“What about the human inflicted catastrophes, commander? In the past we could count on wars and massacres to help control the population. Napoleon certainly did his part, being responsible for as many as 6 million dead—half from opposing armies, a quarter from his own and the rest civilians.
“Shaka, the Zulu chief claimed one to two million in his wars. About 3 million died in the Islamic slave trade and almost as many in the slave trade in the western hemisphere.
Look at the human cost of Central and South American wars with over a million killed. And the American Civil War killed 600,000. Even the little old Crimean War took a half million lives. Over four million were killed in the Congo in the wars that began in 1998, but that was only about 6% of their population so it only put a small dent in their population growth rate.
“And how about the famines? Famines in India in the late 19th century took 15 to 30
million lives, the ‘potato famine’ of Ireland 750,000.”
“Ya Chet, but without that potato famine I wouldn’t be here. My grandparents immigrated here so they wouldn’t starve. Heck, if it weren’t for the famine I’d probably be a priest in Galway!”
“You bring up religion, what about the religious wars and massacres: In the mid-1800s the Taiping Rebellion in China took 20 to 30 million lives as people fought for a one God theocracy—and lost. The Thuggee sect of the goddess Kali sacrificed a half million in India. Muslim rebellions in China killed another 300,000.”
“Chet, let’s not forget ethnic and religious cleansing. Between 100,000 and a million American Indians were killed by the good Christian invaders. In Australia 300,000 Australian aborigines were eliminated in their own land by the white settlers. And of course 6 million Jews, gypsies and other religiously or ethnically objectionable people were gassed by the Nazis.
“Just looking at the 19th century, the large and small wars, famines and uprisings
killed about 54 million during the century. We could assume that these killings and starvings reduced the population at the end of that century by about 3% from what it might have been. The 20th century inhumanities also accounted for about another 3% drop in the 6 billion population. Of course because there were more people, there were more total deaths.
“Thanks to better weapons, the psychotic warlords of the last century were incredibly effective murderers. In the 20th century we’re talking about 200 million or so war deaths, with Mao leading the pack at 30 to 60 million, Hitler and the Axis powers accounted for 55 million and Stalin was responsible for another 20 million.
The Islamic State, or ISIL, as well as Shabab in East Africa and Boko Haram in West Africa certainly are doing a brutal job of reducing population. It seems to be even more brutal than our American method of population control—allowing guns to just about everybody!
There must be better ways of controlling population than having uneducated religious zealots and uneducated power-hungry macho people and psychotics, killing whoever stands in their way. But since people are generally controlled by emotional rhetoric that sooths their power drives, rather than logically considering the facts, I guess we have to live with it. In the time I have left on our planet I certainly hope I can see the issues more clearly and help others along a peaceful path by using our intelligence to preserve our home.”
“Didn’t realize it was so many, commander. So obviously wars, revolutions, massacres and famines are not doing the job of effectively controlling our population. We need about a 70% drop in population, not a piddling 3%. So do we need bigger bombs, larger scale wars, greater levels of genocide?”
“Perhaps it’s time to try a peaceful and intelligent method of doing it. But then that would hurt the economy if the world’s weapons dealers had no one to sell to!”
“Commander, are you sure that with global warming and the eventual lack of water we won’t have some really effective famines? Maybe they will supplement the natural disasters enough to reduce our population to manageable levels. Maybe these are more likely than doing it voluntarily.”