Part of the problem is the acceptance of converting wealth and quality of life into currency. Currency as a form of IOU, has led to profligate overconsumption and attendant waste, by the West and indutrialized as well as post industrial nations — especially the United States. It is easier to turn a redwood tree into toothpicks and then dollars, than the other way around.
Everywhere I see lawn grass, I can envision dandelions for salad and other non or low maintenance edible landscapes. Even though all can be fed if a little common sense were used, that doesn’t mean population shouldn’t be reduced via lower birth rates.
Perhaps looking at this from the perspective that there are too many overconsuming wasteful undereducated people makes sense — what are you doing to create wealth and enhance quality of life? How expensive are you to the planet?
I asked this in another thread, but I also want to point out how all four of these items are related at least in part. I truly believe overpopulation is an environmental problem — if we do nothing to manage human population, mother nature will hand us some sort of a J-curve. This could take many forms but probably social, biological, or negative environmental feedback — anthropogenic effects from the mere presence of too many people or some combination of these and other yet to be identified cofactors.
On education, I think it is time to ramp up education and begin to max out the potential of as many human beings as is possible, while focusing on those with the greatest capacities for development. I do not think it wise to churn out idiot savants, instead there should be great emphasis on multi-disciplinarian development. Recent examples would be Jacob Bronowski and Buckminster Fuller. In the past Leonardo Da Vinci would be the prime example. Is it possible to identify and develop these types of people, who have ranges of expertise in several fields, so they can bring nimble integrated thinking to problem solving in the future? I hope so, and hope if so that it is done. Every such brain not developed, is a pox on the species future and the future of many other species.
Economy should be more than the destruction of trees for currency. Some might call that inflation, I am one of them. Many so called “type A” individuals get paid IOU/currency to shuffle paper around. That is also inflationary via cost of opportunity lost. Paying anyone anything who does nothing, or for things such as wars and religions is inflationary. Some are called managers. What do they manage? If you need to be managed, you should probably be fired, so you can find something to do at a level or occupation that doesn’t require “management.” We need more people to be auto correcting, and they need to be compensated very well, because they are actually adding value or “creating wealth.” As you might well imagine, many of these “type A” individuals, were or are still in the financial sector from banking to brokering. While many of these people are industrious in their efforts to get compensated, I refuse to call the financial sector an industry. Most managers are people who need something to do. Now I could be wrong here, and if someone has something to counter this, please do so. But, I introduce GM, Chrysler, Lehman Bros., the domestic steel industry and the textile industry as the first hurdle for you. Convince me of the necessity of the management in those corporations, industries and the value of the product of their labors (no, I am not talking about the line workers), and why in the hell any society would have seen fit to pay them anything besides papers charging them with economic treason (only if there were such a charge!). There is inflation just about everytime someone gets paid if they didn’t think of something to make, or actually make something utilitarian. (The only exceptions for me that are tolerable are art, athletics, music and literature. Does blogging count? Only if I were paid for some gossip column)
Everything we do creates a legacy — not always positive. We need more educated people, especially visionaries in the highest places, to replace the greedy self aggrandizing no account overpaid “type A” managers and those who inherit instead of earn by merit, their compensation. In general, we need fewer managers. Decimation is not enough. Probably 9/10 need to be put to work as producers (or starve and reduced to fertilizer; nothing like a little soylent green!! that is not to be taken literally).
Clearly, experiencing a J-curve would be demonstrable proof, of our myopic over-estimation of our species intelligence. This is one area where actual management should take place. Simple education would help this greatly. Almost, if not all of the countries with better education, have lower birthrates than we do. Needless to say, getting the pre-industrial developing nations educated, can have them save a couple of steps in development, cut down on consumption/waste per capita and lower birthrates concurrently. Somewhere between 500,000,000 and 2 billion is probably optimal. This can be done quickly. In 120 years from now, practically all who are alive now will be dead.
