Population

Let the reader go to the nearest shopping center, the nearest supermarket. Let him look around and think: 'How much easier life would be when 999 of the 1000 people where not here'. All this thronging of people going to buy, let us say 'essentials', food, soap, toilet-paper! They go home and eat it, use it, and then, in a couple of days, they are back again. A street in London or Rome, all these busses, cars, scooters, how nice it would be if only 1 out of the 1000 was there. Or take some roundabout in the center of the Netherlands. This continuous stream of traffic going on and on, all people inside going 'somewhere'. What is the purpose of it all, the logics of it? Where and why are they all going. Should you come to know, you would realise how little it all means to someone's happiness, his well-being. True, there might be one individual in there who is going to see his parents, long neglected, or friends, long not seen. But then, he could easily go there by bicycle, or by a silent, electrical, fast, train, only filled up for such rare occasions. The rest of the traffic ... could easily all go. All these washing-machines, carpets, truckloads of lifechicken, going from A to B, and those from B going to A (and further). These cars, then, would not have to be produced, neither would be the spare parts, the fuel, the snowmachines in winter, the daylight flooding during the night, the energy for it, etc., etc. All these workers and all this energy, these earth-resources, could then be devoted to go and lead a useful life (when being taught how to do so). But, let me be clear before going on first of all. I would NOT propagate putting all these people in a gas chamber, or through a sausage machine !!! True, our problems would be over, we would have clean air, clear water, but the price is inhumane. Only nature's method here, is to be thought of. Nature's method can NEVER be wrong. Unnatural-, and anti-natural methods are solely reserved for man, for 3 rd degree ideation and acts, and they would require common sense, planning, organization, rights and duties of man, human dignity. These observed population phenomena tally accurately with ... simple recreation. Beaches, rivers, forests, and ... traffic and traffic. How would one pro mille do! Indeed, all this is number dependent. It represents the pressure of overpopulation leading to conflict, nerve complaints, war and gas-chambers. So it is with the use of electricity, of wood (formerly woods and forests), plastic 'throw-away' cups, saucers, plates, platters, spoons, knives and forks, but also children's toys, plate-glass, insane products like chewing gum, the very butchering of pigs and cows, the production of washing machines and the polluting operation of them, the soaps in the rivers, and the soap factories, etc., etc. One man, every person, causes roughly one-five-billionth of the total destruction. NUMBER DEPENDENCY! All problems, all world-problems may be caused by ideation indeed, they only get real substance by numbers, multitudes. Once, it was thought that the drug, the golden triangle would see to a natural diminishing of the world-population. Certainly, the traffic accidents do not exert much influence, nor are earthquakes, droughts and floods, heart- attacks, or the small-scale wars in the Lebanon, Shri Lanka and so on very effective, in a de-population to the tune of three zero's (5 billion to 5 million). Then, there was the hope in a distinctive trend through the pop bastards, to advocate massive suicide for youth. It looked promising but came to nothing. It held a favourable discriminating factor though. Not, like in wars, would the prime of healthy youth be decimated, but those who had no use for anything in life, not even for themselves. It now seems that nature made a lucky strike by the invention of AIDS. With a doubling period of one year, and starting with 1000, it would take 23 years to reach a 5 billion. By then, the 'breeding storm' could well have produced a billion or so more to add to the total. Besides, our expectancy for planetary survival does not cover a full 23 years.

We live under the cruel empire of the masses (Vivimos bajo el brutal imperio de las masas.

