Sure, but I only have a minute”
“Have you found suitable potential homes for the excess world population?
“Not at all. There are a few places on Mars and Venus that might be suitable for underground cities. But there is no place in our solar system as ‘people friendly’ as our own Earth.”
“What made you volunteer for the trip and were you ever sorry that you did? And were you lonely?”
“Like my famous ancestor, the first Gulliver, I lusted for adventure. But the adventure into the unknown world by his sailing ship 300 years ago could not have been as exciting as the lure of other worlds beyond our world. The thrill of space travel and being the first person to set foot on several planets gave me orgasmic thrills that will live with me every day of my life.
"I became aware of the problems of overpopulation when I read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring" and Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bomb." I knew that something had to be done. Some people had suggested that we move people to other planets. I was offered the chance to find out if it was feasible. We also wanted to know more about our solar system. It was an outstanding opportunity to look at solving our greatest human problem and at the same time contribute to the knowledge that has puzzled us for millenia. How could I refuse such an opportunity?
"And you ask was I lonely. Yes and no. I enjoy human companionship as the most soothing and stimulating salve to my soul. But I was not alone. I had with me Plato and Aristotle, Jesus and Mohammed, Lao Tzu and Confucius, Galileo and Copernicus, Freud and Bacon, Shakespeare and Milton. I was never alone. My 25 years in space gave me years of uninterrupted reading time to study the great books of our world. And that voyage into our intellectual cosmos was at least as exciting as my travel in space. It gave me both the hope of possible solutions to our planetary problems and a fear that human selfishness would continue to prevent them.
"I had a lot of time to think about other issues that impede our enjoying and contributing to our world. A major question for me became whether happiness of the population should be a major, or THE major, goal of governments.
"I certainly think that every government I have seen is not primarily concerned with the health and happiness of its citizens. Their concern is more for increasing economic output-- or income from grants, as we often see in Africa from the West and from China. Much of that income then goes into the pockets of the ruling class or into the profits of the Western companies that provide the goods and services. Corruption is everywhere! And it steals from the people.
"I wonder why the accumulation of money is more important than happiness. We want low taxes for ourselves, but accept multi-million dollar salaries for CEOs and entertainers like pro athletes, film stars and some singers. Athletes make up to $200 million a year for kicking or hitting a ball-- or each other. A major reason that healthcare costs are so high in the US is that the CEOs of health insurance companies make $5-$10 million a year. Compare that with the $100,000 to $200,000 that the bureaucrats make in the welfare countries for doing the same job. The heads of Oracle make about $53 million a year—but they are not entertainers so they shouldn't be overpaid. Oracle is at least making things that how are modern world needs. Does the world really need somebody who throws touchdown passes, hits pointers, scores an occasional soccer goal, has a good left jab or can pretend that he is somebody else next film?
"When I think of the Roman poet Juvenal's observation of 2000 years ago that the people are content if they are given bread and circuses, I understand why the population and the governments foster this entertainment. It keeps people's minds off of the ineptitude and corruption of so many of their leaders. They certainly do not want educated people because educated people will know a bit about what is necessary for today's and tomorrow's world.
"You were out in space when President Obama suggested his health care plan. He wanted a federal option for insurance that would have cut expenses way down for the consumer. Insurance company lobbies shot that down buy rewarding congressman with huge amounts of extra money for their campaigns. The president wanted a maximum medical malpractice award of $250,000. The lawyers lobbies shot that down. I like to call our government a lobbyocracy rather than a democracy. With the cost of running for Congress every two years at a million dollars and the cost of running for a Senate seat at about $5,000,000 our representatives did you spend are great deal of time raising money by selling their votes to lobbyists and special interest groups. In no other country is such corruption legal. PamHow important it is to keep our 'do nothing' representative in office so that no challenger, no matter how qualified, has much of a chance to be elected. With gerrymandered congressional districts and our representatives selling their votes—it is no wonder that our country it is so ineffective in delivering happiness and contentment to the taxpayers."
"Amen! I think we should consider happiness, rather than low taxes, and as a goal for society. The few countries that rank highest in happiness are in Scandinavia, Western Europe and Oceania. Taxes are always higher in the happier countries. Higher taxes yield better healthcare for less money, free education to the doctoral level, more secure pensions, more vacation time, fully paid extended parental leave for 10 to 12 months after a birth, and a number of other perks that seems to make people happier. In our country, the good old US of A, we rank 10th in the world's happiness ratings. We pay 2 to 3 times more than any other country for healthcare, but our health care system is ranked 40th in the world. Our college students go into significant debts which often take many years to pay off. The average medical doctor amasses almost a half million dollars in debt before being ready to practice medicine. In America we get 2 to 3 weeks vacation commonly, while our European friends get 4 to 6 weeks. No wonder they are happier than we are. Of course our taxes are lower. We would have to increase our taxes by 50% in order to be happier! But Americans know that after they die they can take their bankbooks with them to that Big Stockmarket in the Sky.
