After I published a post on the demonization of Malthus on the basis of completely invented data, I thought I could republish a post that appeared in 2022 on the old version of “The Seneca Effect” blog.
Total population isn't really the urgent problem that overconsumption and industrial destruction is, and as wealth (and modern birth control and medicine) spread throughout the less developed world, births per woman will inevitably decrease, resulting in an older population.
That doesn't have to be a bad thing, if governments would just prepare for it as being both inevitable and predictable.
Blueprint for Survival (BfS), which you mention in passing was written by a group at the Ecologist magazine in the UK edited by Teddy Goldsmith. He was actually the driving force and lead author on BfS which he published as a special issue of the Ecologist in January 1972.
Teddy had had sight of an early copy of LtG and understood properly what it was saying. BfS was an attempt to propose a set of policies which could be practically implimented to avoid the disasters of the more worrying outputs of the W3 model.
As such it caused quite a stir in the chattering classes in the UK and beyond. Times editorials were written about the issues it raised, a vigourous academic-political debate ensued, questions were asked in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister responded saying the goverment was aware of it and interested, and studying it.
Teddy had global connections having spent the 60s as an anthropologist studying what were then called "Primitive Peoples or Tribes" around the world. He came out of that with a deep respect for their wisdom and their sustainable relationships with, and as part of, a holistic ecosystem.
It seems entirely credible that elements in Chinese academic and political circles would have been aware of and read BfS and it may have been one influence in their policy decisions.
BfS also lead directly to the founding of the first Green parties around the world as a political response to LtG and BfS. Indeed BfS was presented as a manifesto and called for the creation of a political Movement for Survival.
I could write more on the consequences but I'll finish by noting that in 1974 Teddy himself stood for election as an Eco candidate in the Eye Consituency in Suffolk - the same constituency (now called Waveney) that Adrian Ramsay finally won for the Green Party last week in their breakthrough to 4 MPs.
I know. I didn't go into the details, but I remember having read "Blueprint for Survival"; or at least part of it, years ago. It was quite explicit in its statements. It may well have been influenced by the "Limits to Growth." It is perfectly possible that it was read also by some Chinese intellectuals of the time. But it was the general viewpoint of the 1970s that overpopulation was a crucial problem. Then, something happened, and discussing overpopulation suddenly made you a rabid Nazi or something like that. My point, anyway, is that the Chinese didn't need an input from the West to decide that 1.5 billion people was enough! Thanks for the note. It adds details to the story.
Population shrinking doesn't need evil plots or mastermind but is easily understood going to one of the few remaining zoos, animals live in a relatively nice environment and doesn't show signs of extreme stress as in old zoos (skin disease, obsessive and often self harming behavior or similar) still one sure thing is that DOESN'T REPRODUCE!
I suppose that modern society is gone too far toward the path of specialization, creating a too vast complex of mutual dependencies that everyone is bound in a multitude of chains, until a century ago the vast majority of humans lived an agricultural live so almost every village could be theoretically self-sustaining with looser binding of dependency between individuals but a stronger incentive to cooperation: helping other is useful because sometimes you need help too and usually a lot of help is offered so is possible sometime decline without consequences, following this rule was a sure way to get in the community and left a lot of space to individual behaviors ("it's a bit off and talk to his dog, still is always here when needed" was a comment of my grandfather about one of his "friends"). Work too was quite less "specialized" because usually anyone can do the basic for everyday maintenance and building to keep things running, blacksmithing and other professions were useful but not vital and often was possible to live changing between them.
One interesting element to observe is that "upper classes" were ALWAYS less fertile compared to lower ones and that more up you were in the social standing more you were dependent on others, both because you didn't and can't produce and because the keeping of your position was depending on the network of relationship usually governed by rigid codes (look at Victorian era).
Dependence is fear, we live with a constant low level fear, and often we know only it in our relationship, from work to emotion we feel confident only if we can treat or blackmail others.....
Rationally it is clear that an animal bound to satchels and subject to low level fear is difficult to made reproduce and if do it is not is almost impossible that do it in number!
Hi Hugo... Recently read that birth rates have fallen within certain Chinese megacities, not so much as an effect of state regulation and the 'one child policy' but the overall negative impacts that come with every megacity on earth. Also with that fall, is the rise of suicide and domestic abuse and street crimes. We can see similar trends in non-Chinese megacities like Mumbai, New Delhi and Cairo.
The second is a useful mind tool because to explain a lot if we really look at human as a partially renewable resource (like potable water), I suspect that if we use on population the same models that we use to evaluate the overuse of these resources we can get good predictions. We shifted our value system to an extractive economy where the most holy are those who get more from others (making money) regardless of any other consideration and this is reflected on ANY RESOURCE, human included...
As note, SLAVES were not considered so low because they were expensive and used more like production machinery, today worker is looked at more like a consumable.
Total population isn't really the urgent problem that overconsumption and industrial destruction is, and as wealth (and modern birth control and medicine) spread throughout the less developed world, births per woman will inevitably decrease, resulting in an older population.
