A Tuesday Comparison: Comparin' the Writings of Tommy Malthus to Child Psychology

Wanna do a comparison? Okay, I'm down. Let's compare the opinions of Tommy Malthus to child psychology for a change. It's not like I have anything better to do today.

The Writings of Tommy Malthus 

Tommy Malthus was a guy from the 1800s who wrote about population and resources. He firmly believed that the current resources of the earth could and would not satisfy the rate at which humans were re-producing. He wrote that the future will inevitably be a bleak one of famine and ultimately will lead to the death of humans.

People have taken his writings very seriously over the last 200 years or so and nations have been attempting to get their hands on the supposed dwindling global resources so that their nation will make it through the great famine which will apparently spell the end for them.

Basically he was saying that there's not enough food, water, energy on this earth for everyone and we must fight over who gets to have their hands on it and make it through the "great catastrophe" which awaits us in the future.


Child Psychology

Next off, let's rap loose about some child psychology...

I'm not huge on psychology, in many aspects I think it's a jabroni-laden field of silliness, yet I read a lot of child studies because they are interesting (Bobo clown study and others). One study that I found interesting was children were given toys to play with and then simply observed by the psychologists. What they noticed in many cases was the children would behave very differently when they entered the room full of toys. Some of the children would take a toy and go to a corner of their own and play with it (shy kids), other kids would take toys and play a game with other kids (outgoing kids), then the last type of kid would steal toys from the other kids.

At first they thought, "oh that child must have liked that toy and his/her reason for stealing it was to satisfy a want," and that may have been true in some cases yet the psychologists started to notice in many cases once the child successfully stole the other child's toy...he/she would get bored of it in a few seconds and then go steal some other kid's toy. He or she wasn't stealing for the want or need to have the toy they were observing another kid playing with...they simply wanted to steal because that other kid had it and it compelled them to take it from them. It was the act of taking something from someone else that interested the children who stole toys in most cases.

In the adult world, a good example of this phenomenon is the long-known fact that wearing a wedding ring into a singles bar will attract A LOT of attention. A lot of people wonder why that is but child psychology explains this rather easily...a lot of singles will hit on a "taken" member of the opposite sex for the sole reason of "taking" something away from someone. These lascivious howlers are the same as the kids who stole toys for no reason in the study...they don't even really want to bang the person who is married...what they want is the feeling of taking something from someone and that gives them a thrill or a warm feeling inside.

How Does this Nonsense Tie Together, You Ask?

According to the followers of Malthus, there are a limited amount of resources on this earth and they will only wind up in the hands of those who take them. They only wind up in the hands of the takers. The lonely kids who play with one toy? Fuck 'em they won't survive. The outgoing kids who work together and play with the toys together? No chance, they won't survive. Only the kids who take will survive. Take, take, take, take, take,take, TAKE.

TAKE !!

Take, take, take...

Finder's keepers! Losers weepers! First come! First serve! Take! Take! Take!

There's only so much food, water, energy, and precious resources on this earth! TAKE THEM BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES! TAKE IT ALL FOR YOURSELF! TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH! YOU CAN NEVER TAKE ENOUGH! TAKE IT ALL! TAKE EVERYTHING THAT ISN'T NAILED DOWN! IT'S DOG EAT DOG OUT HERE! KILL THEM ALL! TAKE ALL THEIR STUFF! THEY DON'T NEED IT...YOU NEED IT!

It's either you or me! No offense but if boils down to you or me...believe you me...I'm picking ME! Now gimme all your stuff! It's Mine! All Mine!

It's mass hysteria out here! Buy a gun! Get ready! It's Mass Hysteria Out HERE!

Does it Have to Be This Way?

Is the population really spiraling out of control? Doesn't seem so. Please let my homeboy, the master statistician, Hans Rosling rap a little loose on this subject...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg)

It looks like we are gonna recover from the post-war baby booms which over-saturated the population and numbers will level out. Statiscally, if you are educated and live comfortably...you have about 1 or 2 babies per woman. If you are an uneducated and poor family you have 6 or 7 children. It seems people over-breed when people are dying too often. If a war breaks out and 2 million people die...families will in turn try to balance it out by breeding like crazy. If child mortality rates are high in a region then families will over compensate by trying to make babies like crazy to replace the ones that die.

Those are the facts. It seems the main problem in over-population is simply some regions are experiencing so much death that they are over compensating birth rates. All we have to do is get good hygiene, vaccines, food, clean water, and education to the poorest regions of earth to level out the breeding cycle and it's not as hard as you think. Science and technology is on the case and when they are on the case things tend to get done.

Conclusion

Yes there is 7+ billion people in the world, yet with our technology and science we can feed, clothe, house, and provide energy for all of these people. Once everyone on earth is living comfortably we can level off the breeding cycle and throw Malthus out the window for good.

Forget Amish/Organic farming and let science produce maximum yields. Forget resource based energy production and think about renewable energy production. Vaccinate your fucking kids. That's the type of things that will make a brighter future...not resource wars.

It's not a world for the takers. Not at all. This world is a world for thinkers. This is a world for problem solvers. This is a world for intelligent folks who get the job done. This is NOT a world for takers. In fact, the wars over resources is the real catastrophe and the irony is that they are fighting these wars apparently to avoid the catastrophe predicted by Malthus. It's kinda nuts if you think about it.

Statistician and prognosticator Tommy Malthus' writings have been the opinion of the majority of the world for about 200 years now. Is it time to listen to a new statistician and prognosticator for a change? I mean 200 years was a long time ago, maybe it's time to let guys like Hans Rosling take the helm of the stats/prog scene for a coupla hundred years or so? No?