"Overpopulation is one of the most critical world problems of our time that endangers economic progress and peace."
President Johnson in 1967:
"I will seek new ways to use our knowledge to help deal with the explosion in world population and the growing scarcity in world resources."
President Nixon:
"Population growth is a world problem which no country can ignore. The United Nations and other international bodies should take leadership in responding fully."
I did 2 combat tours. After that I did 7 years on a volunteer fire department. Here's what I learned ..
When you have 7 billion people in close proximity to each other, a certain amount of bad shit is going to happen. Whether it's war, accidents, suicides, disasters, crime, or riots, the end results are ugly and inevitable.
Anyone who expects people to think alike and "get along" all the time are simply deluding themselves. Friction makes heat, and there will always be friction.
It is this way on all levels in nature. It is our natural state.
sorry
Wars have happened for thousands of years. Overpopulation and scrambling for resources makes it all worse. It is something I think built into the nature of mankind.
It's really hard to forget shit like that. I used to see awful things when I worked inside an emergency room. Just awful awful stuff.
You really do take it home. It's hard to get those images out of your mind. I know exactly how you feel, and I'm sure what you saw was much worse. I only saw what the EMT's brought in.
Imagine that happening to your friend/co-worker.
or,
imagine shooting someone in the face, wishing you had not done it.
It fucks your head up.
My grandfather used to talk about fighting in WWII, and going into caves and seeing civilians, babies, kids, women...hiding. They'd toss a hand grenade into the cave and blow it up and kill them all. He never got over it really.
He used to have nightmares all the time, and wake up screaming. It was awful.
I've seen a lot of blood and gore and trauma and horrible shit. It stays with you always. I can only imagine the stuff you had to see.
For thousands of years, the world population stayed well under 1 billion.
Then around 1850, with the industrial revolution and the age of cheap oil (and thus cheap food), the world population skyrocketed.
If the age of cheap oil is over, we could easily be facing mass starvation, chaos, and global wars for resources.
The world doesn't need 7 billion people consuming resources like maniacs.
World leaders should be encouraging birth control & sterilization, and focusing on reducing the world population.
The Industrial Revolution was definitely a factor, but it's also due to the death rate falling faster than birth rates, medical advances, infant mortality rate falling.
Illiteracy is a factor; those who lack education fail to understand family planning.
Yep. Its even worse when you do it. It follows you home.
It's really hard to forget shit like that. I used to see awful things when I worked inside an emergency room. Just awful awful stuff.
You really do take it home. It's hard to get those images out of your mind. I know exactly how you feel, and I'm sure what you saw was much worse. I only saw what the EMT's brought in.
Right now, the Alawites and smaller sects control Syria, and are trying to maintain power against the Sunnis, who make up 75% of the population, but have little control over much of anything.
It's like a big clusterfuck, with the Sunnis trying to overthrow the Alawites, who are struggling to stay in control, Iran and other Syrian allies trying to control the situation against the Saudis and their allies, and Russia and China trying to maintain control there against the West.
Toronto. Never stopped riding my bike. Except for 2 dayz of snow (informer) it has been like spring. Never seen this in my 40+ years of life on this gravitational well we call Spanky.
We haven't had much of a winter either. A couple of snowstorms, that's about it.
It's been like March for months.