That doesn't have to be a bad thing, if governments would just prepare for it as being both inevitable and predictable.
Blueprint for Survival (BfS), which you mention in passing was written by a group at the Ecologist magazine in the UK edited by Teddy Goldsmith. He was actually the driving force and lead author on BfS which he published as a special issue of the Ecologist in January 1972.
Teddy had had sight of an early copy of LtG and understood properly what it was saying. BfS was an attempt to propose a set of policies which could be practically implimented to avoid the disasters of the more worrying outputs of the W3 model.
As such it caused quite a stir in the chattering classes in the UK and beyond. Times editorials were written about the issues it raised, a vigourous academic-political debate ensued, questions were asked in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister responded saying the goverment was aware of it and interested, and studying it.
Teddy had global connections having spent the 60s as an anthropologist studying what were then called "Primitive Peoples or Tribes" around the world. He came out of that with a deep respect for their wisdom and their sustainable relationships with, and as part of, a holistic ecosystem.
It seems entirely credible that elements in Chinese academic and political circles would have been aware of and read BfS and it may have been one influence in their policy decisions.
BfS also lead directly to the founding of the first Green parties around the world as a political response to LtG and BfS. Indeed BfS was presented as a manifesto and called for the creation of a political Movement for Survival.
I could write more on the consequences but I'll finish by noting that in 1974 Teddy himself stood for election as an Eco candidate in the Eye Consituency in Suffolk - the same constituency (now called Waveney) that Adrian Ramsay finally won for the Green Party last week in their breakthrough to 4 MPs.
RogerCO
I know. I didn't go into the details, but I remember having read "Blueprint for Survival"; or at least part of it, years ago. It was quite explicit in its statements. It may well have been influenced by the "Limits to Growth." It is perfectly possible that it was read also by some Chinese intellectuals of the time. But it was the general viewpoint of the 1970s that overpopulation was a crucial problem. Then, something happened, and discussing overpopulation suddenly made you a rabid Nazi or something like that. My point, anyway, is that the Chinese didn't need an input from the West to decide that 1.5 billion people was enough! Thanks for the note. It adds details to the story.
Yes, not necessary, but possible.
Really was more linked to Kissinger doctrine (https://www.mercatornet.com/kissinger_turned_population_control_into_a_cold_war_weapon) but I suppose study is too much for someone, times same argument was used to blame US......
Population shrinking doesn't need evil plots or mastermind but is easily understood going to one of the few remaining zoos, animals live in a relatively nice environment and doesn't show signs of extreme stress as in old zoos (skin disease, obsessive and often self harming behavior or similar) still one sure thing is that DOESN'T REPRODUCE!
I suppose that modern society is gone too far toward the path of specialization, creating a too vast complex of mutual dependencies that everyone is bound in a multitude of chains, until a century ago the vast majority of humans lived an agricultural live so almost every village could be theoretically self-sustaining with looser binding of dependency between individuals but a stronger incentive to cooperation: helping other is useful because sometimes you need help too and usually a lot of help is offered so is possible sometime decline without consequences, following this rule was a sure way to get in the community and left a lot of space to individual behaviors ("it's a bit off and talk to his dog, still is always here when needed" was a comment of my grandfather about one of his "friends"). Work too was quite less "specialized" because usually anyone can do the basic for everyday maintenance and building to keep things running, blacksmithing and other professions were useful but not vital and often was possible to live changing between them.
One interesting element to observe is that "upper classes" were ALWAYS less fertile compared to lower ones and that more up you were in the social standing more you were dependent on others, both because you didn't and can't produce and because the keeping of your position was depending on the network of relationship usually governed by rigid codes (look at Victorian era).
Dependence is fear, we live with a constant low level fear, and often we know only it in our relationship, from work to emotion we feel confident only if we can treat or blackmail others.....
Rationally it is clear that an animal bound to satchels and subject to low level fear is difficult to made reproduce and if do it is not is almost impossible that do it in number!
Hi Hugo... Recently read that birth rates have fallen within certain Chinese megacities, not so much as an effect of state regulation and the 'one child policy' but the overall negative impacts that come with every megacity on earth. Also with that fall, is the rise of suicide and domestic abuse and street crimes. We can see similar trends in non-Chinese megacities like Mumbai, New Delhi and Cairo.
Exactly. It may be argued that the Chinese "one child" policy was a failure, but not for the normally mentioned reasons.
I can suggest about China to look at Tang Ping "movement" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping) and as a great ancient culture they also quite well synthesized the situation defining people as "Human Mine" or "Human Mineral" (http://chinascope.org/archives/31432).
The second is a useful mind tool because to explain a lot if we really look at human as a partially renewable resource (like potable water), I suspect that if we use on population the same models that we use to evaluate the overuse of these resources we can get good predictions. We shifted our value system to an extractive economy where the most holy are those who get more from others (making money) regardless of any other consideration and this is reflected on ANY RESOURCE, human included...
As note, SLAVES were not considered so low because they were expensive and used more like production machinery, today worker is looked at more like a consumable.