This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
It began when my public school teacher showed us a chart and explained a very simple concept: populations grow out of control if everyone has more than two children. There are already billions of children starving in China and Africa because there isn’t enough food to go around, she told us, and if something isn’t done, the problem will spread globally. Her logic was simple and sound. The chart was scientific. But later, my parents showed me a church musical with a cheesy song ‘Zero Population’ ridiculing that idea. The song included no scientific analysis, and no logic to refute the exponential growth curve. Yet I found it compelling because I couldn’t imagine if one of my siblings had never had been born.
As I explored science, ethics, and theology, I started to lean more on the side of this goofy church musical. It turns out, the science of overpopulation isn’t all that sound. Then, as I became more media literate I started to discover almost universal encouragement for a childless lifestyle in mainstream media, and then as I searched for the motive of why the media would do this I found a very dark place. It isn’t to stop starvation in Africa.
Now, having children of my own and experiencing joy beyond everything I had hoped for during those dark times of loneliness, I can see just how evil it is. Most people in the West fall into this destructive mindset, and it is not just an academic canard; it fills popular culture–the music videos, values, lifestyle, architecture, etc. I believe this mindset is the reason so many young adults sit at home depressed on Friday nights waiting for a match on Tinder. It is the reason so many gulp coffee in their office cubicles, burned out from work instead of experiencing the joy we were meant for. It is the cause of social sickness. But it is a mindset that is profitable for big corporations, at the sacrifice of individual liberty, and that is why movies, music, academia, and religions get people to behave contrary to their own self-interests.
Even if people want to become proud patriarchs and matriarchs of their own little dynasties, how are they supposed to do it? How can they find a spouse, afford multiple children, and provide a healthy environment for them in today’s environment? It is so much easier to give in to the propaganda and tell yourself that you are sacrificing for the greater good by not reproducing. But the truth will always be gnawing in the back of your mind and reminding you of the powerful imperative God programmed into the primitive core of all human brains: that your highest achievement and greatest joy is in your posterity (if you happen to have that capability) and the higher the number the greater your joy.
Big Science Lies
Population Is Shrinking – Countries with strong rhetoric about overpopulation are actually shrinking in population size and need immigration to stabalize their economies. In Europe, immigration is much larger factor for population growth than is natural reproduction. So at the same time Western leaders complain about overpopulation, they are also importing people to make up for their countries’ shrinking population.
Utah’s Reproduction Rate Is Negative – In America, the fertility rate for White women has reached the negative threshold in every state of the union, including Utah. Blacks and Hispanic reproduction rates are up in many states, but it isn’t enough to make up for this shrinkage. The reduction of population is unavoidable and can only get worse. It is understood that 2.1 children per woman is the rate needed to keep a population stable. But even in Utah, which is well known for its family values and high reproduction rates, the population rate was at 2.12 children per woman in 2017 and following a steeply declining trend. It is certainly now well below this number today, which means reproduction is not high enough in Utah to maintain the population size. So don’t let those people who complain about big families and traditional families fool you. Even in Utah, America’s (until recently) most fertile state, the population is shrinking.
This is why such a massive percentage of America’s workforce is made up of immigrants, and yet still we have a shortage of workers. Economists aren’t just blowing hot air when they say our economy needs immigrants. We really do. The economy is severely impacted by a shrinking population.
As the negative fertility rate becomes worse, our Western culture turns hostile towards traditional family. It’s not just the “marriage tax penalty” we have to deal with these days. Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, is legislating zoning restrictions to provide benefits for people without children. The government is now banning day-care centers and housing for large families in large portions of the city. Garwood New Jersey is likewise banning apartments with more than two bedrooms. This kind of government-enforced hostility toward families recalls the 1960’s, when Modernists wiped out entire communities and packed people into government housing projects which incentivized people from having children. Is this a reaction to the low fertility rate or an instigator of the low fertility rate? Are they doing this because they want less children to be born, or because less children are being born? It’s hard to tell. What is shocking is to hear people agitating for this kind of thing to be implemented in Utah at a time when the rate is plummeting below the threshold. But perhaps it shouldn’t be surprised when you consider Utah exists inside a popular Western culture where parents are glared at for having noisy children at a restaurant and every show on TV reminds us of how miserable children make parents.
