Pt. 11, AWFULLY
CROWDED IN HERE
One option that has been tried on a national
scale was China’s one child policy. Granted, it was steeped in small failures
such as the cultural preference for having sons. Yet, despite the fact that its
implementation has neither been evenly applied nor was it perfect in other
ways, China’s one child policy has had dramatic effects concerning curbing
overpopulation on a national scale.[viii] Various dictators have attempted forms
of eugenics, yet our individually oriented culture finds this distasteful;
possibly that is because these genocides have historically been based on such
ridiculous standards like race or religion
instead of empirical study such as genetic dispositions for illnesses.[ix]
That, however, begs the larger question of “what is illness?” which seems
pointless to attempt to answer until after the paradigm shift from individuals
to an organism occurs.
This situation where the population
swells[i],
and the pool of resources remains stagnant[ii]
leads into the third issue concerning the concept of the individual,
overpopulation. A collection of individuals, as opposed to an interdependent
network that is the whole of humanity, will always clamor for individual
freedoms and choice. One of the most fundamental “rights” of an individual is
the ability to reproduce to whatever extent to which that individual is able,
much like a cancer or virus.[iii]
The problem here is the stagnant (but realistically shrinking[iv])
pool of resources of which we are all dependant on will at some point (arguably
past[v])
no longer be able to provide adequately for everyone, at which point we kill
our host or die trying.[vi]
Of course there will always be the classic 1973 Charlton Heston solution of
Soylent Green, or the classic “A Modest Proposal,” but much like eating
excrement, cannibalism is generally considered a damnable taboo, so this is not
a realistic global solution to overpopulation.[vii]
One option that has been tried on a national
scale was China’s one child policy. Granted, it was steeped in small failures
such as the cultural preference for having sons. Yet, despite the fact that its
implementation has neither been evenly applied nor was it perfect in other
ways, China’s one child policy has had dramatic effects concerning curbing
overpopulation on a national scale.[viii] Various dictators have attempted forms
of eugenics, yet our individually oriented culture finds this distasteful;
possibly that is because these genocides have historically been based on such
ridiculous standards like race or religion
instead of empirical study such as genetic dispositions for illnesses.[ix]
That, however, begs the larger question of “what is illness?” which seems
pointless to attempt to answer until after the paradigm shift from individuals
to an organism occurs.
There may be no magic bullet to this problem that
can be voiced without some popular cry of condemnation, but at some point in
the not too distant future someone will have to take control of the situation
for it is clear that self-governance is not a viable option. Thus, if the
nature of our existence is continually kept at arm’s length it will always
remain impossible to fully embrace. So until an ultimate root cause of the
issue is realized and largely accepted, a potentially productive course of
action on how to address the issue cannot begin.
[i] Justin Gills and Celia W. Dugger,
“U.N. Forecasts 10.1 Billion People by Century’s End,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/04population.html?_r=0 (accessed April 19, 2013).
[ii] “Natural Resources,” European
Environment Agency, http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/natural/intro (accessed April 19, 2013).
[iii] Kay Steiger, “’Population Bomb’
Scientist: ‘Nobody’ Has the Right to ‘as many children as They Want’,” The Raw Story,
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/22/population-bomb-scientist-nobody-has-the-right-to-as-many-children-as-they-want/ (accessed April 19, 2013).
[iv] “Natural Resources”
[v] “Land Degradation,” University of
Michigan, http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/land_deg/land_deg.html (accessed April 21, 2013).
[vi] “’Population Bomb’ Scientist:
‘Nobody’ Has the Right to ‘as many children as They Want’.”
[vii] “Soylent Green,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green (accessed April 19, 2013).
[viii] “O Brother Where Art Thou?,” The
Economist, http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/chinas-one-child-policy (accessed April 19, 2013).
[ix] “List of Wars and Anthropogenic
Disasters by Death Toll,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll (accessed April 19, 2013)
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