains they push for extra future cannon fodder actively ). The only reason we can feel so smug about the same policies as Africa is that we use the military and economics to steal all of their resources. Otherwise we would have little white babies sitting around empty gruel pots with swollen bellies and flies landing on their eyeballs. When governments, religions, and businesses all want overpopulation, it most likely is going to happen. So when the resources start running out, the involuntary restraints start.
*
Unfortunately, you can’t escape the Fallacy Of The Commons. Selfish puke bastard whores push for more population and in the end we all perish together as resources are all Hoovered up. Look at what happened to prosperous nations that saw their population decrease due to the natural inclination to suck off the taxpayers for retirement rather than shooting out thirteen kids so one of the skinny ingrates would somehow survive and provide for you once you got old and feeble and started beshatting yourself. The governments opened up the flood gates to immigration. One way or another, your tribe was going to make sure overpopulation was achieved so the monied interests could live the good life before the collapse when everyone wandered aimlessly in the rubble until they collapse from hunger and are eaten by roaming cannibals. What do they care? They live on their own island with merc armies and stockpiles ( okay, I’m jealous ). Sucks to be part of the common hoard.
END
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
James,
Important subject. I see you around the blogosphere, by the way. If you lived up Minneeesotaa way, I'd buy you a beer!
Humans are under the illusion that they are basically different than all other species. Unfortunately, although humans are capable of using free will and rationality, the majority do not. That condemns all of us, even the non-insane ones who realize that resource constraints are real, to follow the path of all species.
All species, with rare exceptions (long-lived, slow-growing species like redwood trees, tortoises, etc.) tend to go through cycles of overpopulation, die-off, and, if they are lucky, recovery.
Unfortunately, no other species has learned to appropriate so much of the biosphere and global energy resources before. We have thus overshot our resource base more than any other species ever has. The resulting die-off will be brutal, and perhaps an extinction-level event.
We preppers get a hell of a lot of flack (even somewhat yuppie college educated nerd-preppers like me). But we are the only ones who are actively trying to save the species.
The transition-town and permaculture people are on-board in different ways, of course.
The preppers need to start working with the other alternative groups who get it, or there won't be much chance.
So STOP disliking and attacking people just because they are "left" or right, progressives or whatever... if someone understands the basic problem (peak oil, we are screwed), don't sweat the small stuff like politics.
Politics is a game to distract the sheeple, anyway.
You're a book junkie . . . you really ought to read Julian Simon's The Ultimate Resource.
You're echoing the predictions of Paul Ehrlich, and Paul Ehrlich's prophecies have been overwhelmingly proven false.
Men were dying of disease and slaughtering each other long before even 10,000 people lived on the earth.
Overpopulation the cause of starvation in Africa? Nonsense! They're starving to death because they have socialist warlords ruling over their countries. They have zero respect for property rights, and as such, everyone tries to loot the other tribes. No respect for property rights means no stability and thus no economic prosperity.
If mere population density caused poverty, then Hong Kong, which was nothing more than a cluster of birdcrap-encrusted rocks before PEOPLE got there, would be one of the poorest spots on earth. As it is, they have an almost entirely free market, its population density is 18,000 per square kilometer, and they have a per capita income of $43,000. Beautiful, fertile, resource-rich Zimbabwe would be one the richest, according to your logic, with 33 people per square kilometer. As it is, their per capita income is $440.
Singapore should be dirt poor, according to the "high population density causes poverty" crew. They have a population density of 6800 human beings per square kilometer, and a per capita income of $52,000 dollars, thanks to their non-interventionist economic system.
During the time when all those nasty immigrants were pouring into the country between 1880 and 1912, the standard of living was increasing by 11% every year.
People mean productivity. States mean starvation.
Am I saying everyone should have 20 kids? No! But nobody is doomed because of a high population density. Disease will kill a percentage of any size population. Starvation is not caused by high population density. Wars are not caused by high population density. Death, whether by wars or starvation, is primarily caused by man's unfathomable, insatiable ego.
Economic and sociological ignorance does not help stop these wars and famines, either.
One of the wisest things that nationalist Teddy Roosevelt said was this: "If you do not believe in your own stock enough to wish to see
the stock kept up, then you are not good Americans, you are
not patriots; and . . . I for one shall not mourn your extinction;
and in such event I shall welcome the advent of a new
race that will take your place, because you will have shown
that you are not fit to cumber the ground."
Americans believe material possessions are more important than passing their culture and ideas on to the next generation. If America wants to commit cultural suicide, I say with Roosevelt, "Good riddance!" Others will fill the human void left by men and women who did not believe in their culture and ideas enough to pass them on to a new generation.
Post a Comment