If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways (12 page)

Elaine
. That's certainly true.

Daniel
. All right. So let's return to the basics. What are this questioner's assumptions?

Elaine
. Well, let's see. First, there's the assumption that there are "biological mechanisms" that will achieve what he wants to achieve.

Daniel
. We've already looked at that one.

Elaine
. Okay. Then there's his assumption that... I'm trying to remember how he put it... It's his
assumption that we need to keep our population at a level compatible with our food supply.

Daniel
. Yes, that is one of his assumptions.

Elaine
[
after some thought
]. I'm stuck. I don't see any others.

Daniel
. It isn't stated directly. It's implicit in his question. That's why you have to look behind the words.

Elaine
spends a couple of minutes on it, then shakes her head.

Daniel
. I'd rather not ask you leading questions, but it looks like I'll have to. What is his concern, his worry?

Elaine
. That our population is not at a level that is compatible with our food supply.

Daniel
. Yes, this is implicit in his question.

Elaine
[
doubtfully
]. Okay.

Daniel
. Well, look at it.

Elaine
[
after a minute
]. Are you saying that our population —

Daniel
. No, don't do that. Don't go fishing for the answer in my head. Work it out yourself.

Elaine
. But the only alternative I can see is that our population is compatible with our food supply.

Daniel
waits.

Elaine
. Okay, I've got it. Or I think I do.

Daniel
. Which is it?

Elaine
. I've got it.

Daniel
. Go ahead.

Elaine
. Our population
is
compatible with our food supply. At all times. When there was food for three billion of us, there were three billion of us. When there was food for six billion of us, there were six
billion of us. If there hadn't been food for six billion, there wouldn't
be
six billion.

Daniel
. So what "biological mechanism" makes population "compatible with food supply"?

Elaine
. I don't know what to call it. Supply and maintenance? The population of every species grows to a point that is "compatible" with the food available to it. When food availability increases, its population increases. When food availability decreases, its population decreases... But not everyone agrees that this is the way it works, do they?

Daniel
. For nonhuman species, there's no disagreement at all. But many people — including even many biologists — still cling to the doctrine of human exceptionalism, the way many Christian
fundamentalists still cling to the doctrine of creationism.

Elaine
. I don't think I've heard of that — human exceptionalism.

Daniel
. In this context, it's just the doctrine that, among all the hundreds of millions of species in the living community, the human species is the sole exception to the rule you just described: that population
increases or decreases according to food availability.

Elaine
. How do they explain that? I mean, what are their grounds for accepting this idea?

Daniel
. I've never seen a defense of it, but I imagine it stems from the fact that, as individuals, we can choose to reproduce or not. The fact that — as a species — our growth began to soar as soon as we
began to increase food availability at will seems to them a mere coincidence. The record of the past ten
thousand years, after some three million years of relative population stability, holds no significance for them (Peter Farb, a distinguished naturalist, linguist, and anthropologist, perceived it as a paradox:
"Intensification of production to feed an increased population leads to a still greater increase in
population"). In effect, they deny that the Agricultural Revolution had anything to do with our growth from a few hundred million to six billion.

Elaine
. That hardly seems rational.

Daniel
. Almost nothing exerts a more powerful hold on people's minds than unexamined and
unchallenged received wisdom — and human exceptionalism is certainly a part of that legacy. In fact, it
must have seemed quite daring back in 2001 when a peer-reviewed scientific journal actually published
a paper affirming the connection between population and food availability ("Human Population
Numbers as a Function of Food Supply" by Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel, Environment,
Development and Sustainability 3 (2001): 1-15).

Elaine
. It's amazing to me that that should seem daring.

Daniel
. Trust me, the doctrine of human exceptionalism is deep set in Mother Culture's heart... Here's a little story you'll find amusing that isn't entirely off the point. [
Goes to get a book.
] In the very early stages of work on the book that ultimately became
Ishmael
, I wanted to know if there was any estimate of the human population before the Agricultural Revolution. As I later learned, there are many different
estimates, but I first turned to a reference I had on hand, the
Dunlop Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts
, published in 1969. Unlike like most books of its kind, which are either assembled by nameless staff
workers or are collections of articles by various authorities, this one had a single pair of authors, Norris and Ross McWhirter, who were clearly not averse to expressing conclusions as well as facts. They didn't
have the particular information I was looking for, but in an article on "Growth of the Human Population"
I found a very useful chart of population estimates for roughly the past two thousand years and
extending thirty years ahead to the year 2000, where they correctly estimated it would be around six
billion. Following the chart was this observation: "If this trend continues, the world has only fifteen generations left before the human race breeds itself to an overcrowded extinction. By 2600 AD there
would be one person per square yard of habitable land surface." It's their next statement that was of special importance: "Increasing food production merely aggravates the problem by broadening the base
of the expansion and hastening rather than postponing the end." And I thought, "Well, of course. That's obvious."

Elaine
. It
is
obvious.

