People sure seem to enjoy breeding a lot. It may actually be causing some problems, like resource consumption and stuff. The oligarchs seem to be intent on 'culling the herd', if you catch my drift.
This smells of elitism - who is qualified to do the culling? And anyway, it doesn't resolve the fundamental problem of infinite human desire in a world of finite resources. Controlling desire is actually the prerequisite to controlling population.
Imagine enlightened society. Hmmm. This is a brainstorming experiment, so forgive me if I come up with some radical ideas.
In an enlightened society, would there still be prisons? At least to begin with, I think they won't just disappear overnight. Some of the people there are dangerous, and kept away from society for our protection.
What if we sent all our prisoners to monasteries built in deserts? Meditation retreats are hard, not easy. In fact, they are hell at first, until one gets used to gazing and listening within. Prisoners would learn to control desire, at least.
the dangerous prisoners... well, the monks in charge would just have to be really well-trained martial artists, I guess. These would have to be shaolin monasteries. Imagine huge monasteries, 50,000 celibates, training in martial arts, meditating, and building compost in the desert out of their own shit. After a 20 year sentence the prisoners will probably be rehabilitated, you know? We know for a fact that even a 10 day sentence brings benefit...
In indigenous culture war and violence was always seen as an aspect of nature, an aspect of life, and part of culture. War and violence were means by which populations maintained appropriate resource bases. In places where there was lots of room and/or resource, peaceful and nonviolent cultures managed to evolve, whereas in tight quarters (such as islands) very warlike cultures evolved in order to capably defend scarce resources from competitors.
War and violence have long been used to acquire and maintain resource bases for populations. This has also, historically, 'thinned the herd'. Lethal competition for scarce resources is a form of population control.
Curiously, an economy which perpetuates scarcity is an economy which perpetuates population control. This is the true purpose of vulture capitalism.
Rather than these crude and barbaric methods of controlling population growth by controlling resources, why not offer the alternative of controlling population growth by teaching people to control their desire? Traditionally, armies were the place where all the horny guys got distracted from married life by killing for a decade or two. If we are to enter an age of peace, and the armies get smaller, how do we avoid a population explosion? Why not have peaceful, nonviolent standing armies of celibate meditators, dedicated to 'being still and knowing that IAM GOD', monastics who are training in martial arts and permaculture? Isn't this a far more socially responsible method of both resource conservation and cultural rehabilitation? I mean, how long before this 'prison' has a waiting line of aspiring warriors? And how long before the desert isn't even a desert anymore?
An old Tibetan monk was once interviewed, and he stated unequivocally that his job for 40 years was to keep the fields from getting hailed on. When asked how could we know if meditation actually kept hail from falling on the fields, he responded, 'in forty years it never hailed!'
He was then asked if he ever made it rain, whereupon he laughed and said, 'thats above my pay grade! Better meditators than me did that. I just kept it from hailing.'
We are leaving behind us the age of self, and entering the age of service. Printing money is fast becoming once again the domain of the republican commons, and the chasing after desire is again being seen as an ineffective path to happiness. We are made happy by being useful, and we are made useful through serving others. And our quest for meaningful happiness is interminably resolute.
And that monastery in the desert? Thats where the Jedi will end up coming from...
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