Big World Small World

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/apr/23/population-how-many-people-can-the-earth-sustain-lucy-lamble?CMP=share_btn_link

This article looks at the dilemma of the world's rapidly growing population. It touches on two possible futures, albeit indirectly, one where we use technology to reduce population growth, and another thwhere we embrace a big world where the growing population produces a bouyant economy for all.

My first reaction was that we need to shift our spending from keeping old white people alive to keeping young black people alive. Let's put out effort in where it is most needed. Let's give every one an equal chance at lifel. You can see what a huge change in our global mindset that this would need, and you can imagine the philosophic discussions it would generate.

The deeper question it later provoked was this: If God has a future for our world, what dues it look like? Is it one where the system God had set up checks itself by reducing the population as we approach the capacity of the earth. In this scenario we aid God by contraception and population control in general. Ethical dilemmas like who do we could in population control quickly emerge.

The second option is much more bold. It says the population of the earth is essentially limitless.  It says, as we learn to live with each other we will find ways to use the world's resources more economically, drawing from them a lifestyle for all which we can't currently imagine. Reduced consumption, more efficient production and better sharing would be it's hallmark. In this scenario how we live together rather than population control is in focus.

There is of course the possibility that there is a third scenario that I haven't thought of. The point is really that if God expects us to work for charge in this world, as God does, there must be a sustainable end point toward we were are working, this side of heaven. Then there is another discussion about where the boundary between here and heaven is.