Daniel
. And because it seemed so obvious, my original presentation in
Ishmael
of the connection between food production and population growth was almost offhand. I soon found out that what is
obvious to you and me is very far from being obvious to the public at large. I expanded my presentation
of the subject for the paperback edition, but from the public's reaction I could see that this was still not enough. In
The Story of B
I presented the subject at even greater length — and it still wasn't enough.

One night at some personal appearance (I don't recall where it was) the subject of food production and
population growth came up again, and after some discussion one audience member stood up and
stormed out after declaring that I was the most obscene person she'd ever encountered.

Elaine
. I can't understand that.

Daniel
. Ah, but you see, despite the fact that "Increasing food production merely aggravates the problem by broadening the base of the expansion," we
must
increase food production.

Elaine
. Why?

Daniel
. You know the answer to that.

Elaine
. To feed the starving millions.

Daniel
. Of course. You see, the assertion had been made that I couldn't just "let the starving millions starve." My reply was that I'm not God. I don't "let" earthquakes happen, I don't "let" plagues occur, I don't "let" hurricanes and tornadoes happen — and I don't "let" people starve. This reply is what made me an obscenity.

Elaine
. Yes, I see. But — forgive me — we don't have any
choice
in the matter of hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes.

Daniel
. First, I don't want to hear any more of that "forgive me" stuff. I don't want your acquiescence. I don't want you to accept things just because they come out of my mouth.

Elaine
. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't even hear myself saying it.

Daniel
. Okay. We can't as yet do anything about hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes, but we
can
do something about hunger. The example I hear about most often is the starving millions in Africa. We
can
ship enough food over there to feed them all. So? Take it from there.

Elaine
looks at him blankly.

Daniel
. You're not here to listen to my answers. You're here to find them for yourself.

Elaine
. God... I don't know where to begin.

Daniel
. All right, I'll get you started. Why are they starving?

Elaine
. Well, obviously because they don't have enough food.

Daniel
. Come on, Elaine. That's just the definition of starving. Why don't they have enough food?

Elaine
. Because... because the population has outstripped local resources.

Daniel
. And why has this happened?

Elaine
. Well, either their local resources have diminished or their population has grown beyond the point where it can be supported by local resources.

Daniel
. Or both. As any population grows, its food supply diminishes. This is perfectly predictable. It's a cycle familiar to any biologist. As a population grows, it depletes its food supply. And as its food supply diminishes, the population begins to decline. As the population declines, its food supply begins to
recover. As its food supply recovers, the population grows. As the population grows, its food supply
begins to diminish. And so on. This is the way it works throughout the living community: populations
growing and declining as food availability grows and declines.

Elaine
. I see that.

Daniel
. Then why are so many millions of Africans starving?

Elaine
. Because they've outstripped the food that's available to them locally.

Daniel
. So their population is declining.

Elaine
. No, because we've said, "We're not going to
let
their population decline."

Daniel
. They're starving, but, thanks to our generosity, they're staying alive. And because they're staying alive... ?

Elaine
. They can reproduce and bring up a new generation to starve.

Daniel
. Which we can generously keep alive so that they can reproduce and bring up yet another
generation to starve. Our benevolence is breathtaking.

Elaine
. If we left them alone, their population would decline to the point where they could live within their own resources.

Daniel
. But it would be immoral to let that happen. Better that more of them should starve on our
beneficence than fewer live tolerably within their own food resources.

Elaine
. Yes, apparently.

Daniel
. How did it come about that their populations grew to a point where they could no longer live within their own local food resources?

Elaine
. I hadn't thought about that... We've put a lot of effort into helping them build up their
populations. Eliminating disease, lowering infant mortality. Showing them how to increase food
production. Helping them convert their lands to cash crops for export.

Daniel
. For hundreds of thousands of years they'd been living perfectly well where they were and as they were, but they weren't living
up to our standards
, and it's our divine mandate that everyone in the world must be made to live the way we live, whatever the cost. It would have been
immoral
for us to leave them alone, just as it would be immoral for us to leave them alone now. Much better to send them
food to maintain them in a state of perpetual starvation than to let their populations decline to a point
where they can live within their own resources.

Elaine
. I suspect that would be the typical reaction.

Daniel
. What would God do, if we stopped feeding them?

Elaine
. God?

Daniel
. God wouldn't let them starve, would he?

Elaine
. Based on past performance, I think he would. He hasn't intervened in human affairs in a long, long time.

Daniel
. God would let them starve, but we have to be better than God. We
are
better than God, which is why it's so appropriate that we should rule the world.

Elaine
. Yes. I can see why this woman thought you were the most obscene person she'd ever met.

Daniel
laughs.
We Martians are fiends... Let's move on. I hope we're finished with these issues for good.

Elaine
. There's one more I have to bring up, because people keep bringing it up to
me
.

Daniel
. Okay.

Elaine
. It goes something like this. If population is a function of food availability, then why is it that the developed nations, in which food is plentiful, have the lowest growth rate — and sometimes a zero or
negative growth rate — while undeveloped nations, in which food is scarce, have higher growth rates?