"Our problems are many. Here are a few that I see:
Overpopulation;
Poor parenting;
A generally ineffective educational system run by locally elected people who may have no knowledge of what a quality education is;
The lack of recognition that today we not only need a very high level of technical education but we also need more general education and more work in the humanities;
A huge reduction in the jobs necessary to run the world because of computers, robotics and 3D printing;
People expecting the government to fix all the problems while not taking responsibility for their own lives and the lives of the future inhabitants of our world;
Relying on democratic votes when the voters are not properly aware of the issues. When the people of the UK voted 52% to 48% to leave the European Union, did they all have the same factual information on the issue?;
The nearly universal drive for power-- which grows if the ability to love is not nourished, is a cancer to our world through wars, terrorism, abuse, racism and hate—cannot be remedied until all children have capable and loving parents;
The selfishness, which is natural in infants, will remain in any adults who are not loved by their caretakers and who do not have their basic physical and psychological needs met.needs met.
The essential requirement for our basic physical and psychological needs to be met results in radical adjustments such as withdrawing from society through the pleasure of psychoactive drugs or by attacking society through such actions as child abuse and terrorism.
"These are but a few of the problems of our modern world. I plan to visit several countries, many of whom have addressed one or more of these problems and have solved them. I wonder if the drive for power or if selfishness is the most basic issue that needs to be addressed.
“Plato saw the selfishness of the family as preventing the best of societies. The Soviet Union’s failure to establish a Communist utopia hinged on a combination of human frailties— the economic selfishness of the masses, t
he power-mad leaders and the universal propensity to prepare for and recover from war. Plato’s city-state and Bacon’s island state were too small to be useful as models for today’s multi-billion population with space age communication, a global economy, and a myriad of religions and philosophies that divide our human brotherhood into billions of Cains and Abels. Still we should heed the advice of the king of New Atlantis and work to join humanity and policy together.
“Today our overpopulation chokes our skies and our seas with our solid and aerosol wastes. We have changed our climate—heating it to temperatures too warm for comfort, drying our fields and sucking water vapor into the air that sometimes results in droughts—sometimes in massive storms that cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
"There are so many problems. Selfishness, ignorance and the lack of the ability to love are fundamental to most of our problems. We see selfishness in the young and old. We expect it in the young but we would hope that we would be able to see with enlightened self interest as we grow older. But we see in our democracies that old people vote for larger pensions, earlier retirement and more medical treatments free. Very often they voted for lower taxes when they were working but now they want more benefits from somebody else's taxes. The good of society would require cheaper and better education for the young. We live much longer than ever but we refuse to be responsible for our retirements. Governments cannot pay for the extra years that we live but did not pay for in our retirement contributions."
"Yes commander, I saw that recently in Norway where the Opera's pension system was unable to pay the dancers, who retired at 41, and the singers, who retired at 52. Their generous welfare system did not require them to bring their expertise into another area if they could no longer dance or sing. Others, like professors, had to retire at 67 or 70, even if they wanted to work. Absurd! I know a couple of teachers in California who worked well into their 90s—and one was a multi-millionaire.
"But I can understand wanting to retire if you are in a boring job."
"My point exactly. Chet. A major concern of mine is the inability of so many parents to love their children effectively. As love was defined in the Encyclopedia of Mental Health by Ashley Montagu, love is the ability to do what is best for the other person. Certainly parents must understand the basics of nutrition so that they can feed their children properly. They certainly need enough money to buy the food and adequately house the child. They need an appreciation of child psychology so that they can understand and help their children at each age. They should have a good educational background, or at least an appreciation of the importance of education for their children.
"These are not simple tasks, in fact I wonder if any parent has all these skills and abilities! I'm quite sure that 16 year old unmarried mothers and drug addicts don’t have them. Parents who perform 'honor killings' of their daughters because they don't obey the family traditions are also lacking. How about the parents of the jihadist terrorists? Do you think they effectively loved their children? Do you think a truly loved person would shoot or behead an innocent person?
" Climate change is even related to an increase in violence, according to studies at Princeton and The University of California. (1) But I think that it is the overpopulation that is causing both.
“Our excess billions of mouths thirst for fresh water that cowers deeper and deeper into the womb of Mother Earth. Our advanced medical technology lengthens our lifespans while industrial technology makes us less necessary as workers. We see national unemployment levels of 10 to over 25% and youth unemployment at twice that level. We no longer need a pair of bodies to operate the butcher shop, the cheese shop, the bakery or the fruit shop. One tenth the number can operate the supermarket and give us an even better selection and service. We don’t need an assembly line of people bolting fenders on cars. Computerized robots do it now. 3D printing replaces many machine operators and engineers as it significantly reduces the time and effort necessary to develop prototypes. We don’t need a subsistence farmer tilling behind his mule or bullock. A machine can do the work of thousands of subsistence farmers.”
“Very true. I guess everyone on the planet needs a university education now.”
“To be employed it is certainly more necessary today. But there are two major considerations. One is the quality of the education, the other is what is studied. I don’t think you’ll have a lot of trouble employing people in any field from UCLA, Stanford or the Ivy League schools or from Oxford or Cambridge. People from effective universities in engineering, physics, IT and other needed skills shouldn’t have problems—although the ‘for profit’ schools have a terrible reputation in every field. Students pay their excessive tuition, borrow from the government to pay it, get the good grades they have paid for, but then they don’t qualify for the jobs they want. Employers want the best people--and the best people qualified for the better schools--which usually have lower tuition than the ‘for profits.’