False Impression Of What’s Happening – The fact is, very few people are having more than two children, and the exponential growth chart that we all were shown at school is not what is really happening. We have been conditioned to see something that isn’t there. When we go to a restaurant and notice a couple sitting near us with their two noisy children, that leaves us with a certain impression, but that does not truly represent population growth. Having only two children represents population shrinkage, not growth, and that is just one couple out of the many couples sitting in that restaurant. You haven’t really been thinking about it logically. The truth is that this restaurant would have to be packed with screaming children all over the place for our notion of a population explosion to be justified. The very basic logic that convinced us of our impending overpopulation doom is just not practical reality.
Population Growth Is Good – There is also faulty logic behind the basic mindset behind it all, which is that an increasing population is a problem. Even if every adult on the planet got married and had a bunch of children, would that necessarily be a bad thing? If the world’s population exploded into the tens of billions and trillions, would the earth really run out of room? Why do we just assume without critically thinking about it that it would?
Well, the earth’s resources finite, after all. Our world is only so big and there is surely some point where the number of people becomes ecologically too large, right? Well, don’t be so sure. People have long been hysterical about all the oil reserves drying up, since the early 20th century, and yet we still aren’t even close to that point. The oil reserves are just fine. We can see an accurate portrayal of the overpopulation hysteria in the ‘Zero Population’ lyrics from 1973: “Every day the world is getting smaller by far,
Bursting at the seams. What can we do?
Zero population is the answer, my friend.
Without it, the rest of us are doomed…
Every day the food supply is shrinking away,
With starvation at your door. What can we do?
Licensing the children is the answer, my friend.
Without it, the rest of us are through…
Tragedy, the oil is depleting away.
Every baby makes it last a shorter time.
Legalized abortion is the answer, my friend.
Without it, there is no peace of mind.”
In the early 20th century it appeared as if oil would soon run out, but then something happened: technology improved and allowed for the discovery and retrieval of more oil. Likewise, farming technology has allowed for more land to be arable farming and more food to be grown more efficiently. As more people are born, civilization advances at an accelerated pace that allows for more people, like an anthill growing to facilitate a growing ant population. Overpopulation hysteria is like looking at the tiny anthill and begging the ants not to reproduce because they do not have any way to take care of them. It’s true, there is a finite amount of oil on earth and there will come a point it runs out, but we can have faith that by the time we reach that point in the future our technology will move on to some other exploitable resource. There is only so much land to farm, it is true, but there is emerging technology for mixed use farming with rural skyscrapers and floating ocean structures. It requires forward thinking to see a future infrastructure. The question is not how to fit a future population into today’s resources, but how to advance technology to build a larger anthill. Instead of looking at a larger population as more mouths to feed, we need to instead see it as more minds to think and more hands to build.
In the Book of Mormon, we read of the Nephites advancing in both technology and population during times of righteousness. We are told that such advancement is directly connected to the morality of the people. When people are good, they invent and reproduce. When they are wicked, the population decreases and they run out of resources–like the wicked Jaredites who clear-cut all the forests. I find it interesting that a lot of movies portray it the opposite way. In Star Wars, the death star is invented as a tool for wickedness and comes in an age of apostasy. Indeed, many advancements are a consequence of war. But when we consider the golden American age of the discovery of electricity, invention of the airplane, the television, etc., we find it was an unprecedented age of morality. When people are moral they advance technology. It’s not just the morality of the majority that comes into play, however. The Book of Mormon illustrates how much influence government and organizations have over advancement. When people are liberated from oppressive powers, they become free to advance in a way that benefits everyone, as we’ve seen in the Renaissance and 19th century democratic revolutions of Western culture.
