Nature has always, without fail, found ways of controlling populations if people don't choose to do it themselves.
But "overpopulated" implies that there are too many people. Too many for what? And who says so? If you ask each person "Are you surplus to humanity and would humanity be better off without you?" you will find that not many will put their hands up to donate themselves to an organ donor programme or to do the decent thing even if there's a big surplus of organs.
I have been in "over populated" places. While there, I didn't consider myself surplus to humanity. Nor did I see many people who let me to think that the rest of us would be better off if they didn't exist [threatening, glowering, criminal-looking males are the usual category].
<The strain on poor, over-populated countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines will be unbearable. I think they need to put greater emphasis on population control as a way to cope. How? That is the mystery. >
That's easy; ask to be colonized by Singapore in a semi-autonomous zone made subject to Singapore laws. Or perhaps ask for bids from various countries such as Japan, USA, China, Great Britain, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand and pick the best offer by referendum. The British Empire was denigrated unreasonably. It was uplifting for people around the world though local kleptocratic thugs didn't like it because they didn't get to do to their citizens what they subsequently did once they got the British to leave, who were only to keen to leave anyway in most instances [Falkland Islands notwithstanding].
As the British imperialist said to the Indian <It wasn’t always like this of course. In early 19th-century India, when Sir Charles James Napier was confronted with Hindu demands for a lifting of the ban on suttee, the general famously replied: ‘You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.’ >
Of course it wasn't many centuries since there had been burning of witches at the stake in Britain [so vicious rumour has it anyway].
Check out how they handle things in Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Burma, how Mao dealt with opponents [both internal and Tibet].
Mqurice |
