Post

The young ur wrote:

The great Ur is disappointed to inform you that your population’s increase cannot be hastened, slowed, or stopped. Our minister of people (who is a people person) inquires why you would wish to quell your population’s growth.

This is something I’ve always struggled with in NS - the automatic increase of a nation’s population over time. Kinectia self-identifies as a very small island, but our population still increases at a pre-determined rate. Our inability to control this metric has provided the incentive for a great deal of innovation in housing design and land use optimization, but most of our people would really rather have a lot less crowded living conditions.

More to the point - whether it’s desirable to limit population. If you wanted to reduce the population that would mean a reduction in the number of individuals. Which individuals would you prevent, turn away or terminate? What if some of those turned out to be people who would have contributed to some technological innovation that benefited all? What if they would have led social movements that improved the lives of many, by reducing oppression and poverty, increasing social justice and equality, developing real democracy and economic systems that value meaningful work for everyone? How would you decide where to place the population controls, and how to enforce them?

When you feel appalled by the rate of world population increase, you reduce people to interchangeable cogs in a machine. Every individual is unique and limiting population is therefore risky when you value diversity.

Edit:
My personal dedication to this point of view is challenged some days though, when my neighborhood becomes saturated in graffiti... or my RMB is inundated with spam posts.