Overpopulation
Grindcore is violent, murderous music by people who care about the world. One could say it is anti-human, or non-anthrocentric, since it tends to veer away from human perspectives, like its brothers in death metal and black metal.
So, after we’ve covered the usual political topics, we have one left to consider, and it’s a tricky one:
Overpopulation.
Why is it tricky? Because in order to depopulate, people need to die. (So it goes). In order to have zero population growth, people will need their “freedom to reproduce” taken away. And not everyone will agree with this — a lot of people have the idea in the back of their head that humanity can continue on reproducing and growing, because science will find a way to allow us to go beyond our 7 billion people.
Anyone who speaks out against overpopulation and unchecked growth will be going against the herd, and outcasted. But if anyone knows the history of grindcore musicians, they’re not afraid of being outcasted for what they truly believe in.
Something tells me this would be the perfect lyrical theme for a good song, too.
Overpopulation is the world’s top environmental issue, followed closely by climate change and the need to develop renewable energy resources to replace fossil fuels, according to a survey of the faculty at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF).
The reality is that our Earth has a limited amount of resources to offer to humans, without destroying herself. For one, there needs to be enough land and fertilizer to go around to feed billions of mouths, and enough fresh water to grow those crops
But while that happens, millions of others starve. And because of unchecked population growth, those millions grow into billions of starving people. The land that those crops were growing on eventually loses the ability to produce its own nutrients, and becomes barren and desertified. So in essence, we’re digging deeper into a dry well.
Once that gut-reaction has kicked in, I then think of the horrible history of overpopulation predictions. Most famous, the 18th century demographer Thomas Malthus said mass starvation was inevitable because population increases geometrically while food production grows arithmetically. He didn’t anticipate the coming of the Industrial Revolution. His successors in the 1960s, such as Paul Ehrich and the Club of Rome, similarly didn’t see the Green Revolution that was galloping around the corner of history.
So it is tempting to say now that the overpopulation argument will smack into some new technological development. It’s not quite true to say there is a diminishing amount of resources, because the genius of human beings is to find new ways to use what is there. Two centuries ago, nobody could have conceived that the sun’s rays or the waves in the ocean were a resource to be used — but solar and tidal power make it so.
And yet, and yet … why do my own arguments leave me echoing with doubt? A dark voice in my head says: You would accept that, to pluck an absurd number, 100 billion people would be too many. You don’t think human genius is infinitely expansive; there is a limit to what it can solve. So isn’t the question just where you draw the line? If 100 billion is too much, why not 9 billion?
The blissfully ignorant point at graphs and say “Oh look, there’s millions of people who aren’t in poverty and starving anymore,” neglecting to see that we’re still walking up the escalator that’s going down: the population of the people in above-poverty is staying proportionately the same to the people in poverty. But the total population still grows. It seems like we’re going somewhere, but we’re still stuck in the same rut, walking up the same steps.
Think of the earth’s resources as a pie, and that we live in a perfect world where everyone gets an equal slice without fighting. There’s four people, there’s four equally-large slices for them. There’s 12 people, there’s 12 modest slices for them. If there’s 800 people, there will be a ridiculous sliver for each of them.
Overpopulation is the elephant in the room, because when you bring it up, you’re essentially saying “there’s not enough room for everyone on this lifeboat.” But for the sake of everyone on it, do we let it sink and everyone on it die, or let a couple drown and continue to float on? This is a problem that genuinely concerns everyone!
The usual argument against population control is “UR A ELITIST EVERYONE IS EQUAL AND DESERVES A CHANCE. CONTROLLING POPULATION IS INHUMANE!!!”
Consider this: does anyone deserve the “chance” to be equally born into a crowded hellhole? Do we really want to do this to our children, leave them a burned out, dried-up Earth to our future generations? An Earth with a hazy atmosphere which burns your eyes, water and artificial food that is poisoned with industrial byproducts and hormones, and wars fought over dwindling precious resources?
Now tell us which direction is more inhumane.
Here’s a few more resources and articles on overpopulation:
well, once again a problem without much propositions to solve it. But it’s quite interesting to discuss that on such a blog.
Reading the pages you gave links to, it seems that some people may be affraid to face the problem – but the others are definitely affraid to face the solution. Indeed, the very first question to ask should be “why do people reproduce at those rates?”. To me, overpopulation is rather a collateral damage than a genuine problem.
There are of course obvious economic reasons for it. Having a large family multiplies sources of income (as cooperation between individuals is more efficient than the simple sum of individuals). If I were poor, and clever, I would thus certainly have several children. Some would be sacrificed to work in the fields, some others to beg in the closest city, that other one would be allowed to go to school and, who knows?, maybe he or she could migrate, find a decent and human situation and send some change back. The most cynic businessman knows that he must diversify his incomes – why poor people with such a developed survival instinct shouldn’t?
Of course, if I live in a poor country, I certainly don’t have any easy access to medication – so I guess I’d need to get many children to get sure enough will live individually so that we can survive collectively. There’s nothing wrong living like that.
In the other hand, looking at some maps, it also seems to me that overpopulation is rather well correlated with the influence of the local religious power and associated criminal anti-abortion lobbies.
So all in all, destroy all religions, redistribute wealth – and you may get it. As long as religion and money will govern us, there is no solution to overpopulation – or do it the chinese way. But then, please, provide me a rocket to leave this Earth.
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“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second.”
“The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world”
Thomas Robert Malthus
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