The title is one which only a Singaporean will comprehend. Not to long ago, a few colleagues and I were discussing about natural resources and the world economy and right now we know that the price of crude oil is poking out through the roof and growing taller by the day.
Capitalism, although it is driven us to our current state may not be able to push us further on the track of evolution. The rich and poor divide will drive the society apart. Capitalism basic is greed. The more you have, the more you want.
I see that demand has far exceed the supply. The demand for oil and energy. The demand for food. These demand has far exceed the supply for them. Some people are facing famine and blackout on a daily basis. Just yesterday night, the news reported that due to the current situation with the growing fuel prices, Japan ministers now need to cut back on the subsidy given the countries. Malaysia has announce the ending of cheap oil. All this will always translate into a rise in living cost. Looks like another round of price increase.
Which come down to and back to my heading "Resource No Enough". Conservation it is the way to go. How about the other way? Cut back on demand? Can we do that?
I say we can. We cannot depend on capitalism or the economy any more if we are going to do that. Economy or the growth in the economy is the current indicator used by government world wide to gauge how well they did. However with this, it also indicate that the demand for every thing increase too. How do we control the demand? We reduce the source of the demands. We need to reduce the population on earth. (Unless we can start to colonize other planet, we need to stop the growth)
I see that some countries had started to adopt policies towards this goal and also develop beneficial technologies in this area. Like China had adopted the "1 Child policy" in the last 30 years and they are slowly seeing the effect. Japan has developed technologies that would greatly enhance the lives of those in the graying days. Robotics and exo-skeleton technologies are just a few of that examples.
Although reducing the population will increase the work load for the adults, but on the whole it is sustainable. With improvement in technologies, people can contribute more efficiently and for a longer period of their live time. Hence reducing the dependency on society. This however will result in economy shrinking. Lesser population will mean lesser demand and will eventually translate into a shrinking economy. Our current mentally is that shrinking economy is not good. (Heh even our minister peg their pay to the growth our economy. ) Do you think people can accept it? A shrinking economy? Some of the financial institution and financial products on the market now depend on this growth. Some of our savings depend on it too. What will they do? What will you do?
I applause the actions of some and appalled at the actions of the other. The top 2 most populated countries in the world currently listed in Wikipedia is China and India. 1 has taken action to control its population. The other is shipping its citizens out in an effort to reduce the demand on their country land.
My stance is the earth is like a pie. Now how your look at it, cut it, the surface area is the same. Yes, there can be innovative ways to cut it but it is still the same. Furthermore, we share the same pie as the rest of the animal kingdom.
I hate to be around with the earth is like a can of sardines. 6 millions on a little red dot?! Hey wake you your idea!!
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