We share the earth with
at least five billion other human beings. Wherever we go, we find long queues
of people. Anything you want is in demand. Unemployment, the rising cost of
living, pollution... The list of problems we face is long and becoming longer.
And of course, we have all heard many people and read innumerable articles
'analysing' all this ad nauseum.
What mystifies me, totally and absolutely, is how they fail to track down
the causes to their root. While everyone keeps talking about these issues
and what causes them and what can be done to tackle them, they seem to be
talking only about treating the symptoms and not the causes. The solution
to unemployment? Create more jobs. The solution to rising costs? Increased
production at decreased costs. The solution to pollution? Stricter controls
and policing. What nonsense. What utter nonsense.
We try to treat the disease rather than to prevent it. What is the cause of
unemployment? Overpopulation. What is the cause of rising costs? Overpopulation.
Why is there so much pollution? Because there are so many people. Yes, this
is over-simplification. But anyone can see, if they open their eyes long enough
and look past the rhetoric they have been subjected to all their lives, that
almost all the troubles we face today can be traced back, directly or indirectly,
to overpopulation.
So why this refusal to
see the real cause? And what can we really do to tackle it? The refusal is
very easy to see. It is a socially-enforced code, the same code which makes
you think killing children is worse than killing adults. It is society's instinct
of survival. So, we are forced to look elsewhere for an answer that we know.
As for the tackling bit, it's pretty simple - don't have children. This requires
a lot of courage and belief. Just think - if only ten percent of all prospective
fathers and mothers thought this way and did not have children, what a difference
it would make.
And the most difficult
part of such a decision would be facing people and explaining this to them.
Ah, society and its wily ways!
Cheers.