Hi Chris, Hope you are enjoying the population growth and multi-culturalisation of tiny Switzerland. From what I hear from other friends there, the stresses on the schools, hospitals, police, etc are increasing all the time.
The "cull" I refer to is unspecified as to exact nature. It could involve any combination of events like famines, droughts, pandemics, grid failures, fuel interruptions which halt distribution of essentials, WMDs used by terrorists, madmen leaders, or deranged military men, and even possibly accidents in our brittle automated systems. Y2K didn't smash us; but that doesn't eliminate future possibilities. Scientists agree (almost universally) about biodiversity loss, topsoil loss, forest cover loss, grain reserve loss, fish stock loss, and increased toxification of the food chain, soil, water (fresh & sea) and air. That shrinking & sickening 'pie' gets cut into 220,000 NET more slices daily. Hence the ugly scenes Mike S posted. Socio-economic engineering, 'isms', utopian thinking, religions, all pale in the face of mammalian nurture/nature drivers. Human behavior is predictable on broad scales; hierarchy, superstition, intelligence, physical robustness, etc are distributed on a Bell (or similar) Curve. Given natural environmental circumstances, it is likely that certain behaviors will dominate. I am not living in fear. I'm helping to prepare our son and his wife (37, 38 yrs old) to have some independence IF systems break down in rural New England. She is a medical doctor at an under served rural clinic, so she'll get gasoline rations if that comes. He is a university professor, but in Sound Engineering/Music Dept, so non-essential I assume. They are lucky to have 3 hectares of forest and a small garden. I will add a small orchard and a greenhouse. They also have a clean year round brook/stream coming off a small, protected mountain. Can the 'world' be saved? Not as it is in my opinion. We are like too many rats in a cage: they cannibalize each other. If you get to New England, Edith and I would gladly host you. It has been a decade or so since you gave us a tour in Basel (I think) Cheers on the downslope, Steve _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
