Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Babies Make Us Rich

Let us think this through. It will require some math. Like dealing with the concepts "more" and "less". Let us begin.

The number of smart people (people who can design chemical plants or multi-billion transistor chips) is pretty much dependent on total population. The bigger the total population the more smart people (more or less).

We have a system (industrialization) for multiplying the results that smart people can get. We don't just get a hundred very good swords. We get a hundred million of them.

Given the industrial system - the bigger the population it can support, the faster it advances.

Which brings me to a smaller point. The way out of our current mess (besides drastically trimming government) is to invent more stuff.

3 comments:

Stephen VanDyke said...

This is true, but we must remember that humans are poop and piss factories as well. If their contributions don't outweigh their input/waste costs then it's not a very good investment to keep making more.

/silly but whatever

M. Simon said...

For the most part you can't tell what a baby is worth.

latent sanity said...

You have, unwittingly perhaps, narrowly brushed the whole crux of the issue. Which is, that the system of capitalism absolutely requires the expectation of growth to succeed.

Now, a question: do you honestly believe that our supply of oil or other cheap, readily-available and readily-utilizable potential energy can and will continue to increase, from here, forever?

And another: do you think the worldwide production and distribution of human food can and will continue to increase, forever?

What happens when they stop increasing (isn't that what is happening now??????)