Overpopulation

In a mere two centuries, the human population on our planet has jumped from an estimated one billion people in 1804 to eight billion this year (June 2022)—a milestone right on schedule with the fictional movie, Soylent Green.

Statistics like this have been scaring people for many years. Even back in 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote about the prospect of mass starvation, death, and social unrest if we don’t bring its explosive growth under control. Then in 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich wrote an alarmist book titled The Population Bomb that predicted worldwide famine as early as the 1970s and ‘80s.

Fortunately, advances in technology have greatly expanded food production and held off the shortages of food. For a long time, people were beginning to consider Malthus a crackpot. But now in the 21st century, shortages are beginning to appear as we suffer from riots, wars, and Putin’s obsession to destroy the greatest food producer (Ukraine) on the Asian and European continents.

Meanwhile, masses of people are still recklessly procreating and throwing limits to the winds, especially in Africa, where they have already destroyed their greatest breadbasket (Rhodesia) some time back. Unrest in gold-rich post-apartheid South Africa is now about to do likewise.

There is no question that the world can only support a limited number of people. But what is that limit? How far can we go before millions—even billions of people suffer horrible deaths?

And food is not the only resource that people need. What about living space, or lebensraum, as Hitler called it? In 1968, John B. Calhoun began an epic experiment—Universe 25—to test it. Beginning with four pairs of healthy mice, he created a “Utopia” for them. They had all of the food and water they ever needed. Diseases and predators were kept out. About every 55 days, the population doubled for about five generations. It grew slower afterwards, but soon reached the space limits of the enclosure. Then problems developed. The excess mice could not leave the enclosure and escape the overcrowding. The social order of all of the mice broke down. The alpha males abused the others, even raping, killing and eating them. The great majority withdrew as well as they could, but they often fought and injured each other. Mother mice regularly killed their young. Infant mortality reached 90%. Violent mouse “gangs” were rampant. Normal sex drives disappeared. The population finally declined into extinction. This experiment has been repeated by others, with both mice and rats. The end results were the same every time.

Could Planet Earth end up with a similar fate once its population reaches a critical level? There is a great deal of disagreement on what that number could be. But many scientists do argue that a healthy world population should not exceed about two billion—a quarter of what we already have. The Georgia Guidestones suggest an even lower number—one half billion.

Poor people in third world countries have an opinion that bearing many children is desirable for the care of their elderly. That is family suicide. The result is chronic crowding, shortages of resources, and grinding poverty. This is already happening in Africa and much of India, Asia, the Middle East, and sizeable portions of Latin America. If this trend continues, their numbers could become so vast they would overwhelm the responsible people to the point of economic collapse. We must NEVER import that mindset into our country. It is certain death.

Excess children who run loose and have irresponsible or no parents are a terrible burden. In third world countries, thousands pour all over the streets begging, fighting, dealing drugs, stealing, vandalizing, and sometimes even killing people. Their numbers are far beyond the abilities of the people, police, and even the military to keep under control. We haven’t reached that point yet, but we do have some areas that are beginning to trend in that direction.

The big question is how can we lower the population? Killing the excess is too Nazi-like for rational people. There is only one serious solution—lower the total fertility rate to WELL BELOW the replacement level (2.1 children per family).

Beginning in 1978, China was the first country to respond with a one child per family policy up until 2015. China’s growth did slow down, but it did not plummet. Its one billion people still increased to1.1 billion, but its explosive growth was averted, and its current population is finally stabilized. Even when enforced, lowering a birth rate has proven to be very difficult. China has proven that a long delay stands between the initiation of a reduction policy and its expected results.

Many Mexicans believe in large families, and some claim that mindset for religious reasons. The wealthy and middle class Mexicans are usually reasonable about family size. It is the poor, and especially the very poor that throw caution to the wind and multiply like rats and cockroaches. Hillsides around Mexico City are literally smothered with tiny shanties as far as the eye can see. Mexico and much of the rest of Latin America are in desperate need of SERIOUS birth reduction.

