Overpopulation

[Rev. Rye]

I have been a proponent of population control for years. (No kids here. Vasectomy 30 years ago)

One of the arguements the breeders use is "If we build vertically - the whole population of the planet could fit in Texas - easily"....


Yeah...

Sure...

Want to know what the death rate of Covid19 would be at that sort of population density?


....

And that's even ignoring the even bigger issue behind overpopulation: the usage of resources. Some we have enough of, some we have enough of but it's distributed in a ridiculously unequal way, and some we're clearly using up in an unsustainable way, and oil is very much in the second category. And that’s what overpopulation has been about since Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population. He lucked out for the first two centuries, since humankind proved resourceful enough to increase their food supply, but with climate change, I suspect our luck is running out.

Fun fact: because I'm not feeling well and I'm extending the quarantine, I'm rewatching The Boondocks, and last night, I saw their episode about the "Fried Chicken Flu." And it's legitimately disturbing that, of all the parallels one could draw between that episode and the current pandemic, the one Aaron McGruder dropped the ball on is that the President actually gives a shit about what the bug could do to him in the episode. One major plot point is that Huey's been preparing for a disaster for three people, warning them if he tries saving everyone, then he'll end up saving no-one... then it turns out the DuBois family, Thugnificent and his crew, and some random girl decide to move in with them during quarantine (and even Uncle Ruckus managed to crash there for a few days, uninvited, of course, because an obese racist stuck in a house with a dwindling food supply and mostly black people is very easy to chuck out). The situation deteriorates very quickly. I'd post a clip, but The Boondocks being The Boondocks, I'm kind of worried that a show that's very liberal with its use of the N-word (even if it is spoken by black people most of the time) might fall afoul of the rules.