The Sustainable-Human-Population Initiative

Welcome! Here we are attempting to face perhaps our most taboo subject -- and the very most vital one.

Let's begin by asking ourselves these questions:

(1) "How many critical problems, that appear overwhelmingly intractable to solution, now threaten the human species, and even most life on this planet, with extreme injury or possibly imminent extinction?" (By "imminent": not the politicians' time-frame of 4 years necessarily, but more certainly within the lifetime of today's children.)

(2) "What is the common cause, or major contributing factor, for  these problems?"

Those of you who have answered the first with multiple crises, and the second with "we humans", may wish to continue reading... Our primary thesis here is:

If in fact we humanity are faced with multiple overwhelming global-life-threatening problems, each of which seems to demand our full attention and a huge commitment of time and effort, for each of which our imagined solutions have a very uncertain chance of success--

Then (assuming we do not surrender to despair) our best option is to attempt to identify a single underlying common factor upon which we can focus our effort.

If we identify such a factor, then we should not dilute our efforts and resources in attempting to deal specifically with all the consequent problems, but rather we should focus on a timely best-effort solution to that one essential common factor.

We will admit that all these problems are "intractable" (very difficult and risky, without clear/easy solutions, with an apparent low probability of success); therefore it is not valid to disqualify the postulated 'common factor' as being itself of difficult/improbable solution. That is: Do not hurry to dismiss it lightly.

In answer to our initial question #2:

The postulated intractable common-cause factor is;

'Large-scale Humanity'.

The proposed difficult solution is memorably labeled:

'Humane Human Animal Husbandry'                                (abbreviated here as: 'HHAH') .

? Can a sufficient number of us agree ?  that:

1) We humans exist (while on Earth) as a material biological animal species.

2) Our planet has limited resources subject to depletion by over-population.

3) We have developed, over thousands of years, a fairly competent science of Animal Husbandry, including the skills to re-enforce desirable characteristics by selective breeding, and environmental population optimization.

4) We can fairly well identify the unique characteristics of the 'human animal' that have resulted in an extreme threat to our planet and its life; and much evidence points to a genetic component to even these complex traits. 

5) The danger to us is serious and imminent (within the lifetime of our children).

6) Only a commitment to a global community effort without coercive methods is ethically acceptable. (refer to 'How to avoid becoming your enemy', below)

7) Any technological 'good news' (eg: cheap 'green' energy) must not distract us from facing the full, stark reality of an inevitable exponential population growth disaster if we continue our 'growth'. (The so-called 'Green Revolution' of industrial agriculture managed to delay the 'hunger/starvation' disaster, but eventually will vastly amplify its ultimate magnitude.)

Our preliminary proposal shall be something like this:

The best chance for our long-term sustainable survival is to focus a global cooperative effort on significant voluntary population reduction in the most humane manner possible, combined with a creative re-design of civilization, resilient and sustainable (including'best-practices' selected from various societies); and a reasonable diverse genetic selection of candidates for this new population (based on measures of quality in social-empathic, emotional, intellectual, and physical aspects).

Crucially, we must realistically set a goal that mandates a very wide margin-of-safety. That is: Few enough humans on the planet such that other current intractable problems will almost-automatically become manageable. We suggest: about that number when humanity first settled in towns (~4000BC). That would be 6 million, or about 0.1% of the current population.

The means would be: a sufficient commitment from us '99.9%', 6 billion adults -- we would support the project: each 'Village' of 1000 would sponsor 1 'Child-of-the-New-Age'. We would build a small number of modest new home-cities distributed in the safest global locations, each of which would be self-sufficient in all basic human needs, designed using our current best-practices in ecological sustainability and simplicity for 'quality-of-life'. 

All benign technological innovations, and the means to produce them, would be provided in each location also. All indisputably-malevolent technology would be destroyed and forgotten. The design of a city in all its aspects would be guided by our best engineering practices for reliable, resilient systems to avoid catastrophic failures. Natural beauty will also be highly valued.

This redundancy of perhaps 21 cities would be a first-level means to human adaptability and survivability from both human-caused and 'natural' disasters. The re-design would include 3 alternate methods/forms to solve each major requirement.

The true benefits of growth could be reasonably obtained using successive 100-year macro-cycles with a modest 2%-per-year increase ; the 21 cities would be designed for the maximum resulting population of 30 million. The cycle would end with an appropriate 5:1 selective 'pruning' based on similar quality criteria as the original 1000:1 reduction, back to the 6 million minimum.

The initial time-frame is at most 100 years, the lifetime of our current children; the critical impediment is not economic or technical, but our own belief systems. This 'taboo topic' essay is motivated by the faith-conjecture that humanity is capable (as the threat becomes more severe, imminent, and obvious) of setting aside all but the essential, to work in harmony together toward this common goal...with both humility and hope. With our collective consent, in year 2112, inhabitants of this new urban-gardened-civilization would be the only people remaining. 

Humanity (and life on Earth) could have a very good 'second chance'... but of course no guarantees. That chance would be our legacy to them -- along with an enduring project of cleaning up our multiplicity of ecological messes on the planet.

As a final note:

(1) I believe it's probable that a small but powerful Group (with a ruthless elitist, fascist, non-egalitarian agenda) is already working on its alternative form of this proposed solution.

(2) I believe it's possible that our Planet (as a living-intentional-ecosystem) may also be working on an alternative plan. 

I suggest that those would be 'less happy' for us as a whole. How to avoid becoming your enemy: Awaken to the truth that 'you' are two: a 'lesser self' motivated by suspicion, fear, belief-in-scarcity, and competition; a 'Greater Self' motivated by faith, love, belief-in-abundance, and cooperation. Then without exception, choose to be the Greater.  Reject: 'the End justifies the Means', and accept: 'the Means determines the End'... Finally, Be Responsible. Otherwise, all is lost.

Thank you for your attention... PEACE !

Thomas Clemente Fe  (Earth : 2012 AD)