[population] food and water will control it

If you were to ask yourself what is the most pressing issue of the next ten to twenty years, you might not say the credit crisis as most think it will be solved in the short term. I say nothing.

§ You might see it as the growing militaristic surveillance society and the huge number of laws which have all but criminalized the average person - try smoking in a pub.

§ You might see it as global warming.

§ You might see it as immigration.

§ I see it as population, food and water. As simple as that.

The sinking ship

And to use an analogy, if a ship is sinking, people are going to be reduced to the survival instinct and will try to clamber aboard the lifeboats, even at the risk of upsetting those very boats and the whole thing sinking to the watery depths.

After the financiers on board have phoned for a helicopter to quickly airlift the thirteen of them to safety and they're whisked away, the scene down below is not so good.

One woman seated in the centre of one of these boats, clutching her child to her - she's going to have a certain attitude to the hundred people in the water desperately swimming towards the boat she's in, relatively safe and dry.

If there were five or six swimming and space for four left on her boat, well maybe she would not kick up such a fuss. But there aren't five or six - there are literally hundreds, all crying out in anguish, all with varying capacity to reach their goal and effect their rescue.

Meanwhile, the band strikes up on the sinking boat and a group of people of a certain temperament go down with her.

And what of one of the swimmers who is enterprising and has managed to claw his way into the boat? In the water he was all for the rights of the newcomer but now he has suddenly become a conservative himself.

And what of those seated in the boat who shout to the swimmers that the sittees have the right to be there and the swimmers don't? On what grounds? On the grounds that they were there first, they shout back.

One of the swimmers reaches the gunwhale of the boat and in the swiftest of moves, grabs and ejects an elderly woman and takes her place. He is despised by all others there but they're not strong enough to do anything about it until he finally sleeps.

Into this, the Lieutenant at the bow tries to restore order, to apply the precepts of the ship to the lifeboat - the rule of Laura Norder, of immutable truths, of the rules of the sea. He needs a pistol to do it because people are a little removed from abstract concepts at this particular moment.




The lifeboat

So, twelve hours into the escape, hundreds having drowned at the scene of the sinking, there are 25 in a boat for 18, with a further 12 clinging for life to the side. The Lieutenant checks the dried food supplies and visibly blanches, then checks his instruments and realizes that a storm is brewing on the horizon.

He further realizes that this lifeboat, already weighed down to the gunwhales, is going to sink the moment those waves heap up and all will be lost. So he announces that the total numbers in the boat need to be halved to have any hope for survival.

A deep groan goes up to the sky and yet everyone sees the dilemma - they just don't want to be part of it, that's all.

People start to state their cases - the bedraggled businessman, with his cards and water damaged mobile phone, is the best suited to run the economy of the new society in his opinion, the teacher claims she is vital for the children present, the carpenter says his presence is clearly required, the mothers state their cases and add about their ability to create meals from scraps, the pensioner is too ill to say anything.

One lady pipes up and says 'twould be better all went down rather than a "culling process lottery" take place.

The lieutenant says it is the infirm who must go plus the newcomers already over the side. He holds a gun to the heads of several people who do the deed and the boat is rowed on by the strong, away from the luckless who've been jettisoned. One 68 year old humanitarian aid worker gazes after the disappearing lifeboat as she flounders in the water.

The storm temporarily abates and the passengers and crew reflect on what has taken place. Someone starts up a song.


Moral

To kill spirituality and reason, reduce people to survival mode.


Richard Beck speaks to young Americans here, roughly concerning this theme:

H/T Matt [see right sidebar]