The leftward and other blatherings of Span (now with Snaps!)

Saturday, June 25, 2005

eat up grandma

STC has posted a billboard take-off around superannuation which speculates about Act using the Soylent Green method of providing for our elderly.

It's interesting to look at a lot of those visions of our future and see how far off the mark they are - Soylent Green is a particularly creepy one and it probably wouldn't happen in the developed world because our population is now ageing. In the developing world there's AIDS (plus other diseases) and war to keep population growth down, although not static.

Am I wildly optimistic to believe that overcrowding isn't going to be a problem in the next several hundred years? I think about all those books I've read over the years, of massive apartment blocks built on every conceivable scrap of land, filled with tiny boxes that barely fit a bed, and it just seems impossible. Maybe I am spoiled here in Aotearoa - all this land, so few people. I tend to think something else is going to get us first, like our stupid practices of over-farming and ripping down forests.

Could we conceivably ever get to a stage where we would have to harvest and eat other humans to get by?

And if we did, wouldn't it all taste like chicken?

7 comments:

Amanda said...

No, probably more like pork.

sagenz said...

drunken blogging? smokin while watching the matrix?

Moneo said...

I don't know exactly what Phil is saying, but I suspect it not very nice.

I think the problem of overpopulation is not one about the numbers of humans, but the overall environmental footprint humanity leaves. We could have 14 billion people, who live in almost complete environmental harmony, or we could have 4 billion and they could run damaging nuclear powerplants, burn coal, smash down forests with no planning and no consideration - and so on.

Span said...

ah sagey, he likes to have a bit of borax from time to time.

could we have environmental harmony without govt interference?

in other words - would the Market (tm) provide?

Anonymous said...

See, I'm not sure why cannibalism is such a bad idea - well, okay, i can see why involuntary cannibalism is a bad idea - but really, why is eating dead people any worse than eating cows?

The only problem is that elderly people might be a bit stringy. But if we suppliment our diet with poor people and DPB recipients who have extra children (the children, of course, can be sent to factories - i mean orphanages! orphanages!) then i'm sure a healthy diet can be achieved.

Span said...

well put it this way - would you like to be eaten by other humans (as opposed to (other) worms if buried, or breathed in by sundry creatures if cremated)? would you like your mum to be so consumed?

Anonymous said...

hmm, okay good point. I couldn't care less about what happens to my body, but for some reason I balk a bit when it comes to close relatives. I wonder what's wrong with me?