July
07th
  12:20:19 AM

Woody Allen’s classic analysis of over-population

According to the Population Media Center, Woody Allen gave this speech to graduates in 1979, which was subsequently republished in the New York Times. I haven't been able to locate the original source. But it provides some helpful guidelines for thinking about population  issues:

More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

I speak, by the way, not with any sense of futility, but with a panicky conviction of the absolute meaninglessness of existence which could easily be misinterpreted as pessimism.

It is not. It is merely a healthy concern for the predicament of modern man. (Modern man is here defined as any person born after Nietzsche’s edict that “God is dead,” but before the hit recording “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”) This “predicament” can be stated one of two ways, though certain linguistic philosophers prefer to reduce it to a mathematical equation where it can be easily solved and even carried around in the wallet.

Put in its simplest form, the problem is: How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world given my waist and shirt size?...

Overpopulation will exacerbate problems to the breaking point. Figures tell us there are already more people on earth than we need to move even the heaviest piano. If we do not call a halt to breeding, by the year 2000 there will be no room to serve dinner unless one is willing to set the table on the heads of strangers. Then they must not move for an hour while we eat. Of course energy will be in short supply and each car owner will be allowed only enough gasoline to back up a few inches...

Summing up, it is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o’clock.

Bookmark and Share
 
about this blog | Bookmark and Share

Search this blog

 Subscribe to Demography is Destiny
rss RSS feed of posts
or get posts by email

 Recent Posts
Putting gendercide on the front page
11 Mar 2010
Female mortality matters
4 Mar 2010
Positive signs from the UN
23 Feb 2010
Vanishing Females in Vietnam
18 Jan 2010
China wakes up to consequences of one-child policy
15 Jan 2010

 MercatorNet blogs
Style and culture: Tiger Print
Family social policy: Family Edge
US political scene: Sheila Liaugminas
News about bioethics: BioEdge

 Archive
Mar 2010 | Feb 2010 | Jan 2010 | Dec 2009 | more >>

 From MercatorNet's home page

Is it a pig or a mouse pig?
19 Mar 2010
Does the public have the right to know about genetically modified meat?

Greeks resigned to tightening belts
19 Mar 2010
"Either we eradicate the debt, or the debt will eliminate the country," says the Prime Minister.

Some bright ideas just don’t work
19 Mar 2010
The contribution of atheism to the sum of the world’s happiness has been very meagre indeed.

The gathering storm
18 Mar 2010
The scandal of sexual abuse by priests in Europe is distracting us from an even bigger scandal in the future,…

Lessons from the twilight days of the liberal consensus
16 Mar 2010
An inspiring candidate has become a failing president. But a comparison with Lyndon B Johnson shows that the reasons for…


 Tags
The Economist, environment, climate change, development, religion, shortages, Japan, investment, Islam, Korea, over-population, Paul Ehrlich, China, Latvia, Russia, Muslim-Christian demography, sex ratio, population, Viagra, immigration, pensions, low fertility trap, European Union, Sweden, austria, population aging, sex selective abortion, Roger Short, abortion, Ethiopia, Al Gore, Brazil, increasing birth rates, workforce shortage, Australia, ageing, life expectancy, overpopulation, children, demography, aging, sex selection, ageing population, UN, population decline, pro-natalism, youth bulge, population bomb, South Korea, Uganda, gender imbalance, one-child policy, birth rate, Middle East, population control, Britain, Jonathan Sacks, demographic dividend, Optimum Population Trust, gendercide, sustainable development, military, history, Europe, UNFPA, poverty, Denmark, Africa, nursing homes, falling fertility, security, family planning, Bangladesh, Muslim, morocco, fertility, bride shortage, India, United Kingdom, USA, Nigeria, Vietnam, democracy, fertitily, homosexuality, unemployment, Copenhagen,