Chapter 10 : The Most Difficult Challenge of Humanity

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Abstract

earth. Many countries don’t have enough food and water and some more developed countries only provide health in exchange of a huge amount of money.We have grown so fast that we didn’t have the time to adapt to the changes that occurred. And it is not going to get any better. Being that much also has a huge impact on the environment. The most advanced countries are literally killing the earth with a huge amount of CO2, NOx, plastic just to name a few, released in nature. The more the population grows the worse it gets.If we don’t know how to meet the needs of everybody right now, how are we expecting to do it when the environment is going to be half dead ? When we won’t have enough clean water to grow food and drink. I don’t give much chance to all of us. It seems like an over-reaction, but it actually isn’t. Most of us are going to see the 10 billion milestone in our life time.Beside the fact that we don’t have any clue about how we are going to survive in the future. There is a really common phenomenon in nature called damped oscillations it look like that :<figure id="f4f2"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*s6n5U79NqWCjkurNrLy0Wg.png"><figcaption>Soucre : <a href="https://waveguide.blog/teslas-spark-gaps-literature-review/damped-wave/">https://waveguide.blog/teslas-spark-gaps-literature-review/damped-wave/</a></figcaption></figure>Think of it as a pendulum. When you move it one way and drop it, it is going to move back and forth with less amplitude until it reaches an equilibrium point. Everything is working the same way in nature, population included. We have seen this with animals. When huge populations are regrouped in a small area, there isn’t enough resources for all of them to survive. So a lot of them are dying, then they build the population back up, and the same thing happens, until the reach the equilibrium point.It can be regulated by many different things. There is a fungus in the tropical forest called the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8">zombie-ant fungus</a>. It takes control of infected ants to get to the top of plants to be able to spread into larger areas. It is really scary to see, but at the same time really useful. Ants are destroying everything in their close environment, so it becomes dangerous for other insects and animals when there is too

Options

many of them. As we have seen with Covid-19, diseases spread easier in large populations. So when there are too many ants in a small area, the fungus spread faster than they can get right off it. A huge portion of the population dies until the spreads slows down and becomes manageable again by the remaining ants.This is a natural population regulation system. It makes a stable system. But humans created things to cheat this phenomenon and grow faster. It works a little on the short term. As we have seen with Covid-19, shit can hit the fan really really fast, and we are not prepared for it. If the lack of food and water doesn’t kill a huge part of the population, diseases will. It already happened between 1347 and 1352 in Europe with the Black Plague. Nearly half of the European population died.It is not a question of if, it is a question of when and how bad will it be.China already tried to implement a solution with the single child law. That didn’t work as much as they thought it would. It is still a great option that will work on the long term. The only problem with that is that it goes directly against our survival instinct. It goes against our core thinking.Sadly, there are no other soft ways to handle this problem. We must all be responsible and stop having more that one child. Of course it doesn’t apply if you end up having twins. The goal isn’t to kill people. It is to reduce the population in the most gentle way possible.If we don’t do it by ourselves right now, either we are going to do it in a drastic and violent way later on, either nature is going to do it for us. None of those solutions are going to be pretty. Contraception, abortion and being mindful is our best shot. It is still controversial today, but the more we wait the harder it will be.We need to stop thinking like 100 years ago, we have new problems that need to be taken care of right now. The world and our problems are evolving, our mindset has to change with it.I want to build a place where we can discuss this war and find a strategy to get all of us out of it as soon as possible and with long term solutions. I can’t do it alone and I need your help. Let’s start a conversation right here to find a way to put those thoughts into actions. Go read my previous stories and give me your feedback.</article></body>

It goes against our core instinct of survival. But it is so important to find a solution. We are overpopulated and we need to do something about it right now.

My name is Augustin Vallée. I am a 24 year old, French aerospace engineer. Like many people I don’t want to keep living in this world. At least on the path we are on right now. I see where we will end up in a few years and I don’t want my future to be like that. I am using Medium as an outlet to give you my point of view and most importantly as a place to have a conversation with you. I want to find ways to make the world a better place and I need your help.

