Standing on the edge of summer, part three
Today, I breathed a great sigh of relief as I took a proverbial step back and gauged the amount of work I've done in the past few days versus the amount of sleep I've received. I went back to my apartment, did some studying, and then passed out at about 4 in the afternoon. One of the most disorienting things, for me at least, one can ever experience is falling asleep when it's bright and sunshiny out, only to wake up to a darkened sky. It's disconcerting, to say the least. Were it not for a phonecall from a friend in class, I might've slept through till about midnight.
Was so tempted to get a shirt I saw today. Picture of a cow without any legs resting on grass. Caption says "Ground Beef." Tie between that shirt and a shirt with a spoon that has the caption "Cereal Killer." T-shirts certainly have come a long way.
One thing I learned in geography class, that I will hold onto indefinitely, which is the population problem. Thomas Malthus said there'd be a massive die-off, followed by a leveling off of population, but in the meantime, it's the poor people's fault. Statistically, the fertility rate of developed countries such as America lies in between 1.8 to 2.1, whereas in impoverished areas it's anywhere from about 2.6 to about 3.8. That's a huge disparity, when you consider also the fact that the poor are literally breeding generations of more poor people at an exponential rate. Essentially, creating a generation of individuals that cannot provide or be provided for. To call this a cyclical relationship would be a gross understatement.
It's simply too easy to blame them, when we should really look at functions of the state and the role they should play in education, contraceptive distribution, and giving welfare benefits to people that are able to maintain a family size within reasonable parameters of a nuclear set-up. The welfare system in America is a flawed neccessity, much like pretty much everything else. The great thing about this country is that there are loopholes to everything. Welfare doesn't so much have a loophole as it has a huge deficiency in giving more welfare and social care handouts to poor families with a large amount of children. So the solution to getting more money? Keep on fuckin.' There's no concrete line drawn to the limits of how much welfare can provide for these people, which is understandable, because then a whole mess of moral and so-called "objective" arguments are called into question, such as how many children qualifies as enough, and how it's not within our country's moral imperative to disqualify people from receiving the benefits they deserve circumstantially. When we take this into account, along with religious opposition to abortion, and the fact that 90 percent of these American families are barely making enough to support their families, it's no wonder the concept of over-population takes a backseat to everything else.
Furthermore, people such as our President advocate a "cornucopian" approach to assessing the overpopulation crisis. How? By actively telling themselves there isn't an overpopulation problem. High growth rates, cornucopians claim, are good for the global community as a whole, since a large community fosters cooperation and promotes a nationalistic identity. Apparently, their argument is based on foresight when there's really a fixation on the present more than anything else going on. The American people, based on popular consensus, seem to condone this approach more than anything else. If anything, to them, this is the only approach. Despite overwhelming evidence that suggests otherwise, people believe there is no overpopulation problem. People are also retarded.
We need to stop it with this moral and fundamental bullshit we always saturate our critical decisions with, and start thinking rationally about even the most abstract of concepts, including overpopulation, which is no longer an abstraction and has been a troubling reality for some time. Ask the people of Calcutta or Beijing if there's an overpopulation problem, and most likely you'll be met with a confused response; This is how much the issue of overpopulation has been undercut in our global psyche. Considering the rate that China is growing at, the overpopulation the government tried to curb back in the 80s will be an even greater problem than before. Overpopulation in a country (yeah, China) with a hideous environmental track record and corruption in all sectors, public and private equals urban decay in overcrowding, unreliable supply of natural resources, and steady proliferation of viruses and illnesses. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The ratio of rich to poor in China is the highest in all of the Asian countries, which is amazing considering this an index that includes the Phillipines, and the rate at which this ratio is growing is, for lack of better words, an affront to humanity. Two points for anyone who can figure out how overpopulation and the problems it presents figures into all of this.
Employing draconian tactics such as the barefoot doctors simply won't cut it these days in a quickly globalizing society, where people are supposedly making the move towards a greater consciousness about themselves and society. I say supposedly because this consciousness equates to people wanting to drive Benzes and live Western lifestyles in the developing world. Once again, people are retarded. China might be one of the world leaders of industrial output and its economic growth rate right now is uncontestedly powerful, but at the same time, it's spiralling out of control. Instead of focusing on rapid development, countries such as China need to first set themselves firmly in the present in order to truly assess the future. Overpopulation needs to be addressed first and foremost, because frankly, a technologically superior landscape means nothing if it can't provide for the people living in it. There need to be great measures taken, with a greater priority taken to care for the needs of people in the world today first and foremost. Such measures as higher education rates and expanding literacy in poor areas are crucial to curbing unstable fertility rates, and welfare needs to start benefitting smaller, working families. In terms of China, one can look at the rapid development it's undergoing and think to themselves, "how nice!" but one will rarely stop to think about who this development is truly benefitting. The ones that have considered this question are the wealthy elite, and they've most likely already decided the answer for themselves. China's overpopulation is a problem that will come back to bite it on the ass. I guarantee you some sort of overpopulation-related issue will rear its ugly head within the next 7 years. I'll place money on this.