The interesting thing is that immoral people who do not advance also tend not to reproduce. They spend their days in hedonistic pleasures. People who embrace the challenge of being parents tend to also embrace the advancement of their community and personal excellence. I believe if we were to achieve a society of such high moral virtue that the majority of people enthusiastically pursued high reproduction rates, technology would easily keep pace with the necessities of this population explosion, as both reproduction and technology are linearly connected to righteousness. If we ever reach the point where the earth just can’t contain the population size any longer, we probably will by then have the technology to colonize other planets. One goes with the other.
Abundance Mindset – One big hurdle is the fact that the vast majority of wealth and resources lie in the hands of the top one percent. At first glance, it doesn’t look like the gospel of Jesus Christ tackles the subject of distributive justice while Socialism does. Socialists are always talking about distributing resources to those who need it. But as we read about oppressive powers and individual excellence in the scriptures, we actually find a superior solution to that of Socialism. Socialist country that actually achieves the Marxist dream ends up hoarding resources in a powerful elite. Why? Because Socialism has a scarcity mindset. They are stuck in the mindset of a tiny anthill, a fixed amount of resources that can’t grow, like the economists of the Dark Ages who hoarded gold because they didn’t realize overall wealth can increase. This is why instead of enabling the individual to grow his wealth Socialists tend to force redistribution of existing wealth. They see the problem as a population too large for resources, while the real problem is that the individual is not empowered to increase his own resources.
In countries like the Philippines, there is a financial incentive for people to have lots of children that the overall infrastructure can’t really handle. More children means more income, while in first world countries like America more children mean more expenses. That’s basically why the population is exploding in the Philippines while it is decreasing in the West. This is the issue many are trying to tackle. Many see the exploding populations in Africa and China and seek for an incentive to curb reproduction. But instead, why not seek for a moral culture that provides for every soul there? Why not instead of scarcity of resources, see abundance? The infrastructure will grow to handle them if the people are righteous.
The problem is unchecked Capitalism benefits corporations who hoard and exploit cheap labor. A popular misconception is that corporations love an exploding population because it gives them more consumption and more workers. You know what else it produces? More competition. Why would they want more competing bids for their government contracts and competition for their shelf space on Walmart? The top corporations that rule the globe do not want higher populations that are empowered to innovate, invent, and pursue personal excellence because there is more chance for someone else to knock them down from top spot. Why would they want empowered individuals? The highest tree in the forest does not want other trees to grow higher than them and steal sunlight. There is an optimal population size for corporations to exploit for labor and to consume their wares, and they do not want populations larger than what they need as resources for their profit margins. This scarcity mindset, which is almost inevitable with controlling powers, is why big corporations are controvenious to the advance of technology necessary for an increased population. I don’t believe this is a conscious choice business leaders make, but it often ends up reflecting their behavior. This is why the people are not given the means to become more righteous and grow an infrastructure for a larger population.
On the other hand, we can’t just rely on people’s good morals to prevent overfishing or clear-cutting forests. There certainly needs to be some kind of regulation of resources to prevent people from ravaging the environment, and there needs to be education to prevent underage pregnancies, etc. But we can’t just rely on laws either. The continuing extinction of magnificent animal species in Africa is a perfect example. Despite all the laws and efforts to prevent poaching, species continue to be wiped out. But are they poaching to feed their families because of overpopulation? Not at all. The poachers are leaving the meat to rot. They are wiping out the species for their bones which superstitious Chinese elite use for magical health potions. All the laws in the world have not stopped poaching; it persists because of a greedy population that believes in superstitious nonsense. Overpopulation has nothing to do with it. It makes me wonder, who cut down all of the trees on Easter Island, leaving it unlivable for its native population? Was it the common people who wanted to build huts for their families, or was it the wealthy elite who wanted to construct ramps for their magnificent head status? My guess is the latter. The Capitalist urge for greed and competition requires a check of both governmental regulation and a heightened sense of individual morality.
