I was just pointed to this debate by @werner. It is not often that the premise of a debate will disgust me but in this case I have to make an exception.

Now to be clear even if I am disgusted by the debate I am still glad it happened.  We should never be afraid to ask a question, more questions lead to more answers.

My problem with this debate however is a rich white man living in comfort never before experienced suggesting that the way to make them even more comfortable is to somehow limit future world population growth.

I personally take a great issue with this as I believe that the past great developments in human history have come from our diversity.  Quite basically the more people we have the more individual views on the world we will have and this will bring new understanding of the universe around us.  This new understanding of the universe around us will (as it has done in the past) provide us with all of the resources we need to continue to survive at the rate we continue to grow the population.

Some people might argue that we cannot support the number of humans currently on the planet so why should we be adding more.  I would suggest that has a lot more to do with the current balance of power than anything else.  If we were to take the worlds resources and provide living space that is livable and food for everyone I think we would overcome most of the challenges and be able to live in comfort.  I have this beliefidea because we have managed in the past to do this on a small scale country-by-country basis.  All we need to do is expand the same thinking to the rest of the world.  If you don’t believe me then have a look at the conditions for the common man in Victorian Britain and then have a look at modern day Britain.

So what you may as is stopping this utopian future.  I would suggest simple greed.  People like the man starting this debate in The Economist are simple scared.  They are frightened that if they are to start sharing resources with everyone around that they will not have as much to themselfs so they grab for more and more to ensure their own comfort.  This feeling is understandable and one most people have, rich or poor, but it should not be excused or accepted any longer.  If resource is your main worry for changing to such a system I would suggest you think of the following.  For each new mouth to feed we have another pair of hands to plant seeds, make tools or perform one of a million tasks required to keep everyone in comfort.

The last argument people will use to disguise this fear is to suggest that we now simply do not have enough raw materials.  Without going too far into this side of my personal thinking (I promise I will write this down later) I can only suggest that this people have clearly been spending their lives looking at the ground for the solution to their problems rather than up to the stars where we have all the resources in the universe to use for the good of mankind.  I guess that almost closes this on a religious note, if we look down we are destined to a life of suffering and poverty for mankind, however if we look up we might just be able to create a heaven on earth.

Finally please remember this is a blog and as such is my personal thoughts and views on the world.  I put them here to share with the world in the hope that they can both be challenged and inspire others to think.

Take care