It surprises me that people still sheepishly ask us, “But won’t this (health aid) lead to overpopulation?” Women will naturally have fewer children if they know their kids have a greater chance of survival. Knowing that is really key.

Melinda Gates in The Tools to Save Lives, Newsweek, Nov 9, 2009

Gates is a roman catholic mother of three

Can homo sapiens – self-styled – have the wisdom to learn to manage fertility

for the common good? It is a unique experiment. We have examples of

other species being too successful in isolated situations such as islands,

impoverishing the environment and eventually diminishing in numbers

through starvation. We have similar examples in the human experience, but

we have no such experience for the species as a whole, spanning oceans

and historically warring cultures. I cannot imagine social regulation – except

in an Orwellian state – becoming so perfect that the human race actually

reaches an optimum level and stays there, but a future of population

fluctuations around a moving optimum level would be much better than we

now have.

The point of this paper is that that level is indeed moving – downward.

Human activity is already degrading the environment and its resources.

There are now too many of us to live decently on the impoverished resource

base toward which we are moving. It is not enough to hope that “something

will turn up.” That view betrays a vitalistic view of history. Nothing is likely to

turn up by itself.

Lindsey Grant: VALEDICTORY: The Age of Overshoot  2009

I have read and browsed a long series of books on current and future human conditions. Most authors are concerned about the future of man, most are expressing a certain optimism, some are reluctant to express a clear opinion and advice.

This situation has prompted some poetic lines of questioning:

Whom should I trust?

Would you trust a pope

who doesn’t understand

the message of Malthus?

Would you trust a politician

who doesn’t grasp

The Tragedy of the Commons?

Would you trust an economist

who believes

in perpetual economic growth?

Would you trust a newspaper editor

without knowledge

of The Population Bomb?

Would you trust a prime minister

who doesn’t understand

Liebig’s Law of the Minimum?

Would you trust a professor

without a working knowledge

of exponential population growth?

Would you trust a philosopher

who does not understand

the consequences of ”Peak Oil”?

Would you trust a President

who believes in

superstitious forces?

Would you trust a NGO leader

who thinks

sharing will solve world problems?

Would you trust a CEO

who denies

the finiteness of Earth’s vital resources?

Would you trust a powerful pundit

who did not recognize

the development of social entropy

Would you trust a UN Secretary General

who fails to understand

The Human Predicament?

Would you trust a Nobel Prize laureate

who will save the world

with fluorescent lamps?

Would you trust a god

who made  borderless multiplying

an order?

Tell me whom I should trust,

Show  me a person

who is not missing a point

crucial to the survival of Man.

Reiel

In this wider perspective it is clearly far too soon to judge whether modern industrialized societies, with their very high rates of energy and resource consumption and high pollution levels, and the rapidly rising human population in the rest of the world are ecologically sustainable. Past human actions have left contemporary societies with an almost insuperably difficult set of problems to solve

 Clive Pointing in A Green History of The World, 1991

We can have a country of smart voters. I hope we make the changes needed to have this kind of country. It would be a nice place in which to love.

Rick Shenkman in JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE?, 2008

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24. If the countries of the Third World do not succeed in controlling their population, than the countries having a population control need to create for it selves large autonomous peace zones. Only in such zones will it be possible to carry out environmentally sustainable methods of production and to pay the working population a reasonable wage. And free trade will only be possible between economic regions of corresponding standards.

25. We have to learn planning in longer terms and correspondingly to create a survival ethos spanning generations. For this purpose we have to avoid the trap of short-sightedness, “the trap of competition.”

Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt in Wider die Mistrauensgesellschaft (“Against The Distrust Society”), 1995

So what are we to do in the meantime, while we wait for collapse, followed by good things? It's no use wasting your energy, running yourself ragged and ageing prematurely, so get plenty of rest, and try to live a slow and measured life. One of the ways industrial society dominates us is through the use of the factory whistle: few of us work in factories, but we are still expected to work a shift. If you can avoid doing that, you will be ahead. Maintain your freedom to decide what to do at each moment, so that you can do each thing at the most opportune time. Specifically try to give yourself as many options as you can, so that if any one thing doesn't seem to be working out, you can switch to another. The future is unpredictable, so try to plan so as to be able to change your plans at any time. Learn to ignore all the people who earn their money by telling you lies. Thanks to them, the world is full of very bad ideas that are accepted as conventional wisdom, so watch out for them and come to your own conclusions. Lastly, people who lack a sense of humour are going to be in for a very hard time, and can drag down those around them. Plus, they are just not that funny. So avoid people who aren't funny, and look for those who can laugh at the world no matter what happens.

