On October 31st 2011, the world experienced something truly scary: the arrival of our seven-billionth human.
I use the term scary, because besides the fact it was Halloween that day, seven billion seems like a lot of people. Hell, it just seems like a pretty big number. In fact, the number is so big, that I was probably wrong when I said Halloween. That was simply the day it was recognised by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The actual day could have been slightly earlier or later; simply because of how hard it is to track the births and deaths of that many people.
There have been people throughout history worrying about population growth, and rightly so. The Earth is big, but not that big. Not big enough to tackle the problems that emerge of an exponential population curve.
I use the term scary, because besides the fact it was Halloween that day, seven billion seems like a lot of people. Hell, it just seems like a pretty big number. In fact, the number is so big, that I was probably wrong when I said Halloween. That was simply the day it was recognised by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The actual day could have been slightly earlier or later; simply because of how hard it is to track the births and deaths of that many people.
There have been people throughout history worrying about population growth, and rightly so. The Earth is big, but not that big. Not big enough to tackle the problems that emerge of an exponential population curve.
Because when the population explodes, it really explodes. That is why iconic Aussie businessman Dick Smith has created the Wilberforce Award.
Dick has laid $1 million on the table for any individual who can step up and become famous by showing leadership by communicating an alternative to our current system of wasteful, pointless consumption.
I suppose I could be that person. I could use $1 million. But I'm not here to write today about how I am going to save us all from too many iPhone models clogging up our nations landfills in 2050. Today I am going for the much more modest achievement of getting this blog post into a former newspaper I used to work at, The Daily Telegraph. Dick has offered any journalist under 30 years old $5000 if he can achieve this feat. It's not a million. But it's not a kick in the teeth! Help me get there, dear reader.
The Tele is the biggest paper in NSW, and it is run by News Ltd. That is, it is run by the Murdoch media empire. When I worked there this wasn't that big of an issue - everyone who worked there seemed like actually nice, put-together individuals and not the bloodsucking propagandists that anti-MSM advocates may have you believe.
But Dick is adamant on his page:
"The Murdoch press are absolutely paranoid about anyone mentioning that we can’t have constant growth in the use of material resources and energy."
I suppose I could be that person. I could use $1 million. But I'm not here to write today about how I am going to save us all from too many iPhone models clogging up our nations landfills in 2050. Today I am going for the much more modest achievement of getting this blog post into a former newspaper I used to work at, The Daily Telegraph. Dick has offered any journalist under 30 years old $5000 if he can achieve this feat. It's not a million. But it's not a kick in the teeth! Help me get there, dear reader.
The Tele is the biggest paper in NSW, and it is run by News Ltd. That is, it is run by the Murdoch media empire. When I worked there this wasn't that big of an issue - everyone who worked there seemed like actually nice, put-together individuals and not the bloodsucking propagandists that anti-MSM advocates may have you believe.
But Dick is adamant on his page:
"The Murdoch press are absolutely paranoid about anyone mentioning that we can’t have constant growth in the use of material resources and energy."
So this blog is to dispel a few myths, I suppose. Here I go:
- The Murdoch press aren't paranoid. There are some people that work there with some fairly extreme beliefs about things in society (I'm looking at you Andrew Bolt) but on the whole these are people who are tasked with the insanely tough job of creating a readable, visually appealing, interesting and engaging newspaper every day. I'm sure if they were to run this blog post (or a paraphrased version of it, it is a newspaper after all) it wouldn't be too out of the ordinary. Perhaps Dick is the one being paranoid? Oh crap, I'm trying to get five grand out of this guy. Moving on...
- We can't keep changing things that have evolved around the economy and expect them to solve anything. Yeah I'm talking to you, Carbon Tax. And you, ETS. The problem with these ideas is they are too much like a band-aid solution. The world is getting bigger, but as we are seeing, bigger population does not necessarily mean bigger growth in GDP or global economies. The world is producing more people, who are producing more innovation/technology/invention, which is in turn increasing efficiency.
Now, unfortunately, efficiency seems like a good thing, but it's actually a bad idea for business. If I bought the most efficient razor blade, made out of a special titanium steel that never wore down so I would never have to buy another razor again, you know what would happen to that poor razor blade company? It would go broke, because I only bought one razor, and I only ever NEEDED to buy one razor. Meanwhile, next door's razor company that sells shitty razors is laughing all the way to the bank as people come back to buy a new razor each and every week. My point here is, we're producing more people, but autonomous machinery and digital technology are doing away with more and more of our jobs. So what do we do? The machines are efficient, and they're saving us time and effort! But hold on, they're making it harder for people to get jobs, because they simply do it better than a human. So... perhaps it is the fundamental socio-economic paradigm we live in that's the problem. Perhaps THAT is what has to change. - Business-as-usual is just not going to work anymore. Old people give me disgruntled looks when I rant and rave about digital communication, the internet, the Tweet generation, and the like. I've been screaming it for years, but they say things like "I was like that at your age too, I thought everything was new and was changing everything." Newsflash! Everything IS always new and EVERYTHING DOES CHANGE. IT'S CALLED EVOLUTION. We evolve constantly, and the newest evolution, namely the Internet, is our best yet, In My Humble Twenty Three Year Old Opinion (IMHTTYOO). It's giving me the platform to write this blog, to share through my entire network, and to communicate with my fellow humans. It's doing it for free, because the technology is out there and there's no need for a price tag so some fat cat middleman can get rich. THIS is the thinking we need to apply to our whole society's technical design. That's right, I said design -- we have gone too long without designing the core functionality of our society that humans require to live: food, water, air, shelter, arable land and a relevant education. These are design considerations, that if I were creating a new world, I'd make sure were the main boxes ticked for EVERY human. It wouldn't even be that hard, and if every human had that, then we'd all be flying around space together sooner than you think. And there'd be no need for money and the excess corruption and backward behaviour it encourages.