We need more visionary genius regarding issues on a planetary scale, especially in the near term next 50 years in energy, environment, water and how to develop more Da Vincis. Those who are wanting to blow resources on wars, paying do nothings or parasites, aiding some godly religions, maintaining nation states with fences, military budgets and prisons as the highest form of human assembly, or simply feel as though the world owes them because of their socially entitled ”birth right,” or are involved in the suppression or oppression of people based on gender differences or idiotic constructs of race especially in the name of some damned religion or other construct, need to be starved into productivity. I don’t think the species has much more time to screw around the planet with stupid wars, stupid religions, stupid waste, or stupidity. Look at the success of the cockroach. Billions of them live and they are not a threat to themselves. What is our intelligence worth? The intelligence of the cockroach compared to it’s lifestyle appears to be superior to our species intelligence compared to our species life style. Mere awareness does not justify the presumptive self assessment of intelligence on our part. If the cockroach can do it, why is it we who are facing at best a foreboding future. I don’t want anyone to underestimate the potential for catastrophic global heating. The oceans and tundra have a lot of CO2 to release. It is time to call this a planetary threat, maybe even to terrestrial life itself.
We will need highly educated people, involved in the economy of creating wealth and quality of life, in an environmentally protective way, and to manage population downward via birth reduction, while ferreting out multi disciplinary geniuses, with more generalists in the managing that is really needed. The “management” of GM and the rest of the above I mentioned previously, need not apply. We also need these people to really not be the what’s in it for me types, we’ve tried that. Just be crazy enough to care.
Great Post, Ed. Next time, park the editor. There’s no gravel in this voice.
Cheers,
Managers are mostly for those who are not self motivated, but they also serve the purpose of organizing. I can’t tell how important it for me to manage large projects so that they flow smoothly. I don’t think you actually have a problem with managers, but your point is well taken. I apply the same logic to laws. Laws are for law breakers, and not for people who make moral decisions. Therefore I have no use for laws.
Education is powerful and we don’t give it enough credit. Looking into history we attribute stable wealth to good governing, but it’s not. Stable wealth has always come from education alone. We flood poor countries with money and aid, yet they remain poor. The only chance they have is education. We should flood them with education. This is why I felt as though it is much more important to volunteer than it is to give money. Money can be misused, but moral teaching can not. We, as an educated society, are all capable of teaching. Teaching come in many forms and I’m not so sure we have our own priorities straight when it comes to the lessons we’re teaching. Ethics is first given as an optional class in high school. If we want to get rid of that “What’s in it for me?” attitude, we have to teach it and practice it ourselves. Currently it is not taught and therefore not practiced. We teach the importance of gaining more wealth or finding a career that makes us happy. Where in these teachings are we thinking of someone else? We have developed a society that allows us to function around our selfish attitude, but by doing so we have used the less fortunate to prop up ourselves. If the world had some grasp on equality of wealth, everyone would find it cheaper and more efficient to produce within a much smaller proximity of consumption. This would cut down on our environmental impact. I can think of about a hundred other ways how education and a more balanced wealth amongst the world would improve our planets health. Education is the answer.
Ed, I don’t think you have anything against religion. I think you have something against ignorance. If you can think of anything that you actually have against religion, please let me know.
I still haven’t heard a single fact to back up the claim that we are overpopulated.
Nathan,
You would teach that there is no overpopulation, while Ed would teach otherwise. So who are to be our teachers? How do we decide what should be taught and by whom? Even though evolution is taught in American schools, it’s rejected by a good portion of the population. Same thing with climate change. So I don’t see how education is the answer to our problems when we can’t even agree on what should and shouldn’t be taught.
I haven’t heard a single fact from you to back up the claim that we are NOT overpopulated. Not only that but you’ve never stated the criteria for overpopulation. When is it enough? 10 billion, 20 billion? When the system fails entirely? How do you know with absolute certainty that we are not already past the population tipping point?
We are all in an elevator. There is a man with a can of gas, a cigarette and a match, in a country where it is still legal to smoke in buildings. How much tolerance for the legal rights do you have? The answer may be obvious because it is an acute situation. Allowing people to be overpaid in the form of IOUs, overpopulation, and wars are like that match and gas can. Sovereignty gives some groups of people aligned with a nation state, a presumptive right to take actions that may be legal, yet how much tolerance should we give or have?
