Rapid population decline prevents both many problems we can see, exploading social conflict which we cannot, and civilization collapse. I am not suggesting that we implement rapid population decline by killing people. I want us to implement it through very few births. At an individual's cognition level, I want civilization collapse to motivate a "very-few-briths" behavior. This motivation will not work on everyone. Their genes and culture will overwhelm their common sense. If they have very-few-births it will be a response to social pressure. What Garret Hardin called "Mutually coercion, mutually agreed upon." My objective in this text is to create mutual agreement. Half the community must believe that social presure is an approriate course of action. For most individuals, choosing, requesting, or coercing procreative behavior offends them because -- they cannot see a problem that demands such extreme deviance from normal behavior. Thus the objective is to describe such a problem. When Somalia's civil order failed many children lost parents, homes, food, and had to carry guns in militias to keep their bellies half full. If you thought your state could fail, leaving your children orphaned, homeless, starving, and killing to eat, would that be a big enough problem? If I could show that 15 or 20 nations besides Somalia could fail; that the slums of Rio, Mexico City and Mumbia could make those cities fail. If I could show that even Paris, London and Los Angeles or a city near you could fail; would that be a big enough problem? If I could show that these failures would appear like car accidents. One minute everything is fine and the next it is all tragedy. If I could show that once failure is in process available behaviors will be like trying to buckle seat belts mid crash. Would that be a big enough problem? If I could show that the failed conditions will not be temporary; that in our global civilization's attempts to not slide into this dark age, people, like locust, will deplete and degrade the earth's last remaining bounty to so little there would be not enough left to let our progeny climb out of this blackness? Would that be a big enough problem? Assume, that in the text of the book, I can get you to believe the problem you face is big enough. Then it is possible that you would be motivated enough to follow an analysis that shows why rapid population decline is powerful enough to prevent it. The analysis shows why the universal behavior of "parenting only one child" creates enough rapid population decline to reverse existing trends toward civilization collapse. If I succeed in changing the reader's beliefs about the problem and the behaviors that address it. And the book sells more than a few copies, then humankind has a kernel of believers that think procreative limits, for example one child limits should be universally implemented. Just this small group will not reverse any trends. Next, I have to show how to grow this kernel of believers into majority constituencies of each nation which can implement universal one child behavior laws and other rapid population decline policies. Having just a few nations implement rapid population decline is still not a reversal of global trends either. I have to show that soon, out of necessity of survival, these "one-child by law and policy," nations with rapidly decreasing population, will band together into a commonwealth creating a border around themselves and their mutually held commons. No human migration or commerce, will cross this boundary. Those on each side will become isolated from one another. Each will progress toward different conditions. The next part of the human experiment's path into the light, is pretty dark. While the quality of life within the commonwealth is ever brightening for its constituents, that is there is progressively more resources per person, the quality of life for the non commonwealth nations will darken as there is progressively less per person. The scarcity for resources in these non commonwealth nations will become so intense the resulting anarchy will crush their social order. They will become failed states. Any aid given by the commonwealth will be swallowed without reducing suffering. On the contrary, aid will lead to expanded suffering and, as it has in Somalia, the failed states will create additional risks to the commonwealth by becoming sanctuaries and breeding grounds for pirates and terrorists. However, in that the commonwealth will not trade with these failed states, (certainly those with little fossil fuels or those with fuels but little technology) both their arms and technology will decrease. Soon failed states will be reduced to fighting with swords and rocks. Their diminished technology will make it easier for nations that still have some energy source and technology to contain them. There is a path to the light for each of these nations. Each can join the commonwealth if they implement one child behaviors and achieve rapid population decline within their boarders. The commonwealth will provide aid to accomplish these behaviors. In one book it would be impossible to illuminate all social and physical aspects of such a large civil transition. The book instead contains a series of essays which describe, areas of an unfolding map of this change. The book achieves my goal if the reader believes our children are in for a larger problem than is produced by global warming, or peak oil, or depleted fisheries. My goal will be accomplished if the reader believes behaviors that implement rapid population decline are powerful enough to address that larger problem while other touted behaviors like living small, stopping population growth, or equitable redistribution are not. My goal will be accomplished if the reader becomes a member of a "constituency that believes one child behaviors are the core of a viable human experiment. It achieves my goal if that reader will recruit a few new members to the constituency. The book has 4 parts. The first part is not text but a DVD with seminars and short videos. These presentations have a special purpose. If the unseen problem is so big, if the solution is so sound, if the behavior to resolve the problem is so simple, why has each remained so hidden? My answer is humankind shares a common cognitive defect that makes each person blind to a portion of reality. So the seminars and short movies describe these flaws in common thinking and learning. After these cognitive limitations are made explicit, after I crack the reader's wall of certainty that his or her view of reality is complete, then there is room for the concepts presented in the book's essays to take root in the reader's now opened consciousness. Part 2 of the book includes essays that help the reader understand the mechanisms that describe the human predicament even when our cognitive processes conspirer to keep these mechanisms and their meaning hidden. The book succeeds if the reader concludes that human thought process and behavior can play a positive role in creating our viability and that humankind can think and behave its way out of this predicament. We just have to: |
12/1/09
If you received this as hard copy you can find the online version at: Other underlined/URL's seminars: Dr Alpert's bio is at: http://skil.org/Qxtras_folder-2/Jack%27s%20resume%207_03_files/Jack%27s%20resume%207_03.htm |