Off On A Tangent

I think the general idea that things are not heading in a good direction
is not that uncommon. At Christmas, Dad and I spoke about issues
regarding the downward trajectory of the US in the World rankings for
quality of life and other parameters and the potential catastrophes that
might accompany such a decline (as US will still hold incredible
military might and may become less inhibited in using it. How often did
we hear calls to nuke Iraq rather than send in troops?). How will we
respond when China decides they deserve to have the same quality of life
we do and start protecting that right with their military (take over a
large oil rich country for example)?

To me there is no doubt that sometime over the next 2 decades major
changes in the way all people live will have to take place. I still
believe there is a reasonable chance that we will be able to make these
changes without total disruption of our civilization or nuclear
holocaust. Even as a natural skeptic I believe we have a tremendous
potential to rally once we’ve seen the light to make major changes much
more rapidly than we can now foresee. From what I read, we have the
technology to replace oil. It is not just a matter of generating
equivalent amounts of energy by other means, but reducing needs through
recycling, conservation technologies, and changes in life-style.
Already I believe there is a trend toward younger people living in
cities in condos. The suburban life-style was a failed experiment and
will fade. Lest the discussion become to depressing I see reason for
hope that as a society we will be forced to move in a direction that
brings us back into tighter communities where I believe the majority of
people will find greater happiness and fulfillment.

I guess what I’ve struggled with is trying to predict in what form the
changes are most likely to occur. With the exception of the Soviet
Union, every other world super power in history has gone down fighting
and had no choice but to surrender control. We have a choice and I
think there will be a lot of pressure to maintain our primacy at all
costs. (Fundamentalism in this country being a major difference between
the US today and the Soviet Union of the ’80s, when the rapture is
something to be looked forward to, then mutual annihilation doesn’t seem
so bad). So nuclear apocalypse is one way to go. Alternatively, we may
slip into a severe depression that could lead to rioting, general
upheaval, and Irag-style anarchy. Certainly other possibilities and
variations of these themes are also possible. To make any meaningful
plans we must first consider what we are planning for and how likely we
believe these to be. Plans for nuclear apocalypse might be considerably
different than an economic depression. My suggestion would be to
thoroughly discuss what the potential threats are, how they are likely
to play out, and what the probabilities are for best and worst cases.
Without such a common grounding I don’t think we could get too far in
making any plans because I am sure we all come into this discussion with
different information, different perspectives that it would be helpful
to share.

On another (but related) topic:

In one of your other articles, Mike, you discuss immigration as a moral
and economic imperative. I’ve been sympathetic to the immigrant
situation and have generally been in agreement with your arguments, but
more recently I have started to think that while it may be helpful short
term, we are in fact delaying and worsening the eventual crisis. We are
acting as a release valve for surplus population in poorer countries
instead of keeping pressure on to reduce growth. Europe would have
negative growth in population if it weren’t for immigration, we would be
almost static. That might hurt economically now, but would help us
prepare for the future that is to come and would help prevent the
World’s population from overrunning everything. If the developed
countries which use the most energy per capita were to stay static or
start to decline in population, that would help diminish the impact of
declining energy.

We won’t make a dent in suffering in underdeveloped countries by letting
them all come here. Even our attempts to help them by sending medicine
and food has done little more than provided a means to increase the
population and lead to more people suffering. The only solution I see
is to learn how to live sustainably within the resources of your own
country. Then export that knowledge. An important part of
sustainability is population control. It is a well-know biological
principal that, left unchecked, all species grow logarithmically until
they deplete there resources at which time the population collapses.
The resources typically are then replenished (food source regrows for
example) and the cycle repeats. We need to be our own check if we don’t
want this to happen. I now believe this should start at the borders of
developed nations, and spread to developing nations as quickly as
possible.

If developing countries shift toward slowing and eventually reversing
population growth as they develop (as might be expected based on EU and
US trends) this would further help the transition toward static or
declining growth.

Thanks for bringing up the discussion Mike, I think it’s a good
discussion topic to bring us together and is worthwhile pursuing to see
if we can come up with a consensus on what if anything we should be
doing as individuals and as a family.