Informational Apathy

This last year’s presidential election had the highest voter turnout in over a quarter century, and was the best example of democracy in action that this country has seen in a long time. This was mostly due to this last election’s hot button issues fanning the political flame. While the turn out for this election was amazing and a great first step towards an effective democracy we have run into a different hurdle. Over the last 8 years Americans have become more and more susceptible to sensationalism. We have become lazy and instead of taking the time to do the research to make an informed decision. We are allowing a few media outlets to make the decision for us. This is true of both the left and the right. Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh revolution are just as bad as their Rachel Maddow / Keith Olbermann counter parts. The problem is all these people are all sensationalist whose chief job is not to inform the public, but to make money by entertaining. This is unfortunate because Americans would rather take the advice of one of these self described patriots/protectors than go and do the research themselves. Consequently our public is becoming more and more polarized and uninformed. I find that this stems from a single issue. Our country suffers from a lack of leaders. No one wants to invest the time or take the risk associated with having an informed opinion because then you are culpable. If your opinion leads to rune you are to blame. BUT if you were just following someone else advice you have deniability. We are a nation of sheep being lead by sensationalist who do not have your best interest in mind. Only YOU have your best interest in mind. If you take the time to do your research you may find that your beliefs are not actually republican ideals, but you may in actuality be a libertarian. Or if you are a democrat you may discover you are really more of a Progressive or Social democrat. You have more than two options. You don’t have to decide between fox news and MSNBC. You don’t have to be all or nothing. This political duality is forcing the public to believe that one side is right while the other is wrong, and that there is no gray area in-between. But there is. It’s not all or nothing and you don’t have to let someone else dictate your decisions. Having different opinions doesn’t make either of us wrong so long as we can have a civil educated discussion. Today our political arena’s weapons are hyperbole, name calling, fear mongering, and lies. No decision can or should be made with these devices as evidence. We the public are responsible for allowing this to happen and the only way we can remove this crap from the political arena by educating ourselves. Listen to arguments from all sides. Read source material as well as second hand interpretations. Talk to people with different viewpoints and actually listen to what they have to say. Take your education into your own hands.

World Population

In the last few days I’ve noticed a number of articles from around the world discussing population in various ways. State side proud Arkansas Dugger family has just welcomed their 19^th child into the world. Internationally the BBC world news reported that the global population should reach about 8 Billion by 2020. Population is a touchy subject and the Duggers seem to have riled a few feathers. Is it wrong to have that many children? Many would say that so long as the children are taken care of there is nothing wrong with it, but while that seems fair on
the surface it sets a poor precedent.

The Dugger Family

The world population is set to increase by nearly 20% in the next 10 years. Ironically the population’s boom is happening mostly in Africa and other third world nations. These nations currently do not have the means to support their populations without help from outside aid. The people having children are more often than naught poor and uneducated. It is interesting to note that while the world population is rising most of the industrialized nations are experiencing a decline in growth, and some even a shrinkage. Many European countries are having less and less children. It is a common trend that the more educated a nation the lower the average birth rate. With education wealth usually accompanies that as well. So the smartest and the richest people in the world are the ones having the fewest children.

Often poverty is a result of not being educated. And the uneducated are more likely to: not be informed about proper safe sex techniques, have sex more often because sex is a cheap form of entertainment. If you put a bunch of people in a room with nothing to do for long enough they will find a way to entertain themselves and sex is one of the easiest and most gratifying. Poorer countries have more sex and use less prevention leading to high rates of STDs as well is a high birth rate.

Well educated wealthier individuals find other things to keep them preoccupied with so they have sex less often, but when they do they are far more likely to take safety measures. All this makes for less STDs and a lower birth rate.

Ok so what? A bunch of babies are born in Africa, the world has the ability to supply the necessary resources to keep them alive. But I ask at what quality of life? The majority of the population of the world is hanging on by a thin thread. If we elevated them up to even half the standard of living we enjoy in the United States the world would be devoid of natural resources in a short period of time.

Now I know that I will be hated for this next comment, but I think to a certain degree Darwin needs to take his course. The reason poor impoverished people have more babies is to increase the likelihood that some will survive. And the reason more well off families have fewer children is because the likelihood that they will die is slim. This can be seen all throughout nature. By giving so much aid to these nations that have a population so great that they could never be able to sustain themselves without assistance is just delaying the inevitable. We are building a population bubble that will eventually have to burst. If Africa can only produce enough food to feed 1 billion people we shouldn’t be allowing their population to balloon to 3 billion by supplying them with aid. What happens if in just one year there is a food shortage? Starvation will be rampant. Billions will die. More will die in a year than if we just kept our numbers at a sustainable level. Is it fair to those who are not yet born to doom them to starvation?

What people don’t often see in this equation is the reason why our populations are always being pushed to grow. Simply put its pure economics.

1) The more people there are the more money there is to be made because there are more consumers.

2) Older individuals require more resources to take care of. Insurance companies, SS, Medicare and any other risk spreading programs work on the basic principle that population will continue to grow so that there will always be more young/healthy people than older in order to foot the bill.

In Eastern Europe many countries are having to dole out tax cuts to incentives people to have children, because in a few short years their social programs will not be able to sustain themselves. There will be more old people than young.

So what can we do? We need to always have more young healthy people than old, yet we don’t want so many people that we eventually set ourselves up for a mass rationing of resources that causes a huge chunk of the population to starve and die. What we need is to promote a sustainable population. If the same number of children were born every year the population would slowly come to a level. Since there are always some people who don’t make it to old age there would always be a higher number of young and healthy individuals to support the older. How do we accomplish this?

1) Support marital unions and a culture of monogamy.

- Marriage and monogamous relationships are more likely to have healthier and better educated children.

2) Educate the public on safe sex practices.

- Abstinence only education is almost as bad as no education. This is the most practical and reasonable way to stop unwanted pregnancy, the spread of disease.

3) Adopt

- There are millions of children out there with families. Take these children in gives them a better chance of being a productive member of society, and lowers the population by reducing the need to have babies.

4) Support Roe VS Wade.

- This shouldn’t be an issue if education was up to standards as abortion is most often a result of not being educated on safe sex practices.

Some more radical ways that may be necessary if we don’t act soon.

5) Limit the number of children a family can have to 2.

- If every woman was limited to 2 children the world’s population would slowly decrease.

6) Discontinue supplying foreign aid to nations that cannot sustain their population on their own.

- This would cause a large number of people to starve, but in the end would allow for a sustainable population to be built. In the end it would save billions from suffering instead of millions.

Our growing population is the root of all of our problems. Our growing need for energy, food, space, and resources can all be traced back to our growing population. If we don’t start to make some serious choices we are going to face some serious consequences. You think its hard to say no to 3 children try saying no to 10, then 20. I’ll be way worse later, but I guess that is something someone in the future will have to worry about. Not us. Not me.

Amendment - This article was used to site a contradiction between my belief in national health care and my somewhat Darwinistic utilitarian beliefs displayed in the above article. I would like to address this. If one takes the time to really consider the arguement you can see they are not related. First off health care in our country is not in short supply. We have the means to supply everyone with healthcare, but you method of delivery is defunked. We have the ability to be completely self sustaining if we would manage our resources properly. Currently we have a unsustainable system that needs to be put down. I would advocate that healthcare reform is pushing us towards sustainability which is ultimately what my point for population control.