Overpopulation

The Story of Spider Island

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Once upon a time, on a far away island in the middle of turbulent sea, there lived a tribe of people.  These people were much like the people you see every day – two arms, two legs, a head, a torso, loins.  They did the things that your people do: they ate bread, meat, vegetables; they sang songs, performed plays; they studied the philosophies of the world.  They were a people like every other people.  They lived at first on the south side of this island, a conic patch of soil with a dormant volcano in the middle.  They spread over the island slowly, mapping it and studying it and living and dying on the island.  Eventually, they lived in a great tribe that spanned the entire conic pile.

And as they studied the island, they learned much of its dangers.  And they danced and they sung and they believed that above all, they must live and thrive and never die.  Beyond all else, the people feared death: for of all things, the one thing that the people studied that they did not understand was dying.  They knew all the properties of all the parts of the island, they knew how the island worked and how to make it work for them, but they did not understand death.  So they made medicines and rituals and arts and philosophies to stave off death, and they lived longer and longer.  And they kept making children, and living lengthy lives, and covering the island with people.

And one day they found that they could not feed everyone on the island.  And they were faced with a choice: set out in the waters to find more food, or stay on the island and starve.  And the people went to the water and they made rafts.  And they found fish and fed their people and for a time, there was less starvation and the people were happy.

And as they ate more, they grew more, both in number and in age – they lived longer and longer and made more and more children.

And soon, the fish were not enough.  And over time, there was not enough room for both the living and the dead on the island, and the people were crowded, and the people were hungry, and there were only so many rafts.

So a few of the people on the crowded island made boats that were stronger than rafts.  But these boats took much lumber that people needed for houses and for food.  And many of the tribe people were made angry by the creation of these boats.  And the makers of these boats, the boatmen, fled into the waters.

But the tides turned against the boatmen, and while a few lonely boats made it safe into deeper waters, many of the boats returned to the island, their passengers barely alive, crashing onto the shores of the island.

The people of the island, seeing that the boats had failed, took the remaining passengers – those who were still alive – and brought them before the tribe elders, who gathered around the great fire, which brought heat, and knowledge, and purity to the food and water of the people.

And the elders of the island said

“these boatmen have traveled out into deeper waters, and have returned starved or dead.  there is nothing out on the water but death.”

and the people said

“but there is nowhere on the island for more people. what are we to do?  we are too many, we cannot feed ourselves, we cannot house ourselves.  Cannot we head out onto the water?”

and the elders said

“the waters we do not know. We know the island, we know the people.  Surely there is a solution in our infinite knowledge of this place.  we do not need to go into the water.  that way lies only death.”

and the people said

“then what shall we do?”

and then the eldest of all the elders spoke

“bring the boatmen to the fire.”

and the people obeyed, trembling.

“place the boatman on the fire as we would the water, for they have gone to the water, they are now the water.”

and the people obeyed, crying.

and they roasted the body of the boatman.

and after a time, the eldest elder spoke

“remove the body from the fire. leave the husk on display.  we shall never again venture into the water.”

and the people obeyed in silence.

And the people starved and grew so numerous they knew not who was kin, and they knew not each other as people no longer, but as various animals upon a small place.  And the tribe shattered, and war erupted, and no man trusted even his brother.  And the elders vanished, retreating into their clans.

And after a time, the various tribes came to a peace, for they had slain each other time and again.

They said “we have seen that making too much life has led to war or starvation.  We must again use our knowledge to guide us.”

And so the people stopped making children.  They used their sciences to remove their organs from themselves and alter their forms and they stopped producing children.   And over time, they grew fewer and fewer in number and had to rely more on their own personal talents for survival rather than working in groups.  And the various clans convened, and spoke.  They said:

” We are dying.  We need to make children again.”

“But if we do so, we shall starve.  We have been through both peace and war and both have led to pain.”

And the tribes all became silent with thought.  After a time, the grandest grandson of the eldest elder, who had first had the boatman roasted, spoke.

“Why did we not eat the roasted boatman?”