Any normal funtioning one day old baby is more like any 1 day old baby ever born in the last 100,000 years, than any two adults born at any time. The babies have yet to be environmentally programmed to embrace mythical cultural ignorances, as truths to be defended. We should look in the mirror, and reject the environmental programming we have become accustomed to and feel safe with. Being a generalist, will help weed out the near and dear cultural rubbish poisoning the future of humanity.
Sue, you’re scaring the children again. I did tell you when I would consider the world as being too populated. Using your numbers, which were far more excessive then my own, I calculated a number for you. But some arbitrary number doesn’t matter, because it is exactly that, arbitrary. Environmental impact per person multiplied by the total population and then compare that to the total environmental impact in which earth can negate without drastic environmental changes, will find whether or not we need to decrease one or both of the two variables. Even though all variables vary and are opinion based, the math can still help me explain. Even with changing variables the result can stay the same. For example, raise the total population and decease the impact per person and you can still get the same answer. So there are two variables that can change, not one. I will concede that we are overpopulated when we are no longer able to reduce our impact per person to a viable number in relation to our total pop.
But it doesn’t matter what I say or show you; in your mind we are overpopulated. This is strange to me, because you seem to be somebody that would question everything before making up your mind. I know that you are very passionate about the environment, but coming up with a crisis to get people to go along with you is disingenuous. Don’t get me wrong, it works but it’s not honest.
I’m not working against you. I simply look at all life as beautiful and therefore want the most of it. I agree the we need to reduce our environmental impact, but I don’t see it in the crisis mode that you do. I don’t think it should matter whether we are in a crisis or not, we should try to do the right thing.
The school of Ed and the school of Nathan would share the common goal of getting people to think for themselves. This is something that is missing from the current educational system. The reasonability of teachers is not to give information for student to memorize or to inflect the students with their views. A teachers responsibility is to help students think. Gym for the mind. When you add ethics to independent minds you can start solving the worlds problems.
Nathan, I agree with Ed; despite a few misspellings, the content of your writing shows great intelligence as well as compassion (except for cyclists on the road I guess). Apparently your teachers were successful in helping you to think independently and in great depth.
I’m not sure if I would categorically say the world is overpopulated. I agree with you that it depends on the impact we have by the way we live. If we could drastically change our bad habits of waste, pollution, and overuse, the earth could theoretically support a large number of humans. Unfortunately I’m not optimistic about the necessary changes being made, which is why I predict imminent catastrophe. I’m not “coming up with a crisis to get people to go along,” I’m just calling it like I see it.
It’s paradoxical for me to believe we are doomed while at the same time trying to do everything in my power to preserve the environment, but like you said, it doesn’t matter whether we are in a crisis, we should do the right thing.
There is a philosophy that I’ve been trying to wrap my head around for some time now that states that the idea of “not enough” is false. Not enough food, water, land, money, time, etc. The New Age “plenty” philosophy assures us that there is enough and there will always be enough. It sounds good in theory, but is it practical?
I admire your optimism and I actually agree with you 99%. It’s possible we will pull our heads out of our butts in time to save civilization, but I’m still intent on learning all the primitive skills I’ll need just in case we don’t.
Thank you all for such compliments. I am in life long battle with my pride. It wasn’t until I realized that I had nothing to do with my ability to think, but instead I simply could just controlled the focus of it, before I started being able to control my pride in any way. I still struggle with my own pride each and every day. For this reason it is difficult for me to except compliments because it feeds my worst enemy, my pride. I have finally came to terms with the concept that God gave me whatever intelligence that I have, but it will be a complete waste unless I can focus it on things that matter.
And no, my education was a complete failure. I dropped out of high school as soon as I could and went to college. But despite decent grades for the first time in my life, I couldn’t find the motivation and stopped going for a degree. I had the opportunity to get an education, in which many people around the world literally die for, but I wasted it. It is frustrating trying to do something that I really enjoy, like writing, yet turning around and seeing that it is unreadable. I was always on a different level with my well intentioned teachers. I always wanted to know the relevancy of the shit they wanted me to memorize. Unfortunately they didn’t have the time or patience and I didn’t have the trust to learn something without reason. I now I look back at my education with a lot of regrets. I now know the importance of things in which I refused to learn. So on that note Mike is right, I’m ignorant.
