GPS, I read that sentence a few times and figured out what was meant. <“The notion, still widespread today, that we can promote human happiness merely by increasing food production, with a simultaneous reining-in of population growth, is doomed to end in frustration.>
I don't agree. Humans choose to pile into cities and live in the rat race. Rural areas are draining of populations around the world. People LIKE to surge in mobs on the haj. They love to get in the mosh pit. In Antwerp, they'd have bell-ringing in summer, and the mobs would surge around the Cathedral plaza, to be in the crowd, rather than to listen to the bells, though there was a serious bunch of people seated like an audience. Oxford Street gets jammed with people. The Yamanote line is full.
People can go and live the quiet life in the hinterlands. They would even get better pay and cheaper accommodation in many places [rural New Zealand for example rather than Auckland]. But they like the hustle and bustle and mod cons and airports, hospitals, schools, parks, friends, relatives, shops, recreation, movies, restaurants and everything else.
It's not more food we need now, it's higher quality food. Fruit and other foods are pathetic compared with the tree-ripened crops and wild foods of yore.
Mqurice |