Dmitri Orlov, Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation, talk June 16, 2009, Dublin

For those who believe that your survival probabilities and living standards during and after our

Societal Collapse will be optimized through some type of preparation, you might consider one of

the following strategies.

target.

• •- Educate Yourself: learn where and how to secure, produce, obtain, and/or create sufficient

life sustaining necessities—clean water, food, energy, shelter, and clothing—to last for the

remainder of your life, in the complete absence of any output from our industrial mosaic. The

upside to survival awareness is that you will be self-sufficient; the downside is that you will be

competing for dwindling supplies of remaining resources with 300+ million desperate and

hungry Americans—at least for the short term.

• -Store Provisions: stock sufficient life sustaining necessities to enable your survival for at

least several months. The upside to a resource storehouse is that it will provide a buffer

during the onset of difficult times; the downside is that some of the 300+ million desperate

and hungry Americans will almost certainly find you and your storehouse, and attempt to

remove its contents by force.

• -Arm Yourself: stockpile guns and other weapons in order to protect yourself from the 300+

million desperate and hungry Americans. The upside to armaments is that you will be able to

defend yourself; the downside is that you will eventually run out of bullets, encounter

somebody with a bigger gun, or sleep.

•- “Relocalize” into a Self-sufficient Community: this is the group living strategy employed

by those who expect a “fizz” type collapse and post-collapse scenario. The upside is that you

and your self-sufficient companions will be capable of obtaining and producing your life

sustaining necessities for an indefinite period of time; the downside is that those lacking such

capabilities will find you, and your community will be an easy.

• - Erect a Compound: this is the group living strategy employed by those who expect a “pop”

type collapse and post-collapse scenario. The upside is that you and your trustworthy

companions will be temporarily self-sufficient; the downside is that you will be subject to

attack both from the outside, by the 300+ million desperate and hungry Americans, and from

the inside, by your trustworthy companions.

•  -Stay Mobile: travel, scavenge, and maintain a low profile during the collapse until the initial

major die-off from thirst and starvation, which should occur within the first month or so in a

“pop” collapse scenario. The upside is that you will be a moving target, more difficult to hit

than a stationary target; the downside is that you may still succumb to the initial die-off, due

to a lack of sufficient remaining resources, or to the second major die-off resulting from

disease epidemics spread by initial die-off victims.

Cris Calston in On American Sustainability, Anatomy of a Societal Collapse, 2009

In four respects Today stands in contrast to Yesterday (about 1750 – Today). First, the future has regained some of the inscrutability it possessed during the Distant Past (up to about 1750). Second, the marriage of science and technology has revealed dangerous and dehumanizing consequences that were only intuitively glimpsed, not yet experienced, by our forbears of Yesterday. Third, the new socioeconomic order proved to be less trustworthy than when it appeared during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. And last, the political spirit of liberation and self-determination has gradually lost its inspirational innocence. Hence the anxiety that is so palpable an aspect of Today, is sharp in contrast with both the resignation of the Distant Past and the optimism of Yesterday.

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During this long, slow, and often errant march I think we can gain strength by reflecting on the Distant Past. For countless millennia humanity found courage to persist, the inspiration to produce extraordinary works of art, the will to create remarkable civilizations, the strength to endure miseries, and the appetite to savor triumphs, all without the support of the vision of a living future that would be superior to the past. There is no reason why the same resilience should not support humankind if it now sets its sights on the Distant Tomorrow of our imagination.

It is enough that we can see the future as containing such imaginable possibilities. Openness and potential, without assurance of outcomes, are substitutes for Yesterday’s bright hope for Progress and our consolations for Today’s more knowing anxieties. These words may reflect easily trivialized sentiments, but I put them forward at the conclusion of this very short, extremely long survey of how the future has appeared and now appears, as a salutation to my fellow voyagers who wonder, along with myself, what humankind can accomplish.

Robert Heilbroner in Visons of The Future, 1995

As a way of inducing reflection I frequently ask people to write their own epitaphs. This exercise in summarizing their lives in a few words inevitably produces puzzlement and often results in som humorous and self-denigrating responses. Among them: “He read a lot of magazines,” “She started slowly, then backed off.” “I told you I was sick,” and “I’m glad it is over.” I encourage more thought about this and people begin to identify those aspects of their lives of which they are proud, their roles as parents, spouses, people of faith.

I actually think this exercise should be incorporated into every written will. At the point when people are contemplating their deaths, why not suggest that they add a paragraph that reads “And for my epitaph I would like the following….”?

--

Gordon Livingston in Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, 2004