The graphic above shows the evolution of the population from 1890 to 2100. I was born in 1996, since then the population has augmented by 2 billion. This is an insane number, so big that we have a lot troubles wrapping our heads around it. For a little help, go look at this. If you are able to see every single human figure on this page you probably spent an entire day doing it.

The first time the population hit a billion was in 1804. Then it took another 33 years to get one more billion in 1927. In 2012 we were 5 billion more, today we are 7.8 billion. This is just to give an idea of how much we really are on earth and how fast the population is growing. Those numbers are rising and doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

Now that you have an idea of our world population lets see what are the consequences. It obviously isn’t free to take care of that many people. We all need to eat, drink and be healthy. This is only the basic needs. Yet we don’t even know how to provide it to every single human on earth. Many countries don’t have enough food and water and some more developed countries only provide health in exchange of a huge amount of money.

We have grown so fast that we didn’t have the time to adapt to the changes that occurred. And it is not going to get any better. Being that much also has a huge impact on the environment. The most advanced countries are literally killing the earth with a huge amount of CO2, NOx, plastic just to name a few, released in nature. The more the population grows the worse it gets.

If we don’t know how to meet the needs of everybody right now, how are we expecting to do it when the environment is going to be half dead ? When we won’t have enough clean water to grow food and drink. I don’t give much chance to all of us. It seems like an over-reaction, but it actually isn’t. Most of us are going to see the 10 billion milestone in our life time.

Beside the fact that we don’t have any clue about how we are going to survive in the future. There is a really common phenomenon in nature called damped oscillations it look like that :

Think of it as a pendulum. When you move it one way and drop it, it is going to move back and forth with less amplitude until it reaches an equilibrium point. Everything is working the same way in nature, population included. We have seen this with animals. When huge populations are regrouped in a small area, there isn’t enough resources for all of them to survive. So a lot of them are dying, then they build the population back up, and the same thing happens, until the reach the equilibrium point.

It can be regulated by many different things. There is a fungus in the tropical forest called the zombie-ant fungus. It takes control of infected ants to get to the top of plants to be able to spread into larger areas. It is really scary to see, but at the same time really useful. Ants are destroying everything in their close environment, so it becomes dangerous for other insects and animals when there is too many of them. As we have seen with Covid-19, diseases spread easier in large populations. So when there are too many ants in a small area, the fungus spread faster than they can get right off it. A huge portion of the population dies until the spreads slows down and becomes manageable again by the remaining ants.

This is a natural population regulation system. It makes a stable system. But humans created things to cheat this phenomenon and grow faster. It works a little on the short term. As we have seen with Covid-19, shit can hit the fan really really fast, and we are not prepared for it. If the lack of food and water doesn’t kill a huge part of the population, diseases will. It already happened between 1347 and 1352 in Europe with the Black Plague. Nearly half of the European population died.

It is not a question of if, it is a question of when and how bad will it be.

China already tried to implement a solution with the single child law. That didn’t work as much as they thought it would. It is still a great option that will work on the long term. The only problem with that is that it goes directly against our survival instinct. It goes against our core thinking.

Sadly, there are no other soft ways to handle this problem. We must all be responsible and stop having more that one child. Of course it doesn’t apply if you end up having twins. The goal isn’t to kill people. It is to reduce the population in the most gentle way possible.

If we don’t do it by ourselves right now, either we are going to do it in a drastic and violent way later on, either nature is going to do it for us. None of those solutions are going to be pretty. Contraception, abortion and being mindful is our best shot. It is still controversial today, but the more we wait the harder it will be.

We need to stop thinking like 100 years ago, we have new problems that need to be taken care of right now. The world and our problems are evolving, our mindset has to change with it.

I want to build a place where we can discuss this war and find a strategy to get all of us out of it as soon as possible and with long term solutions. I can’t do it alone and I need your help. Let’s start a conversation right here to find a way to put those thoughts into actions. Go read my previous stories and give me your feedback.