Sunday, August 26, 2007

Survival of the Dumbest

The human race is killing our planet. It's not a new thought, but it bears repeating. We simply don't seem to be able to control our urge to populate...and we dread the thought of death. We will keep ourselves alive, at any cost. Modern medicine is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States alone.

Evolution has brought about one undeniable fact. The Earth can only be home to so many of each species. Over the millennia, species have evolved, thrived and died out, making way for new species. The evolution of man has completely unraveled what Mother Nature has been doing for millions of years.

Has anyone ever heard of the dinosaurs?

Way back when, the mentally and physically handicapped would have perished at childhood. The blind and deaf would not have lived long enough to grow up and give birth to yet another generation of blind and deaf. Children with autism, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder would have been outcasts, if they survived at all.

Women have always out-populated men on the global scale. But now, with the advances of modern medicine, some countries are seeing as much as a 10 to 1 ratio of women to men. Why? Because in the past, a large percentage of the female population died in childbirth.

Then, of course, there are the “extremists”. You know, the people who put their lives at risk all for a cheap thrill? The “X Games”, "Jackass" or Nascar. I don’t understand why it becomes such a “tragedy” when one of these losers actually bites it. I’m sorry, but if you’re dumb enough to try it, then I’m willing to call it “population control”.

Terrorists, mass murderers and arsonists are all protected by our “laws”. Yet, in some strange way, I feel that these people are a by-product of man's inability to keep the population at a reasonable percentage of the Earth‘s ability to provide. They are some wacky spin-off of evolution, trying to keep the herd from becoming too much of a burden on the ecosystem. Not that they deserve my pity. But how many times have you heard of a pig killing another pig? Or a dolphin killing another dolphin? Yet these two species are presumed to be closest in mental capacity to humans.

People didn’t used to live to be 100. Plagues killed millions. And I haven’t even touched on the idea that war itself may be a subconscious human catalyst to thin the herd.

Call me insensitive if you must, but think about it.

1 comment:

jazz bird said...

While you make a couple of valid points, I wouldn't be so quick to agree with your overall post. It seems a bit of a myopic view.

You fail to point out that the growth rate for the world's population has already hit a severe downward trend, down to slightly more than 1% from 2% in the 1960s. Slicing a global growth rate nearly in half over 40 years is pretty tremendous when you consider the scope.

While some developed countries afford better medical care and are taking better care of ourselves on some levels, there are still nations with huge, epidemic death rates-- not all of them small, third-world countries. Russia, for example, has experienced a decline in population at the rate of approximately 700,000 per year, largely due to AIDS, alcoholism, and suicide. We've also taken great strides, on some levels, to better avoid destroying our overall environment, compared to earlier growth in industry. Advancement itself is inevitable. If nothing else, we possess the awareness of the need for environmental impact testing in the development of newer technologies. Of course, there is always room for improvement, regardless of the era. In the history of man, there has always been great potential for error.

While I agree that we need to consume less, be more aware of our excessive waste and not have children just for the sake of having them, I think we are on the upswing of improvement. I wouldn't in any way halt the progression of medical advances, which has greatly improved quality of life for many. It's not as black and white as life or death. In fact, the more countries have developed and advanced, the smaller the average family sizes have become. In the US, for example, family sizes have continued to decline as the average age of single adults in a household has risen along with the average age of marriage. It's all a part of our advancement.