said Ortega. This is not only thanks to the phenomenon of group-consciousness, but also to the over-'mass'ive population that makes for clodding, clustering therefore for war. When rats are placed in over-crowded conditions they too show a higher aggressivity. Take a volume of milk and dilute it a 1000 times with water. Now try to make butter of it. A world population of a thousandth of today would not curdle into nations. Group-consciousness is fed by crowdiness, it consists of vulgarity. When you are in a life-boat, fit for only 10, but loaded to its gunnels with 50 persons, you will not so much become a victim of the cruel sea but more of overcrowding. Quite possibly, you would not start throwing 40 people overboard, but you most certainly, would object to having 50 more people added. The life-boat Earth, almost on its way to the deeps through overcrowding, also has such a 'maximum' load. What is this number? In 1931, there was a symposium about the future of man. It was on an afternoon of New Years day. During this, prof. Kidder warned severely that, unless we acted intelligently, now (1931), our civilization was in for a terrific crash. It was then envisaged, that a world population of 0.35 billion (and speaking all the same language (72) ) would be still a world of wars. In those days, 1931, the actual world population was 1.9 billion i.e. more than 5 times the critical of 0. 35. (not speaking ...). In the same days, Wells spoke of the 'Breeding Storm' and was very concerned about it. Today, 1985, there are 4.8 billion persons on the planet or a factor of 13 times. Even in Plato's time, the burden of man on his own environment (especially through de-forestation), was far too heavy, was catastrophical. It had caused the whole Mediterranean to be 'semi-desert' although Plato, lacking the knowledge we have now, was not aware of that. He did not know that his own country had once been lushy green, long before Iliad. The amount of charcoal e.g. that was needed for the smelting of metals, the quantity of wood for constructions (rapidly destroyed by the enemy) taxed the Mediterranean climate far over its limits. In general, every individual on Earth, 'causes' so many cubic stonethrows of wood to be killed, so many tons of the various metals to be smelted and transported, by, again, energy swallowing methods, so many radios, television sets, bicycles, etc. to be produced (under energy absorption), so many KWH's converted in the power stations thus devastating our environment, etc., etc. and, in addition to that, they require oxygen too. Knowing about the overloaded condition in Plato's time, the estimates made during the symposium of 1931, appear now wholly ludicrous. Naturally, for a better figure, a better estimate, we must take into account an existing level of luxury, of semi-essentials, that adds greatly to the problems, hence to the solution for a safe and secure future (73). It is impossible to go back to nature, i.e. go without metals, without fire, as it is without sane organization. We must guess anew. There is another deduction to be made from the example of the life-boat. Would we be all-right when only one person was in it, it being made for 10? No way. Even this would endanger the live more than say the proper load of ten, or even 14. The rule of 'the least, the best' does not work, although, only one pair of humans on the planet would make their future quite extensive. A better estimate would be a reduction of the contemporary number by three zero's. Indeed, a planetary population of 5 million, instead of 5 billion would give us more, better chance, a better climate than Plato had. But this seems preposterous to the average reader. Do you mean to say that we have managed to place the optimal population of 1000 such planets on only one? Indeed, without fiddling about the precise estimates, with decimals, even factors of 2 or 3, it is clear that the population density on our planet was even destructive in Homer's time, we have got to go some factors 10 below that. But then there will not be enough men to dig the necessary coal!? Indeed, but also, there will be far fewer people (furnaces, power stations, factories, washing machines, etc.) to need this coal. It is why a maximum population of, say, only 1000 for the whole planet, is a little too low (although not lethal). There is a healthy necessity for persons getting specialized for some of the jobs that need be done for the well-being of the whole (not the least, scientists, educators (see mr. Coker in Wyndham's 'Triffids'), etc.). A fair estimate of 5 million, roughly the population after the last Ice age, may easily prove IN PRAXIS, to be happier when doubled or halved. There is no harm in deciding so then. True enough, everybody then, need only to do active work, necessary work, compulsory work, during perhaps two, three or four months in every year, but this need not make for unhappiness. We still have to teach them how to live happily 'on their own steam', i.e. without being constantly entertained by others. But say, a Britain with only 60 thousand instead of 60 million, isn't that empty? No! Man-emptiness implies a tree-fullness, air-clearness, water-clean-ness, and the empty life of today, may become full when only one pro mille of the people remain. Remember too that a life-boat made for 10, has less chance with one or two persons in it than with the full load, or half of that. When survival is difficult, we need some persons 'in co-operation' in order to save our lives. That is why co-operation must be mondial not national (competitive). Wells, in his novel 'The Holy Terror' therefore speaks of a new world organization as: 'Parallel Independent Cooperation'. Indeed, a co-operation that has to start with all well-thinking people. With regard to the life-boat example, certainly, we would not throw out 40 persons, taking life never has an excuse (no Summum Bonum (31.4). But there is a difference in not admitting 50 real-life persons, and not adding not (yet) existing persons. Before conception, a person does not exist, has therefore no rights. Immediately after conception, he has full rights (the rights of man start 9 months before birth). Infanticide therefore is out of the question, but 'not-producing' persons is the solution. Now, everything that we can think of in our world, has been produced on purpose, has been made on purpose except, new citizens. True, it is widely known that certain acts 'may' produce a baby, but while acting (copulation), there never is a thought of actually producing offspring. It is like meeting a man on a bicycle who on the question of where he is going, answers that he did not know he was on a bike, was thinking he was preparing a meal. The new-world citizen of today, arrives more or less unexpected, is regarded somewhat as a domesticated pet that can learn to speak too, but never as a potential-, future-, participant in world-citizenship. We must plan our population, not only qua number, but certainly as purposeful act to add an integer, happy individual. Not, as in Wells' Holy Terror:

People marry for passion, a most improper motive, and their children take them by surprise.