overpopulation

 For many decades now the news and scientists have been complaining that we're overpopulating the planet. In fact in the seventies they were teaching that there really only needed to be a few hundred thousand people on the entire planet carefully segregated into standalone communities that would not infect each other if some sort of dangerous virus got out of control. So the idea was that less than 1 million people would live on the planet and carry forward our species. Well obviously we haven't gone down this road.

On the other side of the same coin we keep coming up with ways to keep people alive. In the 1970s people died at about age 70, 50 years later people die at about age 80. It seems kind of strange that we're working so hard to keep people alive when we wish there were fewer of them. The reason for this probably has to do with money. The elderly are a massive Cash cow. And there's a massive industry to support the elderly. And the healthcare industry has provide special accommodations for the elderly. As an old person I'm not sure what the point of any of this is, it seems like it's way better to die at 70 happy than to die miserable at 80.

One of the problems with old age is how people age. Some people are withered and dying in their 50s or 60s, and some people are healthy and dynamic into their 80s or even 90s. At the beginning of Life we know generally what's going to happen. Over a 15-year period you're going to become an adult like person. But at the other end of the ride it isn't so clear what's going to happen to you. If you want to call old age being in your 60s, then you may die at 60 or you may die at a hundred. And while growing up is generally straightforward and fairly predictable, the path you take to your last breath is less so.

Also, the population is only able to grow because each woman can produce more than two children. For instance my wife had seven brothers and sisters. Well this leads to a four-fold increase in population. You start with two and end up with eight. The solution to this used to be that many children died before they reached the age of five. Then periodically we would have massive wars that wiped out millions of men, and on top of that we would have diseases that would sometimes wipe out half the population. But there have been two significant changes in our situation over the last hundred years. We've largely wiped out childhood diseases, so most kids that are born make it to adulthood and reproduce. The other significant change is the atomic bomb. Since the atomic bomb we have simply quit having these massive wars where we line up millions of guys and shoot each other. If you look at every war since world war II the number of people killed has been very small. The idea that you're going to start throwing nukes at each other just isn't very appealing.

I don't have a general solution to overpopulation. But if you look at the surface of the planet, very little of it is actually covered by people. In fact in the most densely populated cities, if you look around you probably won't see any other people. They can all go inside somewhere to their own little space. People are not sleeping out on the sidewalks in sleeping bags, because there's literally no space. There is just no place like this on the planet. And when you go outside of these highly populated areas the population even thins way down. The planet could be many times more populated than it currently is and still provide enough food and water and oxygen for everyone. Now of course there would be questions of hygiene and disease control, but just the idea that we've overpopulated the planet is ridiculous.