No War

I have been thinking about war a lot lately.

Today, in November 2009, the United States is at war. I have written before about how we won World War II. I have always had an interest in seeing, reading and hearing all I could about the World wars. Maybe it just seemed such a fearsome prospect that I wanted to be sure I understood how it came about and came to an end if only to feel it could be avoided or to feel some sense that the world was a safe enough place for me to live in.

I'd love to hate war. I'd love to work to end it and prevent it in all circumstances. I have run the theoretical models in my head over and over again. Repressive regime or dictator wants to control and enslave all mankind, I do not wish to be controlled or enslaved along with millions of others so I must stand up and fight. War is thus made.

Sometimes I think the most reasonable end to war is overwhelming force. Back in the day we used incendiary and even nuclear weapons to make the point that Empires and Reichs were not going to dominate free people. To make the point stick required unhindered recourse.

How can I hate war but call for overwhelming violence? If there must be war shouldn't it be decided as swiftly as possible?

I really don't enjoy considering the plausibility of the theories that profiteers arrange for wars to be able to buy up wealth when prices are low or panicked and thereby own more of the world after the prices recover. What a cold rationality.

Then again, we have had a population crises before and I think a philosopher like Nietzsche would applaud convenient solutions such as global conflict to reduce the exponential growth.

My very religious mother likes to say "God has plagues, wars, famines and thirst to handle population growth, don't worry about it". That sounds like the least-managed outcome I can envision.

Dr. Norman Borlaug died this year. He helped forestall what might have been a major 20th century disaster by encouraging the use of new high yield crops and by lobbying for policy changes in areas of high growth in population such as India and Pakistan. He warned that while the grain production might now be ahead of the population growth, the limit would be reached again as the population grows beyond the ability of science to produce higher yields while at the same time arable land shrinks because so many more people need to live and be housed.

Many religious cultures would try to out grow their counterparts by overbreeding to the point of senselessness watching infrastructure fail to keep up. Attitudes like that are deeply detrimental to the future of life on earth. If the capacity of the planet is greater than the current population, we should grow cautiously and sensibly. Now it seems there is a war to flood the world with ones own culture and ethnicity.

In a contest such as this, those who limit their reproductive rate risk being overwhelmed by the others. It reverses the logic of cautious growth. This push to maintain relevance in exponentiating throngs will bring conflict over finite land and water resources.

I think the irrationality of religious belief often becomes the core cause of war. It is often religious people who aspire to have as many children as possible. This is also usually much more than just a personal hope, it is thought to be a moral duty to God.

An American Physicist and Nobel Laureate said:

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
-Steven Weinberg

What is the solution to be? Is the prescription really war, famine, flood and pestilence?

Perhaps the earth can sustain more people that I might think. Maybe a sentient culture needs many people to survive at all. Still, where ever the limit, there is one and I think the problem is not being addressed. Violent evil dictators have tried their solutions. I think there is something better.

Can we live without war? I would like to think so, though my common sense sees a different picture.

-sumwun

Population Arguments

I have been reading some population debates online and it has caused me to reflect on it yet again.

So many people like to shout about "getting yourself fixed" or "not having children in this climate" or "stopping breeding" or how responsible it is not to reproduce.

There have also been comparisons to bacteria in a petri dish exponentially expanding their numbers blissfully uninterested in the finite nature their "sugary-gell" resources.

In that model, where we are a bacteria and the Earth is the dish of finite resources, our population is ultimately limited. It will not grow exponentially forever, as the Earth's resources are not infinite, even though one can see that human population can grow at an exponential rate (while the resources are not yet exhausted).

So, at some point the growth curve will round off. I just finished reading Carl Sagan (and Ann Druyan)'s book "Billions and Billions" from which some of my thoughts on this are derived.

The point is this: an individual deciding not to breed will never limit or reduce the potential population of the Earth. The population will march forward so long as even 2 people and their offspring breed exponentially. Their descendants will eventually fill the whole earth. So the only thing to stop it is a die off due to failing resources. We can become more efficient and try to become more just in the sharing of resources, but ultimately that upper limit is where the population cannot grow any more because of hunger, thirst and exposure.

The only decision those who choose not to reproduce are deciding is, how many of the future Earthlings will be their descendants.

To control population we must get everyone on board...EVERYONE. If we can disable reproductive powers and hand them out at a controlled rate we can then control the future balance. It's like polio, you must vaccinate everyone or you have not solved the problem.

Right now, it is a contest between you and me as to how many of the future humans will resemble me or you. The end of expansion will come in all cases, all you can do is lay hold on more resources. This is how many people are thinking who try to out-breed others.

Groups are conscientiously using Natalism to compete for the Earth's limited resources and space. The Palestinians are breeding with wreckless abandon to try to "outnumber" the already small (in a planet wide sense) group of Jews.

Mormons have a culture of pushing breeding to try to out strip the world population growth rate. Although they are noticeably failing to increase the Mormon percentage of the Earth's population. They are being strongly out done by the other groups. Making Mormons a smaller and smaller percentage of Earth's population even with their growth rates and missionary efforts.

You can't stop Central Americans from breeding at ages far closer to the onset of fertility than is culturally acceptable in the United States, so in that sense, the future will be more of them and less of us. Their time-span for a "Generation" could be half that of ours. That's a "survival of the fittest" strategy where they are winning. Not to mention the highly successful Asians.

Even if many humans die off at an alarming rate when the "sugary-gel" (Earth's life sustaining resources) vanishes, those left will resemble the current proportions of groups that had both wealth and large numbers of offspring.

So, is it irresponsible to reproduce? The upper limit is already set to stop our exponential growth. That limit is set by the finite availability of food, shelter, water, warmth and wealth. Choosing not to reproduce, even if MOST of us chose the same thing, is only a way to subtract your genetic heritage from history and quit the contest. It will not reduce the march upward, it will happen as fast as it can with or without your genes. All you are deciding is how many of the left over humans will be like you.

All it takes is one non-compliant group and over a few generations they will exponentially fill the space you leave by not having children. Self-selecting your own unfitness to propagate seems remarkably self-defeating.

If we disable reproduction and manage it, allowing a balanced mix of people to procreate, then we can control the future by our actions. Until such a freedom limiting method is instituted by an awful sounding regime, individual choice will not reduce the world population. Others will just grow more.

=sw