There are too many people in the world; too many human people to be precise. Derrick Jensen suggests that with six million human beings on this planet, we are actually taking away available biomass for the life of other species, all the non-human people who are dying rapidly. Aside from the denial justified as morality, the morality that it is wrong for humans to die, even more wrong than other species dying, there are solutions to the population crisis that are worse than the problem, reeking of the worst totalitarianism. Some people claim these solutions are already happening, that the governments are poisoning us through our tap water. Others resign themselves to the necessary unpleasantness of some mass natural disaster, like a tsunami or earthquake. Some people stress the importance of solutions allowing the economy to grow, some value solutions that adhere to pre-ordained codes of conduct, such as laws and dogmas. No one seems to suggest pleasure as a guiding principle, or love as a process.
Why are there too many people on the earth? Isn't this a silly game to be playing? Surely one billion is more than enough human beings to praise Economy and Yahweh. There is evidence that in previous human societies, tribes that lasted sustainably for thousands of years, population was controlled. Some people hear that they killed foetuses and infants and disabled people and are horrified at the idea of human beings dying. There is also evidence of very simple birth-control methods involving simply awareness of a woman's menstrual cycle, surely the sort of information that was violently repressed by the Catholic Church during the Holy Inquisition, or women burnings.
My suggestion as to why there are so many people on the planet is the same reason that we created all these civilisations that are merging via globalisation into the mega-culture that will digitise the planet. Grain. Civilisation, and therefore ever-growing population, is a result of the addiction of an entire species to grain. Look around the world, every civilisation is defined by their grain. There are the American corn cultures, the Asian rice cultures and the European wheat cultures. Apparently 75% of the food eaten by humans on this planet is these three grains. When we were gatherer-hunters, back in the garden, we would have eaten a wide variety of plants, whatever was available in our environment, taking a little from each plant so the plant could continue to flourish and provide. We would never have eaten huge amounts of one thing as agriculture allows. But then we discovered grains, wheat being the most popular in the world, native to the Fertile Crescent as civilisation itself is.
Why would we create agriculture when we were living a balanced life in which nature provided us everything we needed, we did not take too much and we did not threaten our environment with over-population? Grain. We discovered grain and the more we ate the more we wanted to eat. I have noticed that when I start the day with a big bowl of satisfying comforting nutritious organic oats I am hungry again an hour or two later, much hungrier than I would otherwise have been. It is no secret that these things that we use to bulk out our meals, to "fill us up", actually expand our stomachs and therefore fail at the one task they are given. We grow up in a culture of lies. I was told throughout my childhood by advertising and all my elders, that dairy is a source of calcium. Scientific tests show that cow milk contains calcium, they conveniently do not mention that the human body cannot assimilate dairy and the accumulation of dairy in the body actually leeches calcium out of our bones. There are many lies around, but the greatest lie of all is that grains "fill us up" when they actually expand our stomach.
We are addicted to grain and we can't stop ourselves. Why would we create agriculture when it is so much easier to gather? We decided to work hard stripping the land and planting monocrops of wheat, rice and corn that require a lot of maintenance, simply so we can eat more grain. This is very hard work, so to take some of the burden we make more children to help. With all these additional human beings we need to grow more grain to feed them. Thus, expansion. More expansion equals more work equals more people equals more grain. Soon there are so many people it is necessary to form cities, where we can organise ourselves and divide labour so we can enjoy everything more comfortably and easily that facilitates the growing of grain.
If you do not believe me, give me another reason why we would go to the hassle to create civilisation. "God said, "Be fruitful and multiply.""? I do not believe you. A page or so later he curses us with having to toil with the earth and watching as the earth becomes dust; after the beauty and simplicity of the garden.
There is one solution that has been overlooked, that will enable our population to slowly decline, reduce violence against women rapidly, allow us to value and honour the children we already have and bring great pleasure to everyone who participates. The solution is Homosexuality. Women have been the victims of male violence for generations and it is going to take generations to perform essential and necessary act of healing this pattern of behaviour. Why have women been the target of such violence - domestic abuse, sexual violence, witch burning and marriage? To oversimplify, because they are women, because they have vaginas, because they threaten men's ability to control. The solution is homosexuality. Not only have marriage and heteronormativism removed vast areas of sexuality from human life, but the simple act of touch has been channelled into violence as its only suitable expression; wrestling being the healthiest form of this, war being the least.
All violence is a form of sexuality, and mostly it is men fighting men. The solution is Homosexuality. I believe that it is necessary for all men to be sodomised at least once in their life, otherwise a fundamental human experience has been lost and an entire aspect of the psyche has not been allowed to develop. To empathise with those who are temporarily weaker or submissive to us in some way, we need to experience the receptive. To experience the intensity of being penetrated is to empathise with the person you penetrate.
The solution is joy and love and freedom and sexuality and humanity and can be started and enjoyed immediately.