India has slowed down its growth rate, but its population is still rising and has now pulled ahead of China. With its huge percentage of young people just reaching maturity, India must implement drastic birth reduction.

The most chronic part of the problem is Africa. Nearly all of its nations are impoverished. Africa has the world’s most explosive total fertility rate of 4.4. The worst ones are: Niger 6.8, Somalia 6.0, and DRC and Mali 5.8 each. In 1950, Africa’s entire population was less than 228 million. Now (2022), it has soared to over 1.4 billion. The United Nations’ projection for 2102 is over 4.28 billion, more than half of the world’s current population and still rapidly growing. To make matters even worse, most Africans’ IQs range from 69 – 80 and average about 75. As these masses multiply and spread everywhere, their numbers could dilute all of humanity.

Responsible people in western European countries plan their families so they will have both the time and resources to educate and care for their children. These are now at or near zero population growth or even slightly declining. Most of them have strict immigration policies. If they can keep the expanding masses at bay, their outlook looks good.

The United States could also be in that category if our immigration policies had adequate restraints. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Americans became concerned about loose immigration policies and enacted some practical limits on the quantity and quality of people allowed to come and become citizens. Immigrants passing through Ellis Island were carefully screened for contagious diseases, birth defects, feeble-mindedness, criminal backgrounds, and other undesirable traits, and if they had any, they were turned back.

But beginning in the mid-1960’s and especially in recent decades, America has ignored these standards and admitted huge masses of destitute people. Most come from third world countries with high birth rates and little self-control. Many have incompatible cultures, little education, poor ethical standards, criminal motives, and no family planning. Every year, our policies continue to degrade. The result has been increases in crime and dramatic rises in demands for public assistance. This strain has caused a serious public safety problem and a decline in our morals.

We must reject people from nations with reckless birth rates and limit any families to no more than two children, including the ones they already have. All immigrants, legal and otherwise, should never expect to get any type of freebies at the expense of the taxpayers. That includes anything—education, food, housing, and health care—even emergency health care. Mothers expecting to unload “anchor babies” should never get any free help from our doctors and hospitals; if they want or need something, they can pay for it like the rest of us do.

Eliminating this magnet would be a strong deterrent to keep them from invading our country.

We must revamp our foreign aid policies from feeding hungry children (which exacerbates reckless breeding) to providing massive birth control and stern advice about the catastrophic consequences if strict family planning is not followed.

One top priority is that we must revise our Constitution with an amendment to eliminate automatic citizenship by birth on American soil. Other countries don’t provide this kind of reckless leniency; why should we?

We must end the reckless importation of destitute “refugees” and follow the strict immigration policies of the western European nations. Many of them also require substantial fees to come permanently and become citizens. Destitute masses are not welcome there.

We must also limit birth rates here at home. We should NEVER be paying people to procreate. Tax deductions and exemptions for more than two children must be eliminated. The bottom line is that overpopulation is a very serious problem. If we wait until we have catastrophic food shortages and tsunamis of migrants swarming uncontrollably across our borders, we could end up with endless warfare and millions of casualties.

All forms of contraception should be made readily available to everybody. These include IUDs, birth control pills, spermicides, condoms, hormones, vasectomies, tubal ligations, implants, shots, vaginal rings, RU-486 pills, and others. No method is 100% effective, but many are in the 99% range. For maximum protection, combining two procedures is recommended for maximum protection.

We should also adopt policies to improve the quality of the children we produce. People who have genes that are likely to produce birth defects could use sperm and eggs from those known to be healthy.

Violent criminals, feeble-minded persons, and other undesirables could be sterilized. If that sounds like eugenics, and you think it’s a bad idea, think about the consequences of diluting the human race into wild animals. If we let overpopulation run amok, we could face the hard choice between massive forced sterilization or a “Universe 25” extinction.

SOURCES:

1. Wikipedia, Human Overpopulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation

2. Felton, James, Universe 25: The Mouse "Utopia" Experiment That Turned Into an Apocalypse, July 22, 2021. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/universe-25-the-mouse-utopia-experiment-that-turned-into-an-apocalypse/