Seven Billionth Human Born
(CNN) -- The global population is expected to reach 7 billion Monday -- just 12 years after hitting 6 billion -- and the milestone has many pondering the complex challenges associated with billions more people on Earth in the coming years.
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I am pondering the intersection of religious fundamentalism, the interests of the Corporatocracy, the political Right, and overpopulation.
Whom does overpopulation serve? Why are the Catholic church and so many other fundamentalist sects of many denominations vehemently aligned with policies and beliefs that promote overpopulation?
Reproduction without limit can be seen as a defense against one's own mortality (see "The Denial of Death," Ernest Becker, 1973). Having many children can be seen as an "immortality project" by which one ensures one's life beyond one's personal death through the continuing life of one's children.
Reproduction without limit certainly served the interests of the Catholic church and other fundamentalist sects by providing many more "souls" to be saved, and not incidentally, to tithe as well as to provide cannon fodder for the church's wars. I wonder if many such fundamentalist sects hope to "out-reproduce" the competition, breeding more and more children raised in that particular church than their competitors.
Reproduction without limit serves the interests of the Corporatocracy as well. Every article on the attainment of the 7 billionth birth reported that overpopulation strains already overtaxed, overutilized resources. When there is competition for scarce resources, the Corporatocracy, which controls access to and distribution of these scarce resources, makes ever more profit.
From these perspectives it becomes clear why Christian Fundamentalists and the Corporatocracy and their shills in Congress would deny global warming, overfishing, deforestation, species extinction, and pollution of air and water and land.
The Fundamentalist Right and the Corporatocracy attack education and have succeeded in degrading it to the point where most citizens are unable to understand the connection between the consequences of overpopulation and reproduction without limits. Most citizens are unable to understand the connection between the objectives of the Corporatocracy and the consequences. Most citizens also haven't the education to know that societies could be organized so that only 4 hours of labor per day would be necessary to assure adequate food, shelter, education, and medical care. Of course, that could only happen on a world where the population was about 1 billion.
Star Man
Re: Seven Billionth Human Born
And that, probably not coincidentally, is the estimated natural carrying capacity of the Earth using only current solar energy, i.e., no fossil fuels.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:
Most citizens also haven't the education to know that societies could be organized so that only 4 hours of labor per day would be necessary to assure adequate food, shelter, education, and medical care. Of course, that could only happen on a world where the population was about 1 billion.