Discovering An Abraham Mindset
| See also: | Media Discourages Having Children |
We are constantly reminded of what a burden children are. The media consistently conditions us to be nice productive consumers and producers for corporations, party all night and live a carefree life. Now, I know this is a generalization. They don’t all do that. There are some media articles out there that promote the traditional family. But it seems like the overwhelming majority attack it. The other day, an advice column from the European nation of Iceland caught my eye. They addressed the issue of having children: “Am I a bad environmentalist if I desire nothing more than warm baby puke upon my bosom? Well, technically, yes. Humans are a plague and the environmental toll of having one child adds up to around 58.6 tonnes of carbon each year. That’s a lot. Deforestation, plastic waste, mining—all are the result of your puking spawn, you selfish bitch. That said, if you and your baby daddy have only one kid together, you are doing your part to decrease the human population by 50%, which is a good thing. My advice? Have one kid and together, we can all work to offset Mormon couples relentlessly reproducing to populate their celestial kingdoms. Am I a bad feminist for wanting nothing more than to be a housewife? Damn, I assume you are the same person who asked the previous question. You’ve got issues. But on the downlow, all women want to be housewives. It means we don’t have to work. Thus, aspire to marry a rich woman/man and spend your time on floral design and watching ‘The West Wing.’ Talk about a celestial kingdom!”
Maybe sarcasm works differently in Iceland? Is this actually a comedy column? I’m not sure. It had me laughing. It sounds like the writer is very happy and content not to be married to a rich man and spending her time on floral designs. Good for her them. For most folks, however, it doesn’t sound to me like they are happy working an 8 to 5 job and spending their evenings partying until they finally get old and die. This goes for both men and women. The areas with the lowest fertility rates are miserable because they are lonely and they have nothing to look forward to in the future. They need advice columnists to berate them every time they think maybe floral designs aren’t so bad.
This is a dark hole I believe anybody can get out of. It requires a complete shift of mindset. For me, Abraham was a model that helped me develop a path forward. The more I read about Abraham, the more I realized that the problem was how I looked at things. Abraham lived in a society where nobody seemed to care about posterity. With a population of 360,000, it probably seemed like Ur had all the people it needed. We are told that the people worshipped physical objects of their own creation, idolatry. Like today, they prioritized their time and effort on materialism. Like today, materialism was a way of life, a mode of thinking that they adopted from cradle to grave. Today, we spend all our time on video games and iphone apps, studying in college to be productive tool for labor, working all day to make corporations profitable, and accumulating all the wealth we can to get–nice cars, boats, a DVD collection, clothing, etc. In those days, they spent their time bowing to physical objects and working for the benefit of a king. How different are we today, really?
But somehow as a child, Abraham was able to see things a different way. “And the child began to understand the errors of the earth that all went astray after graven images and after uncleanness, and his father taught him writing, and he was two weeks of years old, and he separated himself from his father, that he might not worship idols with him. And he began to pray to the Creator of all things that He might save him from the errors of the children of men, and that his portion should not fall into error after uncleanness and vileness.” (Jubilees 11)
Young Abraham all on his own developed a totally different concept of God. He was able to use his ability to reason to conclude that there must be a grand creator of the universe, and he had the courage to seek for this creator. He saw how the people’s illogical mindset made them materialistic and led to all kinds of problems. He separated himself from his own father in order to avoid these problems. He became anti-social. He focused on his idea. One of the problems of popular culture’s mindset, he noticed, was that they sacrificed their children to idols instead of trying to increase their posterity. “In the land of the Chaldeans, at the residence of my fathers, I, Abraham, saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place of residence; And, finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers…. My fathers, having turned from their righteousness, and from the holy commandments which the Lord their God had given unto them, unto the worshiping of the gods of the heathen, utterly refused to hearken to my voice;” (Book of Abraham 1:1-5)
He tried to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers who understood the principle of posterity. His effort to improve his behavior and gain knowledge beyond the limits of the society he lived in naturally led to a desire to have a large number of posterity. That’s how it goes! Righteous behavior and fertility are congruent in an advanced society. Wickedness naturally leads to infertility and even child sacrifice today. But there is always the wisdom of our forefathers to explore–away from our Facebook feed and over in the dusty distant corner of a library where Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas is found.
