Apr
1
2012
Kids are told in Western countries not to reproduce. They are shown films that depict humans overtaking the planet. They are told not to be selfish like their parents have been, trying to forge a legacy via reproduction, in a world saturated with humans. This is a lie. There has been a population explosion, for sure. But it will not continue. World population will stop growing for the first time in history. The year will be around 2068.
Population Explosion?
Global population has skyrocketed in recent centuries due to increased infant mortality and human longevity rates. Parents always had 8 kids or so, but it wasn’t until the 1800s when more than 2 kids survived. Most kids died back then. This is why the world population exploded. And then in the 20th century people started living twice as long. You went from 40 to 80 years life expectancy in the breadth of a century. The world’s population trebled from 1 billion to 3 billion from 1750 to 1950. Then it doubled from 3 billion to 6 billion in 50 years.
The growth of world population is not accelerating today, however. We will only grow 50% in the next 50 years, from 6 billion to 9 billion. Then it will really stabalize in the second half of the 21th century and we will grow by a mere 10%. This is not acceleration. Only a blind fool would say otherwise. And yet this is what we hear everyday. This is how we scare our children. Instead of using scary masks and ugly dolls we are telling them that there won’t be enough chairs for them to sit in because some other chap is sitting in it already. Despicable.
The Ugly Lie
The crime is that we scare our children in advanced countries about the non-existent population explosion when, in fact, they are dying. Advanced countries are in decline. If you look at the 44 most advanced countries in the world, women are having 1.6 children. I’m not an expert at math, but this doesn’t sound like a population explosion. Europe’s population, for example, will actually decline from 728 million in 2000 to as low as 565 million (high estimate says 653 million and medium estimate says 632 million) by 2050. The fertility rate in Europe is 1.4 today.
Another ugly worm on the log is that population growth is decelerating in developing countries as well. The least developed countries have already dropped from 6.6 kids per woman to 5.0. And by 2050 they will be at 3.0. This is a global decline in peoples.
Not Just a Trend!
Worldwide population stabalization is not some passing phase. Let’s not labor over numbers and just look at the chief cause of this historical shift. Economics of children. Once kids began surviving past infancy and into adulthood, parents had to figure out what to do with 10 human beings underneath their roof. It made sense to put a six-year old to work on the farm or in the factory. Jobs were simple, and didn’t require a lot of education. The world today requires over a decade of education, and many people don’t start being productive until their mid-twenties. Imagine putting 10 children through college!
Women are changing too. Their attitudes are at least. Women used to define themselves as mothers; generalist superstars par excellence. Leaders of the interesting world of the famliy. But now, a woman spends only 8 years, or 10% of her life, on childbearing and nurturing. If she gets pregnant twice, which she does on average, she is only pregnant for 18 months, or 2%, of her life. This is redefining a woman’s role in society. Motherhood is now only a small part of a woman’s life. How do you plan on convincing young women to go backwards into a forgotten world about which they have been told nothing. Woman is the new man; this is an historical shift.
But what about increasing longevity? Forget it. Your kids won’t live to be 800. This trend too is decelerating as I write. The UN projects growth from 76 to 82 (2000 to 2050) in rich countries and from 51 to 66 in poor countries. Big deal. Genetic research is really more about learning how to make you more productive into your 80s than about how to make you live to see your 750th.
For an in-depth statistical analysis, read the United Nation’s Population Study to 2300
Mar
12
2012
The medium of television blinds us from the rich and detailed history of the last few thousand years. It focuses our limited attention on those events and ideas which have been captured on the television screen in just the last few decades.
What do we know about Reality if our notions of Nature come from National Geographic specials; what kind of Faith do we have if we get our theology and religious experience from televangelists; what kind of families will we create if we follow the scripts of situation comedies?
The God on the TV ministries is a small “God” indeed. We have gone from “God the Creator” to “God the Favorer.”
Rather than inspiring us to action, television has the effect of numbing our nihilism for just one more day.
No wonder we are disconnected with reality and incapable of Truth, Goodness and Beauty.
Feb
29
2012
All resources are scarce (with the single exception of American Idol wannabees). And these scarce resources have a seemingly inexhaustible amount of alternative uses. Thus, we must make hard decisions about what we want to do with these scarce resources. Often we are downright wasteful of resources. I saw men building houses just yesterday morning, and what a waste of scarce resources (wood, time, labor, money) in a society that has far too many houses already.
