In medieval ages, countries needed armies and man-power to do all kinds of things. But today, we don't. A huge number of people are in the service industry, which is big only because it has to serve a lot of people. If towns A and B have populations of 1,000 and 100,000 each, then town A may have just 1 bank with 3-4 employees, while town B may have 10 banks with 10 employees each. And what are these extra bank employees doing in town B? Serving the people of town B.
There are hardly any labor-intensive tasks these days. Machines are everywhere. The need to have a lot of people in order to develop a country is gone. Another country is invading you? Launch a missile. Send drones. Use tanks. No country is going to send out an army of 100,000 soldiers into a war front. Machines have been invented for this and a lot of other stuff.
I have just read that China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are the world's 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 8th respectively with respect to population, making up a little over 40% of the world's population. Now, do these countries need so many people? Definitely no. Life would be a whole lot easier if the populations were lower.
Suppose that the population of South Asia is suddenly reduced to half of what it is now. The state of agriculture more or less remain the same, since it is quite industrialized now and there are already too many people farming too little land. Industries won't suffer either, since almost all the work is done by machines. The number of banks and Tech support companies and other service companies will reduce, but that's not a big deal since the loss in jobs is compensated by the reduced population. The unemployment rates will definitely go down. The quality of education will go up.
The social structure may not change and there may be social and economic class divide. But, the quality of life will definitely improve. All we have to do is to reduce the population. So, how can this be done?
The most obvious thing to do is to kill a lot of people. Killing people to give them a more comfortable life is something that crazy dictators and politicians will say, not me.
Next solution? Reduce quality of health care- If someone's going to die, let him die. Again, same as above, not a useful idea.
Ship people to other countries (or planets?)? Nope, the other countries are not stupid (science not that advanced yet).
So, we can't kill people, we can't let diseased people die, and we can't export people. What's the one other option that's left?
Don't let more people be born.
Pretty obvious, isn't it? I had thought of this before, but thought that it's not an easy thing to do. You have to explain it to people, but you can't really reach out to everyone- lots of logistic issues. Or so I thought. Then I saw the demographics of India, and apparently the urban population is now 31%. And in this age of the internet, it's not really that hard to reach out to the urban population. The internet has penetrated into the rural areas too, but even if we focus only on urban areas, and reduce the population by 50% in the next 50 years, that should be a great improvement.
If we just reduce the birth rate, population will go down by itself since people keep dying. Family planning stuff is good, but I have a better idea.
Don't have kids till you are at least 32.
Get married if you have to, but just don't have kids.
Why is this better? Because a lot of people die between the ages of 20 and 32 (I'm assuming that on average, people have kids when the wife is about 20, may not be accurate, but the argument still holds). First, this itself reduces the birth rate. Secondly, If a man or a woman is to be widowed, isn't it better to be widowed before having any kids? Or if the marriage is not working out, and they think a divorce is better, isn't it better for both the couple and the kid if it happened before the couple has a kid? At 32, the parents have matured enough, and are probably more financially secure, to raise a kid.
Also, the next generation will be replenished slower than it is now. This will also reduce the birth rate for a few decades, before it saturates.
In addition to telling people to postpone having kids, what else must be done? Most importantly, contraceptives must get a lot of publicity. But every now and then, there will be accidental pregnancies. In that case, abortion is the only option. I guess parents get too attached to the fetus, but hey, it's a lot better to live with that little pain than to screw up your life, and the kid's. So, abortions- not totally legal in India (unless the pregnancy poses harm to either the mother or the child, or if its the case of a failed contraceptive). This makes absolutely no sense. When it is so clear that population is a problem in the country, how can abortions be illegal? Do people value the life of an unborn baby more than the life of people who are alive?
As always, I just think of stuff, I'm too lazy to act on it. I can only hope that some one who reads my blog gets inspired to actually do something.
Make love, not babies.
There are hardly any labor-intensive tasks these days. Machines are everywhere. The need to have a lot of people in order to develop a country is gone. Another country is invading you? Launch a missile. Send drones. Use tanks. No country is going to send out an army of 100,000 soldiers into a war front. Machines have been invented for this and a lot of other stuff.
I have just read that China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are the world's 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 8th respectively with respect to population, making up a little over 40% of the world's population. Now, do these countries need so many people? Definitely no. Life would be a whole lot easier if the populations were lower.
Suppose that the population of South Asia is suddenly reduced to half of what it is now. The state of agriculture more or less remain the same, since it is quite industrialized now and there are already too many people farming too little land. Industries won't suffer either, since almost all the work is done by machines. The number of banks and Tech support companies and other service companies will reduce, but that's not a big deal since the loss in jobs is compensated by the reduced population. The unemployment rates will definitely go down. The quality of education will go up.
The social structure may not change and there may be social and economic class divide. But, the quality of life will definitely improve. All we have to do is to reduce the population. So, how can this be done?
The most obvious thing to do is to kill a lot of people. Killing people to give them a more comfortable life is something that crazy dictators and politicians will say, not me.
Next solution? Reduce quality of health care- If someone's going to die, let him die. Again, same as above, not a useful idea.
Ship people to other countries (or planets?)? Nope, the other countries are not stupid (science not that advanced yet).
So, we can't kill people, we can't let diseased people die, and we can't export people. What's the one other option that's left?
Don't let more people be born.
Pretty obvious, isn't it? I had thought of this before, but thought that it's not an easy thing to do. You have to explain it to people, but you can't really reach out to everyone- lots of logistic issues. Or so I thought. Then I saw the demographics of India, and apparently the urban population is now 31%. And in this age of the internet, it's not really that hard to reach out to the urban population. The internet has penetrated into the rural areas too, but even if we focus only on urban areas, and reduce the population by 50% in the next 50 years, that should be a great improvement.
If we just reduce the birth rate, population will go down by itself since people keep dying. Family planning stuff is good, but I have a better idea.
Don't have kids till you are at least 32.
Get married if you have to, but just don't have kids.
Why is this better? Because a lot of people die between the ages of 20 and 32 (I'm assuming that on average, people have kids when the wife is about 20, may not be accurate, but the argument still holds). First, this itself reduces the birth rate. Secondly, If a man or a woman is to be widowed, isn't it better to be widowed before having any kids? Or if the marriage is not working out, and they think a divorce is better, isn't it better for both the couple and the kid if it happened before the couple has a kid? At 32, the parents have matured enough, and are probably more financially secure, to raise a kid.
Also, the next generation will be replenished slower than it is now. This will also reduce the birth rate for a few decades, before it saturates.
In addition to telling people to postpone having kids, what else must be done? Most importantly, contraceptives must get a lot of publicity. But every now and then, there will be accidental pregnancies. In that case, abortion is the only option. I guess parents get too attached to the fetus, but hey, it's a lot better to live with that little pain than to screw up your life, and the kid's. So, abortions- not totally legal in India (unless the pregnancy poses harm to either the mother or the child, or if its the case of a failed contraceptive). This makes absolutely no sense. When it is so clear that population is a problem in the country, how can abortions be illegal? Do people value the life of an unborn baby more than the life of people who are alive?
As always, I just think of stuff, I'm too lazy to act on it. I can only hope that some one who reads my blog gets inspired to actually do something.
Make love, not babies.