I find it interesting that the global warming claims of science today inspire calls for population control and lower birth rates in order to stave off global flooding, when the global warming that led to Noah’s flood actually inspired Noah to preserve his family, not sacrifice them. Isn’t that interesting. Consider Noah’s ark. Then, like today, he was faced with catastrophic flooding because of changing global climate conditions. Instead of promoting birth control and zero population regulations, Noah innovated and built technology so that his family would live on. Noah’s ark is a symbol for the infrastructure we need to facilitate future populations. Instead of licensing children and sterilizing women, why don’t global warming alarmists instead seek to improve technology to facilitate populations in the new climate? Well, that’s not fair: many do. But I have seen first-hand how the big corporations and alarmists with a scarcity mindset ruin this effort. In Abraham’s society, meanwhile, they killed children in order to please the nature gods and reinforce the king’s power over the population. It’s a classic evil inversion of the real solution, where they are reducing family rather than preserving it.
But after all, Noah’s ark was not big enough to fit the entire human population. He was just doing what he could for his own family and tribe. Likewise, that’s all we can do. Relentlessly reproduce to populate our celestial kingdoms, right?
Abraham put his priorities in order, and he did so with such boldness that he almost lost his life for it, and by all means should have. But luckily for him, the creator of the universe is a God that loves us because we are His children, and He saved Abraham from sacrifice. Likewise, if we take the first step and boldly do what we need to for greater knowledge and righteous behavior, and if we are willing to stick out like a sore thumb, defy our parents and even defy all of society, and even offend those around us to the degree that they seek violence, we will be blessed because it was the right thing to do. Miracles will happen. Abraham found his beautiful wife and gained that countless posterity that he always wanted–after many more decades of severe tribulation. It was a long and difficult path for him, but he got it in the end.
Gospel Justice Is Individually Oriented – Part of the problem is people look at society as a whole and consider an individual’s duty to the mother nature. This is an illogical way to approach any issue. What duty do those poachers in Africa have to the earth? Did they ever sign a social contract? Nobody ever behaves in the interest of the species, just like a buffalo does not make decisions based on what is best for the herd. The buffalo is either forced to do something or does what is best for himself. The social contract is built on the idea that if we sacrifice for the greater good, it is good for everyone. But the problem with this is people aren’t very forward-thinking after all, and the greater good of everyone seems to benefit some much more than others. Some have done quite well with the green energy push while I don’t seem to have benefited from it much. The social contract can only take us so far. It can’t redeem sin and it can’t generate the mercy required to make up for human folly. That’s why every Socialist system ever tried hits a wall and falls in the end. Justice needs to be established on the premise that natural moral law exists, perfection exists, and divine atonement.
Commutative justice with divinity in mind starts with the individual. The issue is always the individual’s relationship to God. The gospel is therefore a more human approach. To see divinity in myself and to chart the course toward perfection overcomes the scarcity mindset. If I become wealthy, I don’t adopt the destructive tendencies of big corporations, because I don’t see people as economic tools. Growing up, there was a Duck Tales episode that really made me think. Scrooge’s scientist developed a way to replicate money. He thought it would make him rich, but what ended up happening was that money became worthless because it was everywhere–inflation. Are people like money? Do they lose worth as they become more numerous? If you look at humans as economic elements like Marxism does, you have to say yes at some point. An overabundance of an asset makes it lose worth. But Abraham saw things differently. He was not constrained by any economic parameters. He was not worried about how to fit everybody on a finite globe. He looked up to the stars, outside the globe, and there saw his posterity endless like the stars.