Blogging has given me opportunity to have my ideas challenged in an intellectual way. I appreciate all time, thought, and concern in which everyone takes to blog. It’s difficult to start such conversations without someone getting offended or running from such personal topics.
Every one is ignorant. Learning to understand mitigates some of that ignorance. Those who are certain that they know (in absolute terms), without any shade or nuance of understanding, as a part of a consideration, are the ones that can be safely called stupid — they are no longer learning. Things that are exceedingly simple, can be described mathematically with great accuracy. No such algorithms exist for social sciences, economics, life sciences and interfaces within environmental sciences except for snippets and threads here and there. that is why much information about these type of fields is prefaced with this introduction to conclusions; a preponderance of evidence suggests……
Opinion and interpretation is the personal frosting on a cake baked from those snippets and threads of “knowable” algorithms. Combining the gathering of the snippets and threads and your personal frosting is a type of intelligence. Being clear is of course important, but an idiot savant in grammar and or spelling, does not preclude idiocy in the thrust of postulated argument or position.
The more people there are on this planet, the more educated they will have to be per person, regarding resources and planetary sensitivity to anthropogenic climatary changes. Remember, this species came up with the idea of Mutally Assured Destruction (MAD). I am not sure this should be considered the foundation of superior intellect. That this came from “leaders,” is enough to call into suspicion those who would “lead,” anything regarding concentrated power or wealth.
Ed, I don’t think you have anything against religion. I think you have something against ignorance. If you can think of anything that you actually have against religion, please let me know.
Yes, I have something against religion. Possibly every religion is a vehicle of corruption of any ideals espoused by the “founders,” and their dreams of hope and a better humanity.
Managers are mostly for those who are not self motivated, but they also serve the purpose of organizing. I can’t tell how important it for me to manage large projects so that they flow smoothly. I don’t think you actually have a problem with managers, but your point is well taken.
I have a problem with most managers. Most are not needed. Those who are not self motivated should be fired and when they get hungry, they will begin to work. The world I see has no room for the slothful. The few managers that would remain would be organizers and teachers of those that they would oversee. They would note and assemble any functionally good ideas from the line or floor and mate them with the visionary’s goal. All the managers of managers are pretty superfluous — a waste of a paycheck and giving buying power to someone who has essentially done nothing. A manager should be able to “manage” hundreds of self motivated and self correcting workers to be worthy of his check. If you have workers that are not motivated and capable, get rid of them. You are wasting your time and even their time.
I will stand by my claim that you don’t have anything against religion, not because I know what you think, but instead because there’s nothing to hold against it. Religion is not rituals, customs, or practices. Religion is personal beliefs concerning the divine. People believe in ignorant things because they are ignorant Religion is used as a vehicle because people choose to ride on it. Corruption is a word used to pass blame; no one is corrupted, they just refuse to think for themselves. The choice of ignorance is easy and therefore prevalent. Most who claim to be religious are no more religious then you. You, yourself have a personal belief in the divine; whether that belief in the existence of it or not, it is still your religion. You think religion is ignorant, but I say people are ignorant and so follows their beliefs. I am religious, yet I have only accepted a ride on a religious vehicle when I choose to be ignorant. When I finally saw that the vehicle wasn’t going the right way, I got off. I was lost and in the dark, but eventually I found my way back and even started heading in the right direction. When I was in a vehicle everything passed by in a blur, so it felt more comfortable sitting back enjoying ride without any concern for what I was passing by. Now that I’m slowly walking I see things before I pass them by.
I understand your stance on religion, but don’t believe in a religion that was founded through peoples ignorance.
You, Sue, Mitch, my wife and I all have a faith based on action before prayer. I think that is what you are defining — not religion. They are called sheep who go to churches and places of worship as if any divinity would give a damn about some babbledegook spoken by some self proclaimed conduit to the divine, in a bunch of bricks and mortar. If you can get and feel faith while in such a place — wonderful. I have been exposed to too many hypocrites in such places. People always praying and doing nothing to make those prayers happen.
I am sure we get to good spiritual places via very different paths. That to me is not religion and it’s dogmatic programming. So keep the faith, it is good even if you don’t believe in good and evil.