“So many students want to study in fields of their interest—philosophy, art history, sociology, sport science and so forth. These certainly will make them well-rounded educated citizens, but their employability is severely limited. Our global economy needs salable skills—and the studies that give us a well-rounded education may not make us employable in the technical fields where the jobs are. Psychology is a fascinating field of study, but it has the absolute worst prospects for landing a job.
“This brings me to another concern. Not only are people allowed to retire before they have contributed enough to pay for their retirements. Their increased life expectancy has not been factored into the actuarial tables used for retirements. Additionally many countries require retirement between 65 and 70 and lose talented and experienced people who can help to solve society’s problems while they don’t require their governments to borrow from China to pay for their retirements. Governments continually enact laws that are counter-productive to protecting our ecology, our economies, our safety and our happiness.
“We should be guided by the practice of the rulers of Bacon’s utopia New Atlantis.
Voyagers would set out periodically to bring back the knowledge of other civilizations to make their own kingdom better. The arts and sciences, the inventions and manufactures, the books and instruments were shared—making every civilization richer. Because, after all, as
Bacon said ‘knowledge is power.’ Such a worldly endeavor appeals to me now. I think there is the possibility to save ourselves from ourselves.
"And we need better education for all the people. Today people specialize so much that they don’t know anything about other fields. Did you know that few economists have any biological or chemical studies in their college degree programs. Most think that economic production is what the world is about. Is making money more important than survival?
"In space I kept up with a Stanford University program that kept me focused on what is important. Check out mahb.stanford.edu. If you are not yet concerned with survival, it will put you on track."
“It is a great site—I read it all the time. I wish the politicians and business leaders would read it and take it to heart.
"What are your immediate plans now that you’ve rejoined humanity?”
“Some might think that I would want to take a month on Tahiti and soak up some rays, but remember, I have been alone for 25 years. I want to jump into the chaos of civilization and visit some countries that interest me. Some countries have made effective strides in solving our universal problems. I have only been able to hear about the movements, both positive and negative, that nations have taken to grapple with humankind’s greatest problem— overpopulation. I want to see for myself. We’re choking ourselves with our wastes in the air, in the ground and in the seas. We live in fear of criminals, terrorists and warlords—warlords who have gained power through ballots or bullets. Utopia is a realizable dream, but will we decide to pursue it?”
“I have planned to visit both rich and poor countries t
o see how they are attempting to dam the flood of overpopulation. I want to understand the ethical and psychological barriers to reversing our planetary curse (Books 4 and 6) and I want to look at the myriad of methods that have been used to motivate or coerce us in so many ways and try to understand which methods might be best used to motivate our world’s population to climb out of the pit of tradition that ties us to the past.(Book 8) Our present and future require that we quickly reverse population growth, Further, as we see the number of anti-social people in our midst, I want to see what is being done to increase eu-parenting. It is obvious to all informed people that our population must be reduced and that our advanced weapon technology gives terrorists and psychotics the means to kill and maim hundreds or thousands of innocent people. Others of their ilk destroy women and children thru rape, enslavement or other sexual harassing and abusing behaviors. Too many of our brethren are anti-social. I think that better parenting can reduce this inhumanity.
“But my concerns have gone even farther afield. My reading makes me wonder about the understandings on which most modern states use for governing. Do we want economic success, then we might follow China’s socialistic-capitalistic Communist Party oligarchy. If happiness for the citizens is the goal we might follow the highly taxed Denmark. They like to put the idea of ‘play’ into most area of their lives—including work. I have been lucky in my adult life in enjoying all of my work—as a lifeguard, professor and recently as an astronaut. But in my home country it seems that the major concern is in keeping taxes low. I really don’t understand how they want the world’s major defense force, adequate pensions and better
medical care without paying for it. Our lobby-ocracy’s power seems to work in opposition to the good of the people.
“Why is it that Denmark, with a tax rate 40% higher than that of the U.S., is rated as the world’s happiest country while the U.S, is eleventh. In fact all the happiest countries had tax rates far above that of the U.S. I read this in the Los Angeles Times in a report of the United Nations based on a number of different polls such as Gallup and Pew.
“So I want to look at as many problems facing our world as I can. It seems that so many are interrelated—like overpopulation and unemployment; uneducated parents and their uneducated children and youth unemployment; increasing lifespans and underfunded retirement plans;
More social welfare or defense spending without taxing for it; the problem of determining what is ‘just’ when we attempt to develop modern societies on the often conflicting ideals of liberty and equality (Books 9, 10, 11); and the positive and negative influences of religions on the world’s societies.
“I don’t think you can do it all in one lifetime! But we could hope that with that whole solar system out there, there might be some possibility of finding a place for utopian settlements to be developed?”
“No, not with our present technology—the possibility just isn’t there. We have found specks of water on our moon and on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. But there is no way they could support life. Just imagine donning your bikini for some Saturnic summer sun with the temperature a balmy minus 201° Celsius, that’s minus 330° Fahrenheit. We have to solve our population problems here on earth. And we may already be too late!”
“The world has been following your communiqués and there are many questions about your strong advocacy for licensing parents to have children as the only hope for humanity.”
