 Here are my answers to the
excellent questions posed by my interviewer, Edmontonian Wendy
Tomlinson of Cyrenity.
1. In an ideal world, how would population control be achieved?
In
an ideal world population control wouldn't be needed. All other species
control their own population instinctively, aware that excess numbers
damage the whole ecosystem and therefore threaten their own survival,
and intuitively adjust their birth rate to keep numbers in balance. We
did the same for our first three million years on Earth, until about
30,000 years ago when we started to separate our culture from the rest
of life's, and lost this critical survival instinct.
I don't know how we can get that instinct back. If we could, in an
ideal world, we would voluntarily reduce our current birth rate by
about 2/3, which would gradually reduce human numbers by about 1% per
year, and we would keep that up for about two centuries until human
numbers were back to the 300,000,000 or so that, based on scientists'
estimates, seems to be the 'natural' human population level that
prevailed for hundreds of millennia. I believe the resultant
improvement in
quality of life would be so astonishing that no 'control' would be
needed to keep numbers at that level. Maybe that means I'm an optimist
about human nature.
2. What's the one non-fiction book that everyone should read?
If
I absolutely have to pick just one, it would be Stephen J. Gould's Full
House. It's aggravating, but worldview changing. It demonstrates
scientifically that the appearance and evolution of life on Earth is
(after each extinction) principally a random crap shoot, and that
humans are not only not the pinnacle of evolution, but that we are not
even especially remarkable. And since the likelihood of vertebrates
(let alone humans) emerging from the primordial soup was about one in
sixty million, and many of the alternatives might have been much more
interesting and successful than how the experiment on Earth has turned
out, it's humbling as well.
3. Are you a vegetarian? Why/why not?
I'm
an aspiring vegetarian, which is difficult when your family is not, and
when work-related social occasions often don't provide a vegetarian
alternative. I'm getting a lot closer, and as more meat-alternatives
come on the market I think I'll get there.
My
reasons for wanting to do so stem primarily from the way 'food
animals' are treated, especially in today's increasingly prevalent
factory farms. The idea of keeping animals enslaved in cramped,
unnatural, uncomfortable spaces all their lives just to feed humans is absolutely
abhorrent to me. I also feel healthier when I eat vegetarian foods.
4. If you couldn't live in Canada, where would you move to?
The
Netherlands, for reasons I explain here.
5. Are religious leaders (the Pope, the Dalai Lama) more helpful
or harmful?
All
leaders (religious, political, business) who preach one set of answers
to the exclusion of others are
harmful. Good leaders don't talk, they act. They show a better way to
live, as Ghandi did, by personal example. They accept leadership roles
humbly, reluctantly, briefly, to prevent power from corrupting them.
They embody the consensus of those they lead, rather than trying to
convert people.
Once again, here are the rules of this game (which I'm merely passing
on -- no one seems to know who started it), for any others who want to
play. And thanks to the fourteen readers who already agreed to do so:
THE RULES:
1. Leave me an email,
saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I will respond; I’ll ask you five questions.
3. You’ll update your website with my five questions, and your five
answers.
4. You’ll include this explanation, and acknowledge me as the
interviewer.
5. You’ll ask other people five questions when they want to be
interviewed. |
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
"The Nobles, seeing they cannot withstand the
people, offer up the reputation of one of themselves, and they make him
a Prince, so that under his shadow they can give vent to their
ambitions." -- 
