Natural selection is ruthless. The so-called "demographic transition" is already showing signs of of being an evolutionary notch filter, selecting out of the gene-pool those who are susceptible to its forces. Bottom line is that as long as the means to reproduce are available, evolution will find a way to create reproducers to reproduce using them.
Norman Borlaug recognized this when he instigated the creation of additional billions of people. On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]>wrote: > Edmund Storms <[email protected]> wrote: > > Jed, such opinions depend on the time scale you wish to use. If you are >> concerned about what will happen to your children, your optimism should be >> low. >> > > Look at the video. Most of the Third World has *now* -- already -- > achieved the low levels of infant mortality and family size that were the > standard in the First World in 1960. These problems are essentially solved, > except in a few countries that are politically unstable or at war. We can > be optimistic now, becauses these two critical problems have been largely > solved. > > Once you stop the population explosion and ensure that most children will > survive to adulthood, that frees up resources to make progress in many > other areas, such as education, economic growth and reducing pollution. The > Internet, on-line instruction and on-line libraries are beginning to have > an impact on education. > > This video was made by the Gates Foundation. A large share of the credit > for recent progress goes to them. > > > >> if you are talking about your great-grand children, you should be a bit >> more optimistic. >> > > We are not talking about our great-grandchildren. This is happening now. > > If anyone in 1960 has said that Africa would achieve U.S. levels of infant > mortality and family size by 2005, people would have accused them of being > panglossian fools. People were predicting continent-wide mass starvation > back then. > > Of course far more needs to be done. But this progress proves that we can > achieve far more. With programs like a guaranteed minimum income and > technology such as cold fusion, we can eliminate dire poverty everywhere, > and we can have universal literacy within a generation. These goals are > within sight. > > We can also eliminate things like the terrible air pollution in China. We > had that kind of pollution in some cities the U.S. and the U.K. until the > early 1950s, and in Japan until mid-1960s. The problem was solved when the > voters demanded it be solved. The technology to fix it was available from > the 1930s on. > > - Jed > >