I'm not sure how my studying Milton transformed into a diatribe on overpopulation and China. Eh. Back to studying.
Was so tempted to get a shirt I saw today. Picture of a cow without any legs resting on grass. Caption says "Ground Beef." Tie between that shirt and a shirt with a spoon that has the caption "Cereal Killer." T-shirts certainly have come a long way.
One thing I learned in geography class, that I will hold onto indefinitely, which is the population problem. Thomas Malthus said there'd be a massive die-off, followed by a leveling off of population, but in the meantime, it's the poor people's fault. Statistically, the fertility rate of developed countries such as America lies in between 1.8 to 2.1, whereas in impoverished areas it's anywhere from about 2.6 to about 3.8. That's a huge disparity, when you consider also the fact that the poor are literally breeding generations of more poor people at an exponential rate. Essentially, creating a generation of individuals that cannot provide or be provided for. To call this a cyclical relationship would be a gross understatement.
It's simply too easy to blame them, when we should really look at functions of the state and the role they should play in education, contraceptive distribution, and giving welfare benefits to people that are able to maintain a family size within reasonable parameters of a nuclear set-up. The welfare system in America is a flawed neccessity, much like pretty much everything else. The great thing about this country is that there are loopholes to everything. Welfare doesn't so much have a loophole as it has a huge deficiency in giving more welfare and social care handouts to poor families with a large amount of children. So the solution to getting more money? Keep on fuckin.' There's no concrete line drawn to the limits of how much welfare can provide for these people, which is understandable, because then a whole mess of moral and so-called "objective" arguments are called into question, such as how many children qualifies as enough, and how it's not within our country's moral imperative to disqualify people from receiving the benefits they deserve circumstantially. When we take this into account, along with religious opposition to abortion, and the fact that 90 percent of these American families are barely making enough to support their families, it's no wonder the concept of over-population takes a backseat to everything else.
Furthermore, people such as our President advocate a "cornucopian" approach to assessing the overpopulation crisis. How? By actively telling themselves there isn't an overpopulation problem. High growth rates, cornucopians claim, are good for the global community as a whole, since a large community fosters cooperation and promotes a nationalistic identity. Apparently, their argument is based on foresight when there's really a fixation on the present more than anything else going on. The American people, based on popular consensus, seem to condone this approach more than anything else. If anything, to them, this is the only approach. Despite overwhelming evidence that suggests otherwise, people believe there is no overpopulation problem. People are also retarded.
We need to stop it with this moral and fundamental bullshit we always saturate our critical decisions with, and start thinking rationally about even the most abstract of concepts, including overpopulation, which is no longer an abstraction and has been a troubling reality for some time. Ask the people of Calcutta or Beijing if there's an overpopulation problem, and most likely you'll be met with a confused response; This is how much the issue of overpopulation has been undercut in our global psyche. Considering the rate that China is growing at, the overpopulation the government tried to curb back in the 80s will be an even greater problem than before. Overpopulation in a country (yeah, China) with a hideous environmental track record and corruption in all sectors, public and private equals urban decay in overcrowding, unreliable supply of natural resources, and steady proliferation of viruses and illnesses. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The ratio of rich to poor in China is the highest in all of the Asian countries, which is amazing considering this an index that includes the Phillipines, and the rate at which this ratio is growing is, for lack of better words, an affront to humanity. Two points for anyone who can figure out how overpopulation and the problems it presents figures into all of this.
Employing draconian tactics such as the barefoot doctors simply won't cut it these days in a quickly globalizing society, where people are supposedly making the move towards a greater consciousness about themselves and society. I say supposedly because this consciousness equates to people wanting to drive Benzes and live Western lifestyles in the developing world. Once again, people are retarded. China might be one of the world leaders of industrial output and its economic growth rate right now is uncontestedly powerful, but at the same time, it's spiralling out of control. Instead of focusing on rapid development, countries such as China need to first set themselves firmly in the present in order to truly assess the future. Overpopulation needs to be addressed first and foremost, because frankly, a technologically superior landscape means nothing if it can't provide for the people living in it. There need to be great measures taken, with a greater priority taken to care for the needs of people in the world today first and foremost. Such measures as higher education rates and expanding literacy in poor areas are crucial to curbing unstable fertility rates, and welfare needs to start benefitting smaller, working families. In terms of China, one can look at the rapid development it's undergoing and think to themselves, "how nice!" but one will rarely stop to think about who this development is truly benefitting. The ones that have considered this question are the wealthy elite, and they've most likely already decided the answer for themselves. China's overpopulation is a problem that will come back to bite it on the ass. I guarantee you some sort of overpopulation-related issue will rear its ugly head within the next 7 years. I'll place money on this.
I'm not sure how my studying Milton transformed into a diatribe on overpopulation and China. Eh. Back to studying.
posted by 99thdream at 10:41 PM
1 Comments:
Hmm...I hadn't thought of this. I always viewed China as a burgeoning superpower that would eventually knock the U.S. out of the #1 seat seeing as how we're outsourcing many of our jobs over there, but seeing as how their population is spinning so dangerously out of control, it's a wonder how they'll manage to keep themselves together in the next few years.
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