“When I left my beloved country on October 12, 1999 it was not significant that my voyage began on Columbus Day. What was significant was that it was the day that the six billionth baby was born on our planet. In Sarajevo, Bosnia. Kofi Anan, the Secretary General of the United Nations made the trip to the Balkans to celebrate, with trepidation. And the World Health Organization acknowledged it, with fear for the future. Planned Parenthood shuddered with anxiety and a renewed sense of panic. And the irreverently intelligent cried for the future of their children.
“Then 12 years later, on October 31, 2011 the seven billionth soul arrived—this time in the Philippines. And here in 2025 we are due any day for the eight billionth.
“The overpopulation of the earth with its attendant problems of insufficient clean air and water, of loss of soil and oxygen producing trees, the population induced weather changes, the skyrocketing costs of food and energy, and the rapid accumulation of waste made
me eager to begin my voyage into the deepest regions of the solar system searching for a hospitable settlement site for those who wished to escape the ecological disaster which humankind has unthinkingly brought upon itself.
“Over half of the world’s population now live in cities. This has concentrated the poverty, the number of slums, and increased violence.(1a) In five years, by 2030, five billion will live in the cities. Here in California our population will double to 60 million people in the first half of this century. Most of this growth occurs because of births in the cities, not because of migration. And few governments can provide clean water, sanitation and adequate housing, let alone education and health benefits for the poor.
“There are no easy solutions to the problems created by the continuous increases in the population. On the one hand some politicians and businessmen think that such increases are necessary. Younger workers must pay for the older citizens who retire earlier and live longer—and with those longer retirements more workers are necessary to pay for them because lawmakers did not require workers to contribute enough of their salaries to pay for their own retirements. Business, of course, is always looking to increase its consumer base. The obvious solution for this problem is to increase the death rate. But those of us who are alive don’t like that option. But you remember what the English philosopher Francis Bacon said, ‘He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator.’”
“And George Orwell said ‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.’ Maybe that’s why we don’t hear much about the crisis in overpopulation. We just hear daily about the things it causes-- like climate change, immigration problems, starvation, under-nutrition, the lack of adequate universal education, terrorism and unemployment, without acknowledging the obvious. Why?
“You mentioned business. It reminds us of what Confucius said, ‘The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.’ But what solutions do you have in mind?”
“There is no single solution to the problems released by Pandora’s population box. To solve the problem of longer life spans and early retirements we just have to increase the length of the working life before we can allow one to retire. But there’s a lot more to the problem than just providing old age benefits. If it isn’t too late, we can follow the lead of those few countries that have licensed parents to have children. (Books 3, 5, 7, 9, 11) It seems that it is a major hope to bring the world back into ecological balance and guarantee that each child born will have every possibility to develop physically, mentally and emotionally and to achieve his or her greatest potential in a loving family. Only then can we reach the utopian goal that has been the dream of the philosophers and saints who have preceded us. Too many of us live with the hope that somebody else will do it. This guarantees that it won’t be done. We should heed Ben Franklin’s advice that ‘You may delay but time will not.’ I know that my ideas, and those of a few of us who have seriously considered reducing population—and making it better through more effective parenting—run counter to the tenets of some religions, most businesses and the anchors of tradition that hamstring our lawmakers. But this challenge is nothing new. As Voltaire warned us "It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."
“But I want to see how religions that are often violently competitive live in peace when I visit Muchinju. (Book 13) I want to look at how the United Colonies (Book 9) seem to have perverted the concepts of justice and democracy which have led them away from any utopian goals. I want to examine som
e countries that seem to be moving towards a utopia and some countries that seem to be moving away from such a goal. Are we to wait until God solves the problem or should we assume that God wants us to solve our own problems with our minds—that many believe are in the image of God. I don’t think that God wants us to wait for another flood or another Sodom. But it seems like the huge majority of people in the world want to leave their futures to the gods. The live with hope—and have faith that their hopes will come true.
"When you are forced to find an answer to a major problem, it is practically guaranteed that you won't like the answer—but not following the dictates of the answer will only lead to greater and more disastrous problems. It is a sad fact that the huge majority of us live only in the NOW. The comfort of the 'NOW' blinds us to our probable future.
"Our fairytale outlook believes: 'There will never be another war. There will never be another terrorist attack. No one I know will every be robbed, killed or go bankrupt.' We content ourselves with hope and faith while the realities of our nearly universal selfishness and ignorance continue to repeat the lessons of history. Will we follow that tiny minority who clearly see beyond today. Do we have the courage to make a better world for our progeny?
THE GOOD LIFE
“It’s not just a question of reducing population, but of eliminating misery and increasing the ‘the good life.’ Some people ask why some should be so poor while others are so rich. Did you know that the thousand richest people have more money than the two and a half million poorest people? Some ask for a more equitable distribution of the wealth—as Karl Marx suggested. The problem is that there isn’t as much money in the world as it appears.
When I left, the world’s population of 6 billion had a world gross product of 21 trillion dollars annually. If all of the wealth produced in a year were distributed equally it would have left about $3500 for every person. That would be about the same as the average income in Poland or Venezuela but would have been considerably less than the poorest American state, Mississippi, with an average per capita income of $18,000 or rich Connecticut with an average income of $36,000. Of course countries such as Mozambique with its $94 per year income or India with $400 would have been much better off. But then by halfway through my trip the Indian economic miracle had increased by tenfold the Indian per capita income.