Through history, controlling powers have always forced civil behavior on people for the good of society, as it is necessary to some extent. But when it comes to eugenics and population control, there are repeated examples of how it ends badly. The Pharaoh of Egypt slaughtered the Hebrew children because they were getting too populous for his economic purposes. Then, like big corporations today, a growing population was a threat to his power. The King Herod slaughtered children because of a prophecy that a Messiah would usurp his rulership. Again, population control, and not motivated by any magnanimous love of the earth. It was pure love of power. Why should we think it’s any different today? Don’t you think Herod justified his actions by telling people, “Well, we need to get the population down because there aren’t enough resources for everybody”? Don’t you think his first effort was to get men and women to stop having babies in the first place? If the technology for abortions and contraceptives had been available, don’t you think he would have done everything he could to make them available?
The elite’s control over people’s sexuality has not changed. It’s only gotten worse. With the Edmund’s Act in 1882, the federal government for the first time defined marriage and licensed all couples. Interestingly, it was because they wanted to stop marriage and reproduction among Latter-Day Saints. Today, marriage is more regulated and defined by the government than ever, and all in the name of social justice. Our culture places more social pressure in regards to sexuality than ever before as well, while telling us that we are free. Oh, does that sound ridiculous? Our age of sexual liberation versus the old days of arranged marriages–how could we possibly be less free? Strong patriarchal standards is more free? It used to be very easy to get married and have a family, but now it seems almost impossible. Today, it takes an incredible amount of work to earn enough money, to find a suitable partner, to establish a good home for children, etc. Most find it impossible.
I recently went on a ski vacation with my family to Canada, and everywhere I went people stared at us like we were aliens. Like they have never seen a man and woman with children before. Like it’s a foreign concept. On the walls of the airport during a layover, I saw posters advertising divorce lawyers. On TV, two news anchor women were berating a silly man for saying the wrong thing. In the terminal, a girl in her late 20’s was comforting her distress dog, “There, there, I know this is a scary place…” It’s not just the government intervention that controls the population, it is the destruction of societal institutions from media rhetoric and popular culture which leaves people aimless. The voices which provide “alternative options” quickly become voices that scream at us for disagreeing with them. You are a bigot if you even suggest that the purpose of sexuality is to create posterity. Are we really liberated if we have no resources to inform us how to create a successful marriage and family? Are we liberated if we need Tinder to get a date? Are we liberated if we are too scared to flirt with anyone? We need social structure. They have dismantled the anthill structure that is necessary for growth and told us that we are more free. And make no mistake, elements like Tinder may be modern, but the tactics have been around for a long time.
What Is Best For The Economy? – Housewives are the happiest women. That’s simply what studies show time and time again, simple reality, and no amount of berating these women as “not really working” will change that. The media labels employed women as “working,” as if staying at home with kids isn’t work–as if that isn’t harder work than anything else. Economists dismiss stay-at-home mothers out of hand as unproductive for the economy. In Germany, I once reviewed a PHD thesis for a friend about the economy of Bhutan, who pretty much concluded that all of Bhutan’s economic problems would go away if women would enter the workforce. Economists and businessmen fail to see the vital economic role women perform by raising children and keeping a home. Utah has the highest number of stay-at-home-mothers and yet Utah has the highest economic growth of any state. Why is that? Maybe there is a relationship? Economists fail to consider the issue of fertility, but also the social benefits and cultural improvements when children are being raised by mothers instead of daycare workers. Widespread misery and loneliness does not improve an economy, personal fulfillment through family does.
The classic case study for overpopulation has always been China. Having a large portion of the world’s population, China long ago implemented extreme measures to curb reproduction, including the famous 2-child policy. Can we learn any lessons from China? Well, I could go off about what this has all led to. But let’s save that for another day and just focus on economy. Chinese state media admits they control population for economic reasons. This documentary about marriage problems in China explains why they want women employed instead of caring for children: “As more of China’s women are choosing to stay single and becoming increasingly independent, they consume more, spend more, and thereby contribute more to the economy.” Women who don’t have babies are out spending money on tourism, eating at restaurants, etc. They are also sitting in front of a desk earning money for companies. Do ruling powers in the West likewise want women to be single and spending more? Well, this is now accepted economic thinking across the world, so why wouldn’t ruling powers want women to stay single?
