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There is a popular narrative today about human overpopulation being a problem—that it increases global warming, climate change and disease, to name a few.
However, in actuality, the more human population, the less suffering we each individually endure.
Moreover, we would not perceive human overpopulation as being a problem if we would upgrade our attitudes to each other, by positively connecting to each other above our egocentric, individualistic drives.
First, in relation to the statement, “the more population there is on the planet, the less suffering we absorb”…
We first need to understand that there is no such concept as redundant people in the world.
Not only can our planet handle many more people, a higher human population also does not equate to more suffering. Instead, when viewed from the perspective of humanity’s development toward its united future state, the formula looks like this:
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦—𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘨𝘰.
In other words, if there are more people, then the amount of suffering disperses among them, and as a result, everyone suffers less. For instance, say humanity needs to endure one million tons of suffering at a certain stage of its development. Then, what would you prefer: to be part of a humanity of eight billion people that needs to deal with that one million tons of suffering, or to be part of a humanity of two billion people taking on that burden? It is clear that we would choose the option of less suffering.
How does this work? To understand it, we need to take a bird’s eye view of humanity’s development.
We are currently in a process headed into a future of humanity connected as a single organism, where we will feel each other closer than we feel our own families. Today, we are at a crossroad: We can either continue following the path of our growing self-centered nature, where we seek fulfillment on a background of gradually intensifying personal, social and global problems; or we can exercise our free choice to engage in this process positively, connecting above our egoistic nature and rising above the problems.
If we realize our free choice in this process and start connecting above the ego, then no single person on the planet will appear to be redundant. Instead, every person will be viewed as a very precious creation, inseparable from society, who carries a significant portion of humanity’s load. Each person would be as important as cells and organs in our bodies, each working for the benefit of the whole body and looking out for each other in the process.
There are thus no redundant people. What is redundant is all the thinking put into restricting population growth. Instead of thinking about restricting the population, we should think about how we can guide our rapidly-growing population to a positively-connected society. By doing so, we would realize our ability to exercise our free choice and discover a new picture of reality above the one we currently perceive in the ego.
Posted on The Times of Israel, KabNet, Medium, LinkedIn Newsletter, Facebook, Quora