"By 2015 the world's gross product had increased to $73 trillion which averaged out to $14,000 per person. Connecticut had increased to an average of $55,000 per person and Mississippi to $29,000. Poland had increased to $24,000, India to $5,400 and Mozambique to 1100 and Mali with $800.. Half of the world's nations have per person incomes of under $10,000
“Still there are more than a billion people living on less than $300 per year. With over a billion people being chronically malnourished or dying from starvation, we have a long way to go to increase the standard of living for most of our human brothers and sisters. Then there are the problems of food costs that are emptying the rice bowls of the impoverished.
“There are a couple of problems however. In a democratic world would the people of Connecticut vote for reducing their incomes by 80 to 90%. Another factor is that if the money were taken out of the hands of the governments and industries there would be no money for development, unless the recipients of the $3,500 or $10,000 either decided to give some money to the government for development or decided to invest in the stock market. And how
many stock brokers will have the train fare to make their daily commute from Connecticut to New York while earning only $3,500 a year?
“If our life values were in our heads and our hearts rather than in our wallets perhaps we wouldn’t mind sharing everything. But having the rich nations adopt the collective generosity of the Salvation Army, Mother Theresa, Albert Schweitzer—or even Robin Hood—is a bit too much to expect when the media tell us that more is better, and keeping is better than giving.
“When I left for outer space many of the ‘haves’ lived in apparent luxury, while the “have-nots” lived hungry, in filth and squalor. Today, to my amazement, some of the former prosperous nations are poorer while some of the former third world nations have gained great economic advantages. The keys to both paths have been the approaches each country has taken to control or foster their national birth rates. The most startling and yet enlightening changes have occurred through various methods of decreasing populations. Especially for those countries that are now licensing parenting.
“And what about health care. Socialized medicine sounded like a good idea. The British National Health Service has over a million people waiting for hospital admission. While its stated objective is to have no one waiting more than 6 months for an operation nor more than 3 months for an outpatient surgery appointment, those dreams become more remote as the population increases—and ages. Even in rich Norway, a country with no national debt and a huge oil income, the main hospital of its capital city finds people bedded in the halls, set off from the passers-by by screens. And with the exception of the newer additions, few rooms have televisions to help patients while away the painful hours. Operations, if not emergencies, are often scheduled rather far in the future, but if the Norwegian surgeons don’t get around to you, you will probably be sent to another country for the surgery.
THE NOT SO GOOD LIFE FOR TOO MANY CHILDREN
“But the major problems I see relate to a large part of the world’s children. Perhaps I am a romantic, but when I hear of infants being raped in Africa, I cry. Whether it is the superstition that sex with a virgin will cure one’s AIDS or whether it is merely a sexual attack by a deranged coward—it should not happen. South Africa has the highest AIDS rate in the world. By 2025 AIDS had killed over 40 million Africans. The number of children orphaned by HIV is an international tragedy.
“And what of the many thousands of children, both boys and girls, who are the unwilling participants in the child sex trade—pawns of the pedophiles in hotel rooms or in the available pornographic media. No mature adult could bring himself to think or do such unseemly acts. Yet there are many supposedly upright citizens who revel in this sickly game. Should any child be subjected to the cruelty of such sadistic mentally ill adults? Then there are numerous societies that allow slavery of one sort or another, such as the Haitian children whose parents farm them out on that anti-slavery island, or the African children who are sold outright as slaves.
“Just look at Cambodia as an example of how HIV/AIDS has cursed the population of children. While over 150,000 orphans of AIDS afflicted parents will test positive for the disease, another 100,000 AIDS orphaned children will not test positive. What kind of a life is it when the parents have died and there are no orphanages to take in these waifs? Even if this poor country could build and staff one orphanage a day it could not take care of the avalanche of parentless children.
"And what about the children of parents in war-torn countries. The Syrian revolution began in the spring of 2011. With the great exodus in 2015 and 2016—why were there so many children under five? What were their parents thinking when they conceived them?
What about children born to drug addicted parents? What about children born into poverty where they will not get adequate nutrition. What about children born to parents who are not concerned with education?
“But it is not only the poor children who are endangered by overpopulation. As advanced countries expand their atomic power generating capabilities they build the nuclear targets for suicidal terrorist fanatics to attack. Rather than blowing up a 12 passenger bus or a high rise building, the nuclear fallout of a blown reactor can kill or maim millions—millions of young and old, good and bad, religious and non-religious. And what about the certainty that unloved children will get their hands on guns, bombs, biological or chemical weapons?
"Look at the ‘crack’ and alcohol syndrome children of addicted parents. Rich or poor, child abuse is a continual reminder of the plight of unwanted children.
“You may be familiar with the U.S
. Center for Disease Control study in 2008. In studying 900,000 infants during their first year of life they found that one in 43 infants suffered serious abuse or neglect, a third of them during their first week of life. And one in 180 were killed. The physical abuse included beating, kicking, biting, burning and shaking; neglect included abandonment, maternal drug use or failing to meet basic needs like housing, food and clothing. The results were similar to a Canadian study.