This is getting too long, so here's my plea to friends, family and colleagues who read this: please share it. I'm not trying to go all Kony on everyone, but if there's a chance I can get this blog (or a rewritten version that I write myself to better suit the tone of the newspaper) in the newspaper, and get people thinking about the exponential population issue as well as the need for a new dynamic social design, then great.
To the people thinking I only care about this because I'm trying to win $5000, how does this grab you -- if I do get this published and I do get $5000 off ol' Dick Smitty for winning his 'bet' that he couldn't get media coverage, I will donate the entirety of the money to a worthwhile charity like the Cancer Council. I just want people to know the issue. I'm broke as shit but I definitely won't have anyone saying I only wrote this/care about this because of the money.
So I'm going to work on spreading this page around to my contacts who are News Ltd journalists. Guys, if you're reading this, give me a call, tweet me, email me, and we'll work around getting something published. We'll see if Dick was right. $5000 is a pretty good price for national press coverage in this day and age, anyway. I have ideas about ways to engineer around the increase in population, but for the most part, they're not my own. They are the result of hundreds of hours reading and studying scientists, sociologist, futurists and designers and their outlook on the carrying capacity of the earth. These are the considerations that need to be taken into account, not monetary considerations. Not "how much will it cost", but rather "do we have the resources?" And the answer is yes.
Peace and Love
To the people thinking I only care about this because I'm trying to win $5000, how does this grab you -- if I do get this published and I do get $5000 off ol' Dick Smitty for winning his 'bet' that he couldn't get media coverage, I will donate the entirety of the money to a worthwhile charity like the Cancer Council. I just want people to know the issue. I'm broke as shit but I definitely won't have anyone saying I only wrote this/care about this because of the money.
So I'm going to work on spreading this page around to my contacts who are News Ltd journalists. Guys, if you're reading this, give me a call, tweet me, email me, and we'll work around getting something published. We'll see if Dick was right. $5000 is a pretty good price for national press coverage in this day and age, anyway. I have ideas about ways to engineer around the increase in population, but for the most part, they're not my own. They are the result of hundreds of hours reading and studying scientists, sociologist, futurists and designers and their outlook on the carrying capacity of the earth. These are the considerations that need to be taken into account, not monetary considerations. Not "how much will it cost", but rather "do we have the resources?" And the answer is yes.
“We talk about civilization as though it’s a static state. There are no civilized people yet, it’s a process that’s constantly
Jacque Fresco
going on… As long as you have war, police, prisons, crime, you are in the early stages of civilization.”
-Jacques Fresco
Peace and Love
Willskis
Mr. Willskis, excellent piece and a real thought generator.
ReplyDeleteIn the Razor-Blade case however, couldn't you also assume that with new people being born every minute (and hence new customers requiring razors) that you would in fact drive out your competition and monopolise the market?
That has nothing to do with the blog as a whole, but is it the economic and monetary systems themselves that's the cause of corruption etc etc, or is it the players of the game?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that perhaps a better way of improving our future would be teaching everyone the rules?
Mr. (or Mrs?) Unknown,
ReplyDeleteSorry I haven't responded quicker. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
The market is monopolised not by those who make the most efficient product, but those who make the most efficient purchasing pattern for its consumer. So even if the company made its money selling razors to the new customers that were being born every day, there simply wouldn't be enough revenue generated to maintain a business in today's economic climate. The only way to monopolise the market is to provide razors at such a price and quality that they can not be beaten competitively. The point of the whole razor analogy was simply to illustrate that a better product does not necessarily equal a more successful company, due to economic realities.
The players of the game are nothing more than products of the environment they're placed in. A system that rewards greed will continually produce greedy individuals, not because they were naturally greedy, but because they have been exposed to situations in which their corruption or greed proves profitable to their own survival (eg. the case of the Wall Street bankers).
Teaching everyone the rules won't make the system any less flawed. Teaching the economic rules to Ethiopian children won't make a lick of difference when they're never placed in the position to take back economic power for their own country in the first place. I feel what humanity needs, what we're crying out for, is a systemic overhaul, a redesign of a culture.