And all the tribes in all their thoughts looked with shock at the grandest grandson of the eldest elder.  And again he spoke,

“We have seen war and we have seen peace; and both life and death, left to their own devices, have left us bereft of our people.  We control all parts of this island, we have even controlled life itself.  Why not also control death?”

And the tribes all cried

“The waves are death.  The sea is death.  We have no control on that.”

And the grandest grandson cried back

“The waves are the unknown.  Death may lie in their wake, but it also resides here, on this island.  And it is our island.  And we know all its secrets, so surely as we know life, surely as we know this island, we also know death.  And so, in knowing, we can control it, and in so doing, we can control life.”

And the tribes people all spoke all once, in a fury.  Finally, one voice from the crowd rang out.

“Then what shall we do now?”

And the grandest grandson replied

“We shall create life again as we have in days of old, yet we shall take it also.  He who cannot survive on his own shall be consumed by those who can, and in so doing, we shall rid ourselves of the weak and create life without starvation.”

And the people again spoke in a thousand voices, rumbling.

And again, silence fell, and a voice rang out:

“We shall abide by your law, for in nothing else have we found solace.”

And the grandest grandson nodded.  Then he looked with horror as the crowd descended on him.

At the place of the great fire, where once the elders had gathered, the many tribes reunited, and they took the grandest grandson, and made him the first of his tradition, and roasted him, and ate of him.

And this is when they began to change.

The people, one by one, became afraid if each other, and of the fire, and of being seen.  They took to consuming each other, and over time, became recluses, hiding in all the secret places of the island.  They turned inward over time, as they grewer fewer and fewer, and they began to change in form.  They changed bodily.  They grew extra arms and legs, becoming able to do many things at once. They grew extra eyes to see all around themselves, even in the darkness.  They no longer knew each other, male nor female, but as one entity with all life inclusive, producing children whenever it consumed enough to do so.  These creatures bore children more rapidly and in greater number than people, only to have their infants consume each other in the same competitive way as the rest of the people, leaving only the strongest to survive.  They no longer fed on the plants of the island, devouring only animals and each other.  They became deadly masters of their terrain, knowing it intimately and always for their own personal gain.  And so it came to pass that the various tribes dissolved and never again knew peace nor war, but only a constant reproduction and consumption, a never ending tension of hunters and trap-layers.

And time passed. And the seas grew calmer. And one day, a fleet of boats returned, with white sails and great cargo holds of food.

And the grandest grandsons of the first boatmen returned to the Island.

They thought the place abandoned, for they saw no signs of life.  They resettled the island, colonizing it in the names of alien places.

It was when their people began to dwindle and disappear that the grandest grandsons of the boatmen began to worry about the ghosts of their dead ancestors.  Taking up arms from alien worlds, they worked together, scouring the island.  After a time, they found a hiding place of one of the recluses.  Its traps caught one of their band, and the rest stayed to save him.

With its superior knowledge of the island, the recluse ensnared all of the boatmen save one, who freed his fellows and carefully gathered them all together.  But they were weak and needed rest, and the recluse lingered closer and closer.

Just when all seemed lost for the wayward band, the recluse was consumed by an even greater recluse, and the two locked in battle, attempting to slay each other.  The band of boatmen trudged on, struggling toward their boat.

The smell of fresh, untainted meat tantalized the recluses all around the island, and the various monsters scuttled and battled their way to the group.  As a seething horde of self-consuming monsters encroached on the boatmen, the small team used the last of their strength to board a boat, pull up anchor, and flee from the cursed isle.

In later years, the boatmen would write of their ancestral homeland, calling it ‘Spider Island,’ a land of cannibal monsters, and warned all other boatmen never to return there.

And that is the tale of Spider Island.

Macrocosm

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On The Human Thought

This essay focuses on the use of human invention and culture as part of the human animal function and how humanity is naturally aimed at space travel.

A human being, at its most biological level, is an animal.  It needs food, drink, shelter, and reproduction.  Unlike most animals, however, human beings have a highly advanced capacity for the use and creation of tools.  Indeed, after a certain point, the evolution of the human race can be tracked more by its technology than by its biology.  In addition, following the evolution of Humanity by Technology raises fewer ethical questions than following its Biology.   When looking at the progress of technology, one regards the phrase  ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’  What does this mean?

