Confronting overpopulation

I was taught young that it isn’t the best idea to have too many billions of people on Earth. Elementary school, if I’m remembering correctly: there was some math, and at least one graph. They said food production couldn’t keep up. I think that factory farming methods and workhorse cultivars may have proven by now that technically, it can keep up. All my adult life I’ve thought about that gratefully.

Now the conversation about overpopulation is more about climate change, and has been since the early 2000s. The Georgia Guidestones, a mysterious monument erected anonymously in 1980 in the United States, are sometimes quoted as the potential key to a sustainable world.

Their inscription states the following suggestions (note: I will add my impressions in italics below each point):

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
   (note: I mean, why? We would need at least three billion people on Earth to maintain our current diversity of industries, though [according to Earth Logos]. If we want professional sports, comprehensive travel, and exotic pets, a half a billion just isn’t enough people.)
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
   (note: But, really? Tell me this isn’t about eugenics. Disregard this one, maybe.)
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
   (note: People really like their current languages. There’s the hitch. A universal second language might emerge at some point in the future, and that seems rather exciting.)
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
   (note: Sure thing. I’m doing that now. Good stuff.)
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
   (note: Yes, this is very good.)
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
   (note: This is a nice idea about ending wars eventually, right? Most everyone always likes this sort of thing in theory and most generations going forward are going to be the ones that try it, I think.)
   (note: If we had only 500,000,000 people in perpetual balance with nature we’d probably be extremely worried about losing any to wars.)
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
   (note: Probably good. Avoid pettiness in exercising power. Avoid corruption.)
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
   (note: Yeah, let us not forget the social contract. It’s the stuff of civilization.)
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
   (note: Prize decency too, and wisdom, and kindness, understanding, and productive vision for the future. Prize goodness.)
10. Be not a cancer on the Earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
    (note: Leave room for civilization in thought, word, and deed. And civilization must leave room for nature. That’s our ecosystem.)

Terence McKenna famously said that education was the way to approach overpopulation and reduce carbon emissions. In his lectures, he’d often point out that women with more formal education tend to have fewer children. The truth is, the education about overpopulation has begun. I think a lot of people worry about it already; but we still like people, right?

Population loss has something to do with what’s been called the Great Reset. Presumably, the Great Reset is about how certain parties have planned for (or perhaps even wanted?) a smaller population, possibly looking forward and foreseeing massive fatalities from climate change, pandemics, and other causes. One crucial point in this matter is to avoid anyone engineering population losses through violent means, or forcibly, which would never be justifiable. It strikes me that on some level it made sense to do economic and civic planning for a population drop, as many countries developed much of their modern infrastructure and systems after a post-1940s “baby boom”, and they were perhaps a little too close to perpetual growth models. Note that I have no idea if the set of plans described as the Great Reset are the right ones, nor even if they are cogent. Many have speculated that those plans may involve new taxes on the megawealthy or on certain industries, especially in light of how skewed wealth distribution has become since the mid 20th Century.

If we’re anxious at all for the population to go down here on Earth, it can be done with birth rates (which are already dropping in most places, they say, perhaps especially since the COVID-19 precautions began). The first-pass solution is probably to make oral contraceptives available over-the-counter (OTC) in as many places as possible. They are safe and effective, and I think their wider availability would help many people in my country, where they are currently sold by prescription only. The population initiative will be further helped by making sure birth control pills are affordable (possibly through insurance, the way some medical supplies are covered by most insurance plans). Hard to say how much we’d see the population go down organically and peacefully in a hundred years, but it is very likely we’d see sustainable population numbers by then.

Are we panicked about population? I don’t think we have to be.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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