“To avoid this cruelty should prospective parents be required to take a course in infant care in order to be licensed? Or do you think this cruelty to infants should be allowed to continue? Or possibly the drug addicted parents found in the study should not have been allowed to parent until they were clean? Should society do something to save that one in 180 who was born then killed? Children have been abused so much throughout history and throughout the present day world. I don’t think it’s right. I think something should be done about it. The only solution I can come up with is some kind of educational and licensing program for parents.
“Then there are the centuries-old traditions of marrying children. While it is often against the law, it is tradition. Mali and Bangladesh are among the worst offenders. The girls are deprived of an opportunity for education and the chance to make their own life choices.
"I am thoroughly convinced that parents must be capable of loving. This is a not common trait. We will learn more about this later (Book 6), but I am convinced that it is equally necessary to our survival—just as population reduction is.
OLDER NATURAL METHODS OF POPULATION CONTROL
“It all relates to too many people and to too few good parents. The older methods that have historically controlled population have been reduced. Wars are now so horrible that countries now occasionally try to avoid them. Infanticide is becoming less and less common. Legal abortion, while much safer today than in the past and safer than childbirth, often has strong antagonists. Famines still come and go but don’t kill enough people to make much of a difference to the exploding population. A million deaths here or there doesn’t dent the billions who roam our overcrowded home. And the advances of medicine have increased life-spans by eliminating or reducing the microbial scourges of the past, such as smallpox. And while AIDS has eliminated a large number of the population, it still hasn’t taken the comparable toll that the Black Death did in Europe centuries ago.
“Still, disease and famine have been only temporary respites in the damming of the timeless flow of the geometrical increases in people’s progeny. Laws and customs have to be changed. We need more than natural disasters to cope with the calamity that is already here. But there aren’t enough earthquakes and tsunamis so we need intelligent action and we need it now.
“Population control is not a novel approach in either the animal or the human kingdoms. Lemmings take their fatal leaps to oblivion. Humans have practiced contraception, abortion, infanticide and suicide for millennia. Whether it was the Spartans of ancient Greece exposing their babies on the hill letting the elements determine which were the strong and which should die, or the African tribes that take the newborn of every young father into the jungle to be eaten by the animals.
"More recently we Americans have opted for unlimited firearm ownership. This allows gang members to kill each other, and for some school children to be relieved of the drudgery of schoolwork and settle into the carefree life in a grave. It allows for lawmakers, teachers and police to be killed. Guns are responsible for 20,000 suicides and over 10,000 homicides each year. Then opiate overdoses kill another 20,000. Over the years about 1.4 million Americans have died in wars, but only 6,000 or so were killed in the recent Mideast wars. Of course about 500,000 Iraqis have died from all the military violence since 2000. So America is trying to control population. I just think there is a better way—a peaceful way, a healthy way.
"Recently I have noticed that modern smartphones seem to hold more interest for people than does conversation. It appears that the digital intelligence of these hand-held devices is more fascinating than any human can be. These phones may be the most effective contraceptive we have yet devised!
"Other societies, particularly in Africa, allow the emigration of their excess population to Europe, where many will be drowned in the Mediterranean when their boats capsize. And, of course, there are the traditionally human methods of warfare and terrorism that reduce population a little bit—maybe only a million or two men, women and children, but at least that is a start! It's horrible! But we don't seem to be ready to treat the problem intelligently.
FROM THE PAST AND INTO THE FUTURE
”In the period starting a few years before I left and continuing during the twenty-five years of my voyage, many nations had intelligently come to grips with their major problem and had—through intimidation and reward, through law and ideal, and through education and science—begun to slow the raging river of ever increasing births and to turn back the tide before humanity was wiped out by its own reproductive thoughtlessness. “It is not as if the creative handling of one’s population is new. In the voyage of Gulliver the First he encountered the Houynmnnms, those very intelligent equine-like creatures who limited every family to two children, one male and one female. They also had worked to select the breeding so that their nation could continue its high level of existence. They even traded children among families so that a better balance could be achieved for their race and their nation. And now there are some signs that such intelligence occasionally works on our planet.
“I hope that I will learn something on my planned visits around the world, then I’ll be able to actively advocate for the plans that seem to be essential for the intelligent and joyous survival of the human race.
THE OVERPOPULATION PROBLEM HAS NO POSITIVE SOLUTIONS
“It took over 50,000 years for the Earth’s population to reach one billion people. That was as recently as 1804. In 123 years, in 1927, it added its next billion. Then in only 33 years, in 1960, it reached 3 billion. In only 14 more years there was another billion. It reached five billion in 1987, just 13 years, then 12 more years to reach 6 billion. But then things started to slow a bit. It took a whopping 14 years to reach 7 billion, and in 2025 we are at over 8 billion.
“I have heard academic projections of America having a billion people in 80 years and India reaching 2 billion in 60 years.(1aa) I don’t believe it will be that bad, but there are warnings that the infrastructures of the countries must be upgraded beginning now. There seems to be no end to the dire projections of world overpopulation. And nobody suggests limiting the population, only providing for it—but we can’t provide for those we have now.