As the documentary explores the difficulties in dating in China, it takes us to a speed-dating event. But they never really give us a sense of the demographics at this event. The camera pans across many women, and then gives a still shot of a tiny group of men, giving us the false impression that more women are trying to find relationships than are men. We are then led to believe gender ratios have nothing to do with it, that it’s just a matter of women finding love while working a job. Subtle propaganda techniques like these in the media skew our impression all the time. The truth, I am 100% certain, is there were many more men at the speed dating event than women, because China has many more men than women in their country–it’s one of the worst gender ratios in the world. Because girls commonly get aborted. So no, it’s not just a matter of having a love life while working a job. But China’s government sticks to this lie. They continue with frequent propaganda urging women to stay out of the home and in the workplace, and men likewise to accept the single lifestyle, and be good producers and consumers. So, instead of innovating, empowering, and building a social and global infrastructure for a more advanced human race, they focus on limiting the posterity of potential competitors–like Pharaoh of old.
Utah Media – What about the mainstream media in Utah? Surely they are better, right? The owner of Salt Lake Tribune, wealthy businessman Paul Huntsman, comes from a family of nine children, yet we see article after article in the Salt Lake Tribune spreading hysteria about the population.
Paul Huntsman says he views his ownership of the Salt Lake Tribune as a public service, because “newspapers are the bedrock of democracy.” Well, if that’s true, why don’t I see my opinions expressed in the Salt Lake Tribune? Why are the opinions so often extreme and contrary to the opinions of the majority? Where is the representation? If it’s democracy, why don’t I get any influence or ownership? Why do wealthy elitists run it? Isn’t that an aristocracy rather than democracy? And as an institution of aristocracy, what motivation do they have to empower the individual rather than see people as economic tools for wealth and power? Why wouldn’t they try to limit the population? This agitating rhetoric echoes in social media and local culture, poisoning the environment for family-making. My favorite headline there is the one about “zero population.” It’s as if they took this obscure 70’s reference from Saturday’s Warrior and tried to invert the message.
If the population were to altogether decline either due to heavy overpopulation rhetoric, enforced eugenics, or some extinction event like the Black Plague, would things change? I don’t know. One expert has warned that the population decline has started and that there is no turning it around. I think once the overall population dips below what is useful for big corporations, they ought to flip their strategy around. But it is tough to say if they will be able to flip things around in our modern global context. I think the world would necessarily fracture into tribes like what happened with the Tower of Babel.
As a final note, there are always those who are unable to reproduce either for biological reasons or other circumstances beyond their control. Nothing here is meant to attack or discourage them, as there is always a role for these people if they adopt an abundance mindset. If you can’t reproduce, you still have options, through engagement with the community, occupations that help children, support for family, adoption, etc. Just countering evil rhetoric with positive messages and building an empowering social structure makes all the difference. You can still help build the beehive structure for the future generation. Please don’t get discouraged. I always shuttered when I thought how it would be if I had screaming children at a restaurant, but now that it’s happening I find that I love every moment, and that’s largely because of glances from people who are kind instead of resentful, restaurant staff who are patient and understanding. There is joy to be found in supporting a traditional-family environment even if you are limited in your personal choices. Nothing breaks my heart more than to see the anguish of someone who has given up all hope. The answer may not always be what we expect, but we can always pray for a different understanding, a deeper knowledge, and a path that reflects the legacy of our forefathers, and we can boldly pursue that path no matter what the consequences.
Thank you bwv549 for the great questions that helped me prepare for this article.
See Also: Does The Media Discourage People From Having Children?