A Step Farther Out by Jerry Pournelle Page B
Authors: Jerry Pournelle
Tags: Science-Fiction
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takes adding technology to traditional peasant skills—indeed, the kind of thing advocated by E.F. Schumacher in his SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL-ECONOMICS AS IF PEOPLE MATTERED. Showing people how to use Mylar and simple non-persistent fungicides for food storage along with peasant agricultural methodology will hold the line against famine—for a while.
Moreover, we have new technologies. There are means for increasing protein production. More protein in childhood would cut back infant diseases like kwashiorkor and "red baby"; those diseases have the effect of permanently lowering adult IQ by about 20 points. What if the next generation of a developing country were "20 IQ points" more intelligent? For many of the ignorant of the world are not stupid; but they may be stunted.
But the doomsters have an answer. If we help those people feed themselves, they'll only breed to famine again. Worse, they'll demand industry. They'll strip-mine phosphates and poison the seas (as shown by Cousteau on a recent film). What's the point of helping them? Doom is still around the corner.
The best answer is that historically people haven't done it. When nations reach a high level of technology—and of infant survival—the fertility rate falls. The US appeared to be an exception to that with the WWII "baby boom," but now that squiggle in the fertility rate has passed. The girls born in 1944 are 35 now, leaving their child-bearing period, and the number of girls born per fertile girl in the US has fallen to an all-time low: so low that now one occasionally hears economists advocate bonuses for larger families! The same is true of the other industrialized nations. Populations of wealthy nations do not rise without limit.
Yet—in our schools and colleges and universities straight unadulterated Malthusianism is taught and learned and has become "conventional wisdom."
* * *
There's another form of doom not so fashionably discussed: the Marching Morons (that is, the least successful tend to have the most children). It's a problem we must face; but it's doubtful that before the year 2000, or even 2500, it will have destroyed our social institutions.
As a matter of fact, given present population trends, the US won't have very many more people in 2000 than now. Population is growing, albeit slowly: there's a "bow wave" generated by the World War II "baby boom," and of course there is always immigration—both legal and illegal. Still, best projections show us peaking in about 2025 with population then declining to its present level—where it will stay.
Suppose that never happens, and we reach 350 million people before something stops US population growth. The area of the United States is about 9.5 million square kilometers; of that, some is water, and some simply uninhabitable. Call it 8 million even, and we have a present population of about 26 people per square kilometer.
If we reach 350 million people—and few projections show us getting there in 50 or even 100 years—we would have 43.5 people/km 2 , a big increase. Some writers say that we will be driven stark, staring mad by overcrowding, and this well before 2020 AD; Asimov, recall, expects Doom before the year 2000, primarily from this cause.
We'll be inundated with personal contacts, at each other's throats, sleeping in hallways and abandoned automobiles; mothers will kill and eat their children; few will have any incentive to work; all except the very rich will be in utter misery as civilization collapses.
Well, what civilized countries have population densities higher than our doom-level of 43.5 that we might reach in 50 years?
Practically all of them. West Germany, a not uncivilized place, has 244 people/km 2 , equivalent to 1.9 billion people in the US! Denmark has 114 people/km 2 ; France 93; England and Wales, 322. Even Scotland, with its highlands and islands and hills and moors has 66.
What densities can people stand and remain sane? No one really has an answer to that. But the
Moreover, we have new technologies. There are means for increasing protein production. More protein in childhood would cut back infant diseases like kwashiorkor and "red baby"; those diseases have the effect of permanently lowering adult IQ by about 20 points. What if the next generation of a developing country were "20 IQ points" more intelligent? For many of the ignorant of the world are not stupid; but they may be stunted.
But the doomsters have an answer. If we help those people feed themselves, they'll only breed to famine again. Worse, they'll demand industry. They'll strip-mine phosphates and poison the seas (as shown by Cousteau on a recent film). What's the point of helping them? Doom is still around the corner.
The best answer is that historically people haven't done it. When nations reach a high level of technology—and of infant survival—the fertility rate falls. The US appeared to be an exception to that with the WWII "baby boom," but now that squiggle in the fertility rate has passed. The girls born in 1944 are 35 now, leaving their child-bearing period, and the number of girls born per fertile girl in the US has fallen to an all-time low: so low that now one occasionally hears economists advocate bonuses for larger families! The same is true of the other industrialized nations. Populations of wealthy nations do not rise without limit.
Yet—in our schools and colleges and universities straight unadulterated Malthusianism is taught and learned and has become "conventional wisdom."
* * *
There's another form of doom not so fashionably discussed: the Marching Morons (that is, the least successful tend to have the most children). It's a problem we must face; but it's doubtful that before the year 2000, or even 2500, it will have destroyed our social institutions.
As a matter of fact, given present population trends, the US won't have very many more people in 2000 than now. Population is growing, albeit slowly: there's a "bow wave" generated by the World War II "baby boom," and of course there is always immigration—both legal and illegal. Still, best projections show us peaking in about 2025 with population then declining to its present level—where it will stay.
Suppose that never happens, and we reach 350 million people before something stops US population growth. The area of the United States is about 9.5 million square kilometers; of that, some is water, and some simply uninhabitable. Call it 8 million even, and we have a present population of about 26 people per square kilometer.
If we reach 350 million people—and few projections show us getting there in 50 or even 100 years—we would have 43.5 people/km 2 , a big increase. Some writers say that we will be driven stark, staring mad by overcrowding, and this well before 2020 AD; Asimov, recall, expects Doom before the year 2000, primarily from this cause.
We'll be inundated with personal contacts, at each other's throats, sleeping in hallways and abandoned automobiles; mothers will kill and eat their children; few will have any incentive to work; all except the very rich will be in utter misery as civilization collapses.
Well, what civilized countries have population densities higher than our doom-level of 43.5 that we might reach in 50 years?
Practically all of them. West Germany, a not uncivilized place, has 244 people/km 2 , equivalent to 1.9 billion people in the US! Denmark has 114 people/km 2 ; France 93; England and Wales, 322. Even Scotland, with its highlands and islands and hills and moors has 66.
What densities can people stand and remain sane? No one really has an answer to that. But the
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