Does Population Matter?

Population Matters is a charity that addresses concerns about population growth. When I was 13 I awoke to these concerns when I divided the Earth land by the population. At time of writing it is 1/16km2 (255m2).

This 1/16 of a km must supply all our food and resources we will need in our life and any children we produce (else we steal from someone else).

So we have the population concern whose illustrious worriers include Sir David Attenborough. 

https://populationmatters.org/news/2018/10/05/sir-david-attenborough-we-must-act-population

But the world is unequal. A person in the US uses twice the resources of someone in the UK. If everyone on the earth lived like people in the UK then all the world's resources would be used. Not everyone can like like an American. But if everyone lived like a Nepali then only 1/50 of the Earth resources would be used.

If we all lived like Nepalis then we could expand the human population 50 times! Population is not the problem. The problem is that Nepalis want to live like Americans, and Americans don't want to live like Nepalis.

I've explored this throughout this blog so won't go into detail here but the Americans are wrong not to want to live like Nepalis and the Nepalis are wrong to want to live like Americans. It is especially ironic for Nepalis because a true Nepalis shouldn't even be listening to US propaganda. They have their own guru Siddhartha Gautama of the Shakya tribe. I don;t remember anywhere Siddhartha extolling the virtues of expensive living. Indeed he said that such behaviour leads to suffering!

Death sweeps away
The person obsessed
With gathering flowers,
As a great flood sweeps away a sleeping village.
...

As a bee gathers nectar
And moves on without harming
The flower, its color, or its fragrance,
Just so should a sage walk through a village.

[Dharmapada: Flowers]

As Buddha says the world is there to be enjoyed, but we do that enjoyment lightly without collecting, storing or being drawn to the objects of pleasure. The Capitalist or the person desiring what they do not have has only death awaiting for them. All this in reality are empty, they have a coat of perceptions added to them by the mind from which they are almost imperceptibly different. Anyone very skilled in meditation who can develop a suitably subtle mind will be able to see the difference between Nama and Rupa that is Name and Form, and see the process of the mind upon the void of emptiness. Those who pursue these illusions are like dogs chasing their tails, wrapped up in a world of fruitless activity. Such is the world of Capitalism that consumes the world's resources.

So to those with an ear close to the ground the problem is not population. It turns out to be a fundamental error in how the West thinks that leads to Capitalism and all the associate problems. There are reasons that these problems have arising in the age of Capitalism and not before!