|
|
Revised 10/12/97 CE
By Evel D.
Most people don't take the time out to think about overpopulation, but it is a major problem. How is this a major problem you ask? The Earth has enough room on it for everyone you say? Hmm, how deluded a thought this is, but it is a common thought among many people. Most people don't consider the fact that humans are not the only form of life on this planet. Sadly, many people do not care about all of the other animals we share this place with. I am not going to go off on a tangent of how Christian dogma and many other 'white-light' religions have helped cause this problem. I am thinking more in terms of
Solutions, how can we solve this problem? Well, the first answer to this is not to ban abortions as many of our Christian coalition 'pals' would like. Most people will tell you that abortion is a brutal horrific act and should in no way be considered medicine. Yes I do feel that abortion is in some ways unfair. Often times used by irresponsible people as an easy way out, BUT man is the only animal without a true predator except for viruses and the like. (You wonder why all of these new viruses have popped up, it's just natures way of reducing the herd.) I feel that it is far more merciful to end the life of an unwanted child then to have someone have an unwanted child and throw them in a trash can; which has become a common occurrence these days. I think we should give incentives for abortions such as making them free this way it would be easily assessable to everyone. Too bad abortions won't solve the whole problem.
Other ways to help reduce the population is to tax people after they have a certain amount of children. There would be a limit of two children per family and the more children you have the higher your tax gets. In this day and age we should not encourage people to breed haphazardly. It never ceases to amaze me that the amount of children per family has actually increased in the last few years. In fact in the former Soviet Union it is not uncommon for people to have families of 5 or more, but since their life expectancy is now fifty years it doesn't cause too much of an impact.
Another way to solve the problem of overpopulation is through education, but sadly the countries that have the largest overpopulation problems also (usually) have the worst educational systems. I think if people realized what a large problem it actually is; and realized that some of the things that we are seeing today. (Such as new viruses as I mentioned earlier, and old bacteria becoming resistant to medication.) Maybe greater steps would be taken.
On the more extreme side we could encourage suicide so that those of us who really want to live can. In fact there are already extremist organizations out there today who encourage such acts and others (If you are not freaked out easily you may want to check out The Church of Euthanasia ). I myself don't feel that suicide should be looked down upon. I feel that after a person has passed the stages of adolescents and they are adults that is their choice. I fully support the right to die movement. I feel that if you have become incapacitated with some disease and you suffer on a day to day basis and you know that you will suffer until you die because there isn't a cure to what ails you. Why deny that person the right to die in dignity? Why force a life on them that they can no longer bear living. I feel that the government has no right to impose laws to stop these people from ending their misery. In fact years ago these same people would not suffer the way they are simply because we didn't have the medical advancements to extend their lives as we do now.
Someone had suggested more capital punishment to me as a way to solve this problem. On one hand sure it would be a good way of reducing the amount of people on this planet, but unfortunately our society has not evolved enough to use capital punishment wisely. As there are still far too many people in jail for crimes they did not commit and are released everyday because of that fact. At this point I can only support capital punishment if there is hard evidence proving the person did it. Also, everyone should get the same punishment for the same crimes. In America person A can do one thing and get life in prison and person B can do the same exact thing and walk. Until our justice system doesn't rely on how much you paid your lawyer to ensure you win. Until it is truly up to par we shouldn't rely on this method to reduce our numbers.
We actually have three choices in this situation. One we can keep having as many kids as we want and watch the quality of our lives decrease tremendously. As we continue to have children with complete disregard for the children or ourselves we will watch our world become even further polluted. Watch all of out natural environments become populated by humans and end up dying of starvation and infectious diseases. Or we could go with the second plan which is to let people have as many children as they want, but to cut down everyones life expectancy to about thirty years. This way the population would basically remain steady at all times. Oh yeah did I mention that going with plan one would eventually lead to plan two anyway? Or we could go with all of us being responsible and keeping our numbers down. The world will still go on if you do not contribute to the gene pool. I am sure some people are thinking to themselves that I am being pretty extreme with this, but we need to do something before it's too late. This situation is going to become like the green house situation. People talked about it, but nothing was done and if you think the green house effect was a hoax of some sort. You are more deluded then I first stated. This is not an unpreventable situation. This is something that we can do something about and we as responsible humans owe it to all of the other life forms on this planet as well as ourselves.
©: Demonic Realms inc. 1997 &1998 CE
More literature from and about this author can
be found at Synic's Page of
Infernal Delights