overpopulation

OVERPOPULATION


I’m really nor sure how much more of this excitement I can take. Yesterday Amazon sent me an e-mail with new recommendations. Now, sometimes these recommendations are straight from the computers ass such as when HAL gently suggests that I would simply love some insipid drivel from the NY Times Bestseller lists. And even though he acts all sweet and nice you just know you better not reject too many of his picks or you are on The Machines Terminator ( The Terminator ) list. So I check every e-mail. Well, the fear of being on a list and the fact that at least two out of every five lists have a super duper magnificent book that I must have or my entire universe will implode. And this list included my eagerly awaited “Gods Of Money” ( Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century ) that I mentioned a few months ago. My very next book purchase shall be said book. To be frankly, brutally honest with you my sphincter is a tingle. But wait! That’s not all. Today I received an ordered book, “Empires Of Food” ( Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations ). Which is not about ADM forcing Frankenfoods down all our throats as you might infer from the title but even better, a book on how empires past were destroyed by famine. This kind of subject matter is the kind of rare treat that makes plowing through so many other disappointing books worthwhile. Of course, it could be a turd despite the subject, such as a brutally suck butt book like “Victorian Holocausts” ( Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World ). Great subject- El Nino weather pattern behind the three major droughts in the later 19th century- but written in such a dust dry manner that I simply couldn’t read it. I’ll let you know how “Empires” turns out. I would start reading tonight but I might not get to it. I ignored #4 yesterday finishing up a book and I dare not repeat that. Plus I should glue down the foam insulation on the Bison Bunker.

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I had already decided on today’s subject matter before I got the famine book. How overpopulation ( All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty ) is normal and unavoidable. After reading the book I might elaborate, add, renew my thinking or even ( I know this is your favorite ) admit I was wrong on a point or two. I’ve spoken on this before, but the subject fascinates me and whatever I want to know about, so do you. Almost any Birkenstock wearing tree hugger will screech out in agony ( one imagines in the same tone as an asparagus being murdered to power a hippies lethargic shuffle on the way to the methadone clinic and on to vote Democrat for an increase in Food Stamps ) that we are murdering the earth. Gaia is in pain! Stop the Gulf Oil! Stop driving our Volvo’s to a peace rally ( oops, not that one ). The fact is that man has been destroying the earth since agriculture began ( and more than likely had to start eating turnips after he over hunted all the wooly mammoth and such ). But he didn’t do it because he wanted to go from living in a green paradise to a wind swept desert. He didn’t do it strictly from greed. Yes, greed fed wealth to those in power, but the rape wasn’t about riches, that was incidental. He did it because the simple fact of the matter is that whoever over-exploits wins. If we are to accept the premise that tribes war on other tribes to survive when resources dwindle then it follows that whoever is stronger will anticipate that coming struggle.

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I won’t argue with you over the cause of war. I’m convinced that it is a survival ( SAS Survival Handbook, Revised Edition: For Any Climate, in Any Situation ) mechanism. I don’t whip off my French beret and pull my long hair in frustration that “we can’t all get along”. I’m not idealistic to the point of confusing myself. It doesn’t matter if we agree with certain aspects of human nature, we just have to take them at face value. Man is at the top of the food chain and when the going gets rough his fellow man gets eaten. I’m amused to a large degree with my own wit and charm, true, but my banner motto ( last one in the stew pot wins ) not only celebrates my wonderfulness, it points to a central truth in the coming collapse. You will get eaten if you are not careful. War is natural and certain. Natural selection is a bitch. Don’t deny it, embrace it and learn from it. Okay, on to population. Let’s put aside greed or ignorance and just make the likely assumption that the majority of leaders are smart enough in a Machiavellian manner to understand that there is a balance in exploiting resources and over exploiting them. You must have resources to survive, and you must gamble with overexploiting them to thrive. You have to cut down the trees for chariots and for smelting bronze. That might lead to mud slides that bury fields, but if you don’t do that you risk being overrun by a superior enemy who enslaves you. I am simply saying that there is never a choice- you must mine your resources regardless of the cost, or you die early. Die in ten years from famine, or next year from raids.

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Overpopulation isn’t just about bulking up your infantry ( Combat Techniques: An Elite Forces Guide to Modern Infantry Tactics ) forces. It is more about having a labor force that can mitigate the effects of overexploitation. You must have population to fight, you must have population to feed the fighters, and you must have extra workers to build the infrastructure to both fight and feed. If you don’t, if you husband your resources, live sustainably, you will be killed and overrun by the neighbor tribe that doesn’t. It isn’t that sustainability is a bad idea, but that when you choose a lower level of energy, someone else will maximize the energy available and you will be in the way ( I believe that was from Greer [ The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age ] ). A labor force that irrigates both maximizes farm size but also can survive low level weather disruptions. Of course, the price is eventually sudden die-off when the large infrastructure can’t be sustained.

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You don’t necessarily have to expand in this model, if it doesn’t suit you. I think one of the reasons the Chinese did so well for so long ( despite huge regional die-offs ) was that they didn’t expand beyond their means such as Alexander the Great ( Alexander the Great: Son of the Gods ) did ( or Britain, or Spain, or America ). Perhaps that was the explanation behind the great Chinese fleet being called home and the borders closes some five, six hundred years ago. The leaders realized they were overextending themselves. But you must have a large population, even if you don’t conquer your neighbors. I think the American Indians do not disprove this theory. They might have lived sustainably, but they were also conquered by those that chose not to ( European motto: expand or die ). Fascinating stuff. You will be hearing more about it whether you want to or not.
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