PREDICTING THE FUTURE
April 13, 2009
I'm going to go out on the proverbial limb here and toy with the eccentric pastime of foretelling the future. We do it all the time in small ways, but I'm going to try and do it on a somewhat larger scale.
The trick to making such predictions resides primarily in the task of acquiring a good understanding of what is happening now. When we're on the highway, for example, and see a hill in the distance, we are in effect seeing our future. We are driving our car in a certain direction, and there is a definite rise ahead of us. On the basis of the current events just described (and barring any mishaps) the landscape directly in front of us is a picture of our immediate future. We need but apply the same technique to the world at large to get a glimpse of what sort of terrain it will—very likely—be traversing in a few short years.
When I say "the world at large" I am of course referring to the social world of the human animal. In the natural world, astronomers have been predicting eclipses (as well as the reappearance of comets) for years, but the movements associated with the activities of human beings are not quite so mechanical.
When we take a hard look at the world presently before us, there is one feature that stands out more auspiciously than any other: population. The size of the human tribe is fast approaching the seven-billion mark.
Inextricably associated with this observation is the obvious and sobering reality that the real estate that supports that tribe is not growing in size. To the best of my knowledge the earth has not increased in surface area for over four-billion years.
What does this mean (or should I say portend)? Very simply, that more and more mouths will be clamoring for less and less available space. The outcome of all this clamoring will result in one of two possibilities. We will either find ways to accommodate all of these hungry people, or we will not.
If we are unable to sustain such a large population, the outcome of such a failure is a no-brainer: bloodshed. If we are able to sustain it, it is a sure bet (and here's where I'm going out on a limb) that capitalism will not play the major role in our ability to provide for so many billions of starving souls.
Why? Because capitalism is a system of resource usage that is based upon dog-eat-dog individualism (a winner-loser paradigm). It is difficult to imagine an orderly and dependable process of resource-provision for such burgeoning multitudes that is built on a system that embraces what may be fairly described as helter-skelter at its very core. In short, successfully managing increasing populations requires that a correspondingly-increasing system of order be in place as its foundation. The chaos of capitalism may be indulged in the context of lower population-land area ratios, but higher ratios require systems that are more ordered. The higher the ratio the higher the necessary order.
The choice for the future is the same as it has always been, that between chaos and order. But the present context for the ageless choice is dramatically different. There has never been a population of humans so large.
If nothing else, we may therefore safely predict that confrontations and conflict will be ever before us.
It will require not only new technologies to assist us in our efforts to maintain the peace in a world of seven-billion human animals, but new politics as well. National boundaries must fade at the very least, if not disappear altogether.
Essentially, we are going to be forced to try out different headsets, adapt to (and adopt) completely different attitudes, some of which, at this present juncture, may seem radical.
Even now we hear much talk of socialism and increased regulation of the banking system, with occasional (almost glib) references to nationalizing the banks.
We will most certainly re-think our position on abortion in the face of such an unprecedented rise in population. (China could very well be a picture of our own future.)
We will also change our attitudes about same-sex marriages/partnerships. Evolution is connected to the way we respond to changing environments. If we successfully adapt (change), we successfully evolve. Or, in the language of the Borg, resistance is futile (not to mention non-productive).
Speaking of the Borg, let's imagine a sort of sci-fi scenario in which a space colony is constructed for the purpose of sending humans to another galaxy (or at least another star system). Such an endeavor would of course take generations to accomplish (what with the limitations imposed on us by the speed of light). But suppose it is undertaken for the sake of preserving the human race, something that we feel we have to do.
The space colony in this thought experiment represents a state in which finite resources would be hosting a particular number of human beings (much like planet Earth is currently doing). Let's say the number is 10,000. Within such a context, what do you suppose the rules would be for reproduction? Do you think that the colonists would be permitted to reproduce at will, as we do now?
Suppose the colony was designed to accommodate a maximum of 20,000 bodies. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that strict rules would have to be in place (and enforced) to make certain that new human beings would only be allowed within the limits for which the colony was designed. Abortion, in other words, would be, in some instances, mandatory. This business of "pro-life" and "pro-choice" would not even be considered. The rules would be the rules, and that would be it.
The colonists, however, would surely be aware of these rules, and would be perfectly willing to comply with them. Such a futuristic scenario would also be one in which births were genetically engineered, which means that reproduction would take place in a lab, not a bedroom. Prospective couples would have to make formal application for permission to conceive a child. I can envision something of the same happening on Spaceship Earth, which is also designed to host a maximum number of humanoid creatures (as Spock might put it). I'm not sure if anyone knows what that number is, but I am sure that there is most certainly a maximum sustainable limit.
But mere sustainability is not the only issue. What about the quality of life? Who wants to simply survive? The Earth might be able to sustain a population of 20-billion, but only at subsistence levels. What is the maximum number of human beings that might be supported with a decent quality of life still available for them? If present circumstances are any indication, the current population of 6.5 billion is already too many. What conditions might be like with 20-billion human ants swarming the planet is inconceivable.
We need to do something about the size of our population, but somehow I doubt that we will (primarily because of religious persuasions). This will of course greatly exacerbate the problem, which will in turn prompt us to recognize the dislocations that religious mindsets are causing. We should make abortion legal, but religious sensibilities will keep it from happening.
We should legalize voluntary euthanasia as well. If a person, especially an older person, wants to die with dignity, that should be there legal right. At present, only the state of Oregon has a death-with-dignity statute in force. Every state should have such a statute on its books, and I predict that more and more will (in the same way that more and more will legalize same-sex marriage, another positive force for stabilizing population). Yes, these things will eventually come to pass, but not without considerable resistance put up by the religious camp.
I foresee the possibility of a global religious war, with the agnostics and atheists allied and in force against the faithful. This is a war that needs to take place, but probably will not, primarily because non-believers are usually so much more rational than their counterparts. And also because many atheists do not bear the same regard for the human spirit that believers seem to, which is a strange form of irony to say the least. If the religious types truly believe that there is some inherent value in human life, they should do as much to promote the quality of that life as they do to ensure its mere existence. Making such frantic efforts to defend nothing but the preservation of life, completely oblivious to its quality, verges on the neurotic.
The two greatest problems in the world today are people and their religious predilections. There are too many people and far too much religion. Both must be somehow scaled back, and considerably so. It would probably be ideal if the entire population of the planet were ony 500-million. It is a virtual certainty that we will witness considerable debate in the immediate future over the problems resulting from overpopulation and overreligion.