What is necessary?

If we look at humans as organisms, we find, as mentioned, that food, water, shelter, and reproduction are necessary.  Thus, all inventions should aid in one, if not all, of these categories.

As humans invented tools, they also invented societies and rules and religions and governments and culture.  Throughout history, culture and invention have driven each other’s focus.   The invention of the telescope, the astrolabe, star charts, have all bred controversy and confusion as man began to comprehend the universe beyond Earth.  This led to a changing understanding of not only the philosophies and religions of the world, but also of the means to navigate the globe and reach new lands.  An improved understanding of the heavens led mankind to better navigate in unfamiliar territory, to expand societies and cultures which were growing beyond their borders.

Societies have always had an expansionary tendency.  In the system which has dominated most of human societies, the most celebrated civilizations were those whose reign encompassed the most land, who demanded tribute from the most cultures.  With this as a marker of success, humanity has found itself at a strange new equilibrium: most of the world has been discovered.

To be more accurate, the surface of the land has been generally taken over.  That endless horizon after which pioneers have chased has vanished – horizontal expansion has ceased.  However, vertical expansion is still possible.  People can live in higher and higher buildings in more and more clustered groups, making cities and societies.  The problem with such areas is that it reduces a human instinct: survival.

The culture of the city is different from that of the country.  In cities, populations have exploded, crowding occurs, and the drive to reproduce is reduced.  This leads to views that encourage longer lifespans, more varied ways of life, from cultural awareness to sexual enlightenment, but also reduces the drive to create new life.  In more industrial societies, the nuclear family has become a model – fewer people in families with fewer generations raising children and fewer chidlren being produced.  The number of single parents is higher in cities.  The use of contraception is encouraged as a means of reducing disease ( a problem more rampant in urban centers).

With this in mind, in the advent of a global village, the entire world has become a city.  The ideas of first world nations now tend toward those of the city – more nuclear families, fewer children, less drive to reproduce.

In many circles, the act of sexual intercourse has become a stimulant rather than a tool.  The idea of the large family is not the first-world citizen’s idea of success.

Economists have noted that the most severe problem facing mankind today is the threat of overpopulation.  Food is not necessarily the problem: transport and resources is, however.  With more people, the expansive tendency becomes a warring tendency as more and more bodies vie for space on an increasingly ‘smaller’ planet.  That horizontal urge that humans have for ‘space’ is conflicted by the dangers of a global urbana.

Some theorists believe that humanity is reaching its peak population.  This is a problem: never in its history has humanity had a ‘peak population.’  If a place becomes too populated, people move outward, they travel, they settle elsewhere.   With all the societies and cultures in existence today, that same solution of moving has many more complications.  Immigrants the world over face oppression and alienation.  As societies become more and more tied to their citizens, the hope that lies in immigration is reduced.

Humanity should not have a natural peak.  Throughout its history, mankind has always found new horizons and new places to live.  All we need do now is switch from a horizontal expansion to a vertical one.  As technology evolves, the habitats which humanity can safely occupy expand. Human life can exist in deserts, under oceans, in the stars, even.

The rapid development of communication and data technology allows for ideas to be transfered faster, and so technology and culture continue to ‘evolve’ more rapidly.  However, the current culture is concerned more with lamenting overpopulation and complaining about use of resources than it is with continued expansion.

If humankind becomes a starfaring species, then many problems will be alleviated (although not eliminated).  Earth is a finite place, but the universe is ever expanding.  If humans need more room, if a population is becoming too great for this one world, why not populate more?

Travel across the stars has been the subject of fiction for years, and has even, to some extent, been acheived.  Satellites that orbit the planet show that space is a frontier which mankind is ready to explore, and the Hubble and other explorative satellites encourage expansion into the rest of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe.

There is no reason that mankind should reach a ‘peak population.’  If our only solution to ‘overpopulation’ is to stop reproducing, then why not simply expand?  We can go further, we can gain land, fame, and that ever-fascinating horizon line by becoming frontiersmen once again.  The human need to reproduce is reinforced by space travel, and as such, it is natural that the human race should expand into space.