I’m a tech geek. I love computers. I have since my first encounter with them, in the early 1970s. The reason is similar to why I like books so much: the intrinsic value is dense – they have a lot of information in a small volume. I admit that I have too many computers. They are nearly all old, because I don’t like to get rid of them. Most have a coolness factor, so I keep them around, a sort of personal museum of tech cool.
This morning, I was up way too early, laying in bed, thinking. After an hour, I got up and started reading news. I encountered an article about conflict minerals. This is of interest to me because of my consumption of electronics. It contains a reference to the Dodd-Frank act. WTF? I didn’t know that that law relates to conflict minerals. Not surprisingly, I soon found articles about Trump’s minions trying to rescind much of Dodd-Frank, including Section 1502, related to conflict minerals. However, that’s a different story.
Throughout my life, I’ve tried to think of how to solve problems like this, how to reduce the conflict over these minerals. I think about it at a high level, looking for solutions.
Thinking about how to tackle this directly led me to one of my favorite themes in thought: using fundamental principles in physics to intercede directly into problem areas. I could call this the Iron Man approach. How could I make myself all-powerful, invisible, invulnerable, something like that. How could I move into a fourth physical dimension, thereby invisibly approach a conflict area, and remove the people who are the source of conflict. Thinking along these lines always leads to enjoyable efforts to understand basic physics better and some personal insights into fundamentals. But, it doesn’t solve this problem.
Then, I thought about the human population, supply and demand. Why do we need to build so many electronic devices, which places the demand for the extraction of minerals, which creates the demand for physical control over the resource, which is solved in this instance through strong-arm military force. How do we reduce the demand in order to reduce the conflict?
I don’t want to reduce the demand for electronics by reducing what each person is allowed to have? We need to reduce the number of people in general. How do you do that?
Humans are the apex species on this planet. There are no significant predators to keep the human population size in check. The human population is out of control. Of course, individual predators are not the only check. Microscopic “predators” also can affect population numbers. Finite necessary resources will check the population. The human population will come to equilibrium when these factors come into force. The result will be a miserable existence, which we are already seeing in the world, in which a large number of people try to live in detrimental conditions, without healthy resources, and so they die.
It is not fair to subject so many people to this misery and death. Every person has a right to a rich and fulfilling life in order to experience all that existence has to offer. This is not a law of nature, an observation of how physics works. It is a moral choice.
We are seeing how diminishing resources is leading to a sort-of syndrome of taking the last of a resource for one’s self. Capitalism accelerates this phenomenon. As we destructively consume a valuable resource, its value increases, thereby increasing the drive to possess that resource, increasing the extract, take, hoard, including the last one in existence. How can you conserve a resource in these conditions? The drive to consume is too strong.
The moral consequence of these conditions is that our human population size is too large for our planet. Obviously, we are trashing the planet. Our impact is global. I have seen the global destruction of the planet by humans in my lifetime, beginning at the same time that I first saw computers. At the same time as I was participating in the anti-war and environmental movements, I was looking for how to get my own personal computer. I am part of creating this consumption-driven conflict.
Now I ask the question, can this conflict be resolved? Yes, I think so. I think that humanity’s technology has reached sufficient sophistication that we are able to maintain a healthy level of individual richness without severely impacting the planet. This is accomplished by having fewer people and by using technology and automation to substitute for the brute labor of individuals.
There are many organizations of people who are working toward reducing the human population size. They have valid moral arguments for this. They have acceptable mechanisms to accomplish this. It does not require intentionally killing anyone. It does not require denying people families.
It does require denying people the personal belief that they have complete freedom to do whatever the fuck they want and that they have a moral imperative to have as many children as they want, to hell with the rest of life on this planet. That kind of thinking has to end.
It seems natural to me to reach this conclusion. Naturally, I ask the question why have we not? There are a lot of stupid people around. There are a lot of ignorant people around. A lot of them have positions of power and directly abuse the system and others. There are intelligent people who make the wrong assumptions and develop wonderful theories and ideas about why, fundamentally, people should do whatever the fuck they want for their own personal enrichment. We have to tackle those wrong assumptions. Those are moral arguments. At the foundation of the world, that we derive from our ideas and arguments, have to be moral choices about the rights people have to a full life so that we can deny individuals from their believe in a right to take what they want for themselves to the detriment of others.