You have to ask, What is the payoff for making this investment of resources? Perhaps planes are safer when 10 pilots are in the cockpit, but does it make economic sense to use the pilots in this way? Of course not, because we would very quickly run into a pilot shortage, and then who would be the next hunk on The Bachelor? ABC would be flying the cute couple to an exotic destination and the promising prince would have to go back with the plane, leaving the gold-digging hoe all alone.
Jake the Sexy Pilot
Feb
16
2012
Ayn Rand gave us the injunction: “Check your premises.” Whenever you are running into a contradiction in reality, the most likely problem is that one of your premises is false. If you are a man who views himself as the best husband a woman could find, but she is talking about leaving you, check your premises. Or the idea that insider trading is incompatible with a free market and yet is commonly found among free market investors. Perhaps one of the premises is off.
Jan
6
2012
In a society where children are viewed as a burden, something to be avoided at all costs, it is strange to read in the Old Testament about the ancients actually praying to God for decades that He would allow them to have children. This was the case with Isaac in Genesis 25:19-28. Isaac married at the not-so-young age of forty and then his wife Rebecca was barren until he was sixty; they waited 20 years for the fulfillment of God’s promise that he would award them with children. God heard Isaac’s prayers and granted him twin boys Jacob and Esua, presenting them as if they were some highly anticipated gift.
Now, we live in a world where children are killed by the millions every year, and where governments must bribe people to have children.
Dec
24
2011
Edmund Burke answers this question for your pleasure. He is the man William Hazlitt claimed was “the most eloquent man of his time; and his wisdom was greater than his eloquence.”
Burke explained: “A disposition to preserve and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of the statesman.” So, what exactly is the conflict between wanting to preserve the hard-fought gains of the past and then wanting to extend those gains even further? No conflict. The intelligent conservative is the real liberal.
Nov
11
2011
“If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.” – Emerson
The demon of self-doubt destroys your inner world, which destroys your outer world. Never lose faith in your ability to achieve values. As long as you have confidence in your abilities to actualize your cherished goals, nothing can get you down. Darkness seeks to destroy your confidence indirectly, through promoting pseudo-confidence: by enticing you to pretend you control the universe. Once you learn that you are not God, you can start to build true confidence in your ability to discover worthy goals based on Truth, and have confidence that the universe will align with your goals.
Oct
31
2011
Strangely enough, some folks simply refuse to believe the US is actually in debt ($14.2 trillion in 2011); they assume it is some kind of propaganda put out by the anti-Obama Right. But this debt issue goes back much further than Obama. Scott Bittle, executive editor of Public Agenda Online conducted a detailed investigation of the national debt issue in his 2008 book “Where Does the Money Go?” He found that the United States government spent more money than it brought in with taxes in 31 out of 35 years from 1973 to 2008.
But this problem is getting better… right?
Not a chance. Politicians always prefer the hidden tax of selling treasury bonds to foreign investors and inflating the currency rather than open, direct taxation. And sell treasuries the government will, because expenses are only increasing with thousands of new Baby Boomers retiring everyday for the foreseeable future. Starting on January 1, 2011, the US has 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring every single day for the next 19 years. Urrg!
And they are typically in a hurry to draw social security, with 3/4 drawing benefits at 62 years old instead of waiting for 65.
“Where Does The Money Go”; Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson; 2008
Oct
29
2011
How is God’s authority printed on the pages of scripture? By the prophetic element.
A.T. Pierson (1837-1911) preached at Charles Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle for several months during Spurgeon’s illness just before his death. Pierson wrote a book called “The Prophetic Element,” in which he observed:
(The prophetic element) is one of the seven elements which together constitute the whole body of the Word of God, namely, History, Biography, Prophecy, Ethics, Devotion, Messianic Revelation, and Spiritual Guidance. This prophetic element pervades all the rest. It is the eye of Scripture, with supernatural vision – backsight, insight, and foresight, or power to see into the past, present, and future. It is, therefore, the miracle of utterance, as other miracles are wonders of power, and evinces omniscience, as they do omnipotence, thus reflecting the image of God.
Oct
24
2011
Politicians like to talk about “fair” trade. But this is just another empty concept. The government can never make trade more fair by making it less free. The giant myth is that politicians are fairer than markets. We need to grow up and stop fighting over the “fairness” of this trade or that. If two parties are willing to make a trade, we should allow it. Don’t fall for the endless lie of paternalism. Your government daddy won’t be there when their bad ideas turn into disasters; in this case, fair trade leading to economic destruction.