“Treating AIDS victims with anti-retroviral drugs has reduced the number of expected deaths by over 30 million. This keeps the victims reproducing longer. Conquering other diseases also extends life spans and enlarges reproductive windows. Poor countries like Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, Liberia, Niger, East Timor and Uganda are projected to triple their populations by mid-century. Thank goodness for the nearly 50 countries that are reducing their native populations. Countries like Japan, Germany, Italy and South Korea would lose population if they didn’t take in immigrants from poorer countries.
“In the 1990’s it began to become evident to the more economically advanced countries of the western world that several factors were making it impossible to care for their citizens from cradle to grave. Earlier retirement in many countries opened jobs for younger workers—who paid the taxes necessary for the pensions of their elders. Longer life spans aided by advances in medical science and governmental or private health plans increased the need for more tax money to fund the health needs of those retirees. Jobs became more scarce as machines did the work of the unskilled and some of the skilled workers. Machines cut the wheat, picked the grapes, and built the cars and houses.
“Even skilled workers were needed less. Computers replaced accountants and many researchers. They calculated complicated medical operations while robots performed them.<
br />
Were it not for the aging populations with their increased illnesses, many doctors and nurses would have been societally superfluous. The gap between the needed high tech jobs and the traditional jobs is widening. Cars and trucks drive themselves. Robots cook, teach and clean houses. Lasers perform surgical operations. Solar energy lights our homes, propels our car and trucks and reduces our need for oil and coal. Consequently coal miner, oil workers and the ships and trains necessary to move the fuels are drastically reduced.
“Fewer people were needed to do the work of the advanced societies, but even though the birth rates per woman had fallen in most advanced countries, the longer lived citizenry more than made up for it in the burgeoning population.
“It seems that each modern decade has its special problems. The 1940s required the surrender of the German and Japanese aggressors. The 50s were quiet, but the times pushed the productive citizens toward more monetary goals while the taxes rose to take care of the education of the war babies. The 60s saw an increase in the cold war between the East and the West as it ushered in the self-centered times of the hippies—and sex and drugs became major avenues towards reducing the psychic pain of the earlier decades. The 70s recognized the problems of pollutions and the rape of the environment. Since the 80s the upheavals of Communist governments in the East allowed the western people to rest a little easier but the
violent fanaticism of religious zealots endangered many countries. Crime families disrupted the cities and youth gangs terrorized neighborhoods. The 21st century began with violent selfishness, nurtured by Hollywood and under-educated imams, bringing out the worst in human emotions and behaviors.
“It became more evident that the major cause of our greatest earthly problems was rooted in our excess of population. But more than just too many people, there were too many unloved people—people born without the expected parental legacies of tenderness and caring. The poorest children among us were starved for food, but so often the children of the rich were starved for love and humanity—in an unethical uncaring society. It was evident that we not only had to reduce the gross numbers of babies being born, but we had to do our best to
make certain that those who were born had the opportunity to grow into functional, loving, humanitarian citizens of the world.
“But more, the modern level of technology requires a more intelligent citizen to provide for the needs of the world’s society. Shades of Hitler? No, because we have to recognize that intelligent and moral people come in every color and in every religious persuasion. Hitler was looking for perfection in only a small part of humanity—his Aryan ideal. So the ingredients in any eugenic approach to improving our collective lot would obviously come from every corner of our globe and every segment of humanity.
“In today’s society there is no longer a need for chambermaids. Hotel rooms, just as private houses, clean themselves electro-magnetically at the touch of a button. Taxis and trucks drive themselves. Robots prepare the meals that the few executive chefs plan and input into their computers. Modern society does not need the peasant-slaves required in the Middle Ages to till the soil and construct the cathedrals. It needs only highly skilled architects to plan those cathedrals. It needs the truly creative artists, the master musicians, the computer engineering geniuses—and it needs thinkers to help put it all together. But the common women and men, the blue collar workers are extremely worried. They think the government should provide for them, to place them in jobs they can perform. But the jobs they could perform have gone the way of the village blacksmith and the railroad engine firemen who shoveled coal into the bellies of the puffer bellied steam engines. Intelligent people with high level educations are needed as technology fuels economic globalization. Housing prices have gone through the roof in London, San Francisco and many other cities. Only the very highly paid can afford them. There is a good chance that this will ferment revolutions as the have- nots want equality, But the have-nots have not: education, money or power. What they often do have, however, is large families, anger, and a hope that God will provide.
“If Nietzsche were alive today he might say “I told you so.” Plato might see his Republic unfolding with human intelligence as its soul. And Aristotle would marvel that a just society might really be possible.
“Well Chet, you know that the major purpose of my voyage was to find planets or moons that we could inhabit. I found none. Years ago informed researcher suggested that the maximum number of people that the planet could support was about 2 billion. How do we handle the plethora of people and how do we develop a universal good life with no poverty, no wars, no ecological problems.
“A few people are trying to educate the literate people about the problems. I have to join the fray If people merely hope that the problems of overpopulation, global warming and unloved children will somehow just go away—it will never happen. Merely hoping or wishing that the problems will go away will guarantee that nothing will happen. Remember that Ben Franklin said that ‘He who lives on hope will die fasting’ because ‘You may delay but time will not.’
