The Economist Magazine: In Growth It Trusts

The July 28th edition of " The Economist" had a provocative editorial essay. The title " How to deal with a falling population: Worries about a population explosion have been replaced by fears of decline". The editor is probably worried about subscription growth and corporate ads. But I am not. Frankly I would approve a leveling of human population. And I would give a standing ovation for a humane 90% reduction of our 6.6 billion bodies. A population of app. 500 million would be the app. population of man's classical era about 2500 years ago. Then intuition, wisdom and personal effort were the norm rather than todays non-quality but abundant quantity human count, duplicating machines, software and artificial intelligence ad nauseum.

One of the Editor's arguments for further not-to-worry human population growth was his dismissal out of hand of an " Malthusian catastrophe". The Editor noted that " mankind appropriates about a quater of what is known as the net primary production of the Earth ( this is the plant tissue created by photo synthesis) a lot but hardly near the point of exhaustian."

I rest my case! The self-evident fact that we already consume 25 % of " net primary production" has already caused a kind of " Malthusian catastrophe" in the extintions of the greater flora and fauna world that tries to cope with man. Also the the degeneration of the human species as evidenced by obesity, diseases linked to lack of hygiene and constant war point to overcrowding and the redundancy of most humans.

My advice to the editor is " Use a tool and lose your place". You can be replaced.