“You well know that the idea of controlling population is not new. My ancestor’s biographer, the Reverend Jonathan Swift, made “a modest proposal” in the early 1700s. His idea was to prevent the children of the poor people of Ireland from being a burden to their parents or their country. He suggested that eating the little rascals would be a double blessing—healthy protein for the adults and fewer waifs on the streets. It would keep their mothers from begging for food for them and allow the ladies to work at more appropriate jobs.”
“But Commander, as you know Swift was a satirist and wrote his essay with his Irish tongue in cheek, not honestly advocating a baby’s thigh in his teeth!”
“Yes it was satire, but he was honestly concerned with the lack of care of the poor by the landowners and administrators. And don’t we have the same thing today? Starving and diseased babies in the Third World countries and so many unloved children in the rest of the world. I am firmly convinced that it is every child’s birthright to have food, safety, education and a loving family and society to give every child the physical and mental nutrients to make his or her life worthwhile. As Martin Luther King said ‘There is scarcely anything more tragic in human life than a child who is not wanted.’
“I plan to visit some of those countries that have licensed parents, and some that haven’t, and see what possibilities there are for reducing the total population and what can be done to guarantee life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to every baby born into our world. They deserve no less.
“I realize that to reduce population, and especially the idea of licensing parents, not only goes against the traditions of the human race but it is definitely a politically incorrect idea. This is especially true in countries that call themselves religious or democratic because either God told us to have a bunch of babies or because our ideas of liberty include the freedom to not only have as many babies as we want but also, in many countries, the idea that the government should provide for them. Then we have the idea of some, especially in the U.S., that allowing for abortion is a politically incorrect action.
“But the ideas of which causes or actions are politically correct changes. The right, even the necessity, to own slaves was accepted when our Constitution was written, then less than a century later it was illegal and generally frowned upon. The idea of the God approved practice that women should be the homemakers and subject to their husbands has given way to having more women than men in college and the right for women to succeed in business and politics. The older politically correct idea that Jews and Asians should be kept in lowly places has given way to the reality that Jews, Chinese and Japanese are outperforming their Anglo- Christian counterparts particularly in the business and medical fields. So the ideas of the traditionalists and the idealists often change with time. But none of these threats has required a sudden reversal of tradition in order to save the race. Science affirms our common sense-- that
millions of people are dying from starvation and diseases, that people have caused our global warming, that people who shouldn’t have been born are murdering and raping innocents, and that the world can be a better place.”
“Thank you commander. I recently saw a British television program that looked at the ecological footprint that each person born there causes. I remember only a few examples. The average Brit drinks over 2400 gallons of milk in his lifetime. He eats four cows, 21 lambs, fifteen pigs, and 1200 chickens and over 13,000 eggs. Each of the animals eats grain that could feed many starving people and each is producing methane through their flatulent farting. The methane produced is the second biggest problem in global warming. But if we could capture the methane given off by one cow in one year it would provide the power of 50 gallons of gasoline. And of course some people have powered their cars with cow and chicken manure for years.
“But back to the needs of that one Brit. He will eat over 5,000 apples and over 10,000 carrots. The amount of plastic and paper used to package the food he eats will total 8 ½ tons of garbage. The newspapers he reads will add another two tons of waste. He will produce 2,400 tons of feces and will need over 4,000 rolls of toilet paper to wipe himself. How many trees will he use to produce the paper he uses? He will buy 8.5 cars and will use 135,000 liters of gasoline to power them. So that one little bouncing bundle of British joy is a disaster for the planet.
“The more facts that are registered by my overloaded brain, the more I agree with your concerns. I certainly wish you luck. I’ll help where I can. With problems like we have it is certainly a mistake to do nothing if I can do only a little. And if we can do more than a little, we must. Hope is useless without goal directed effort.”
A MORE IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE PROBLEMS
During the week that followed, Chet dutifully broadcast the weekly briefings sent by NASA. There were the somewhat detailed experiences of Commander Gulliver on each planet. There were the reports on the analyses of the soil, temperature and atmosphere. But there was nothing about the commander’s concerns with overpopulation or parent licensing. And of course there were the self-congratulatory hosannas for the project and the government’s funding of it. So Chet patiently waited for the end of the debriefings so that he could get the real story—the story that would shock and excite his audience. Finally on Friday afternoon he got his chance. Commander Gulliver appeared at the concluding news conference. The commander fielded a number of questions from the media. Even Chet asked about Saturn’s rings, but he didn’t want to ask about the real story of what Gulliver saw as the best solutions to the problem. Those were to be his scoop. As the press conference ended, Chet moved to the exit doorway to catch the hero as he made toward the door that opened into his new world, the world he had left behind twenty-five years earlier, a world more ensnarled with problems than Loki could have dreamed. Chet had to wait several minutes for the Commander to move through the swarm of newsmen. As the entourage ebbed toward the exit he found his chance to make his connection.
“Commander, now that your debriefing is finished and you have had a few days to relax, do you have some time for a more in-depth interview?”
“Sure, but can we do it at my home in Malibou Lake? I want to enjoy the unencumbered feeling that I missed in my space capsule and the four walls of these offices that have confined me the last few days. I’d like to breathe some fresh air.”
“How about Tuesday at 10.”