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That Was Then, This is Now
Published 2002

Guy Wheatley
The Texarkana Gazette

What are the odds that I would be born in the 20th century? I am only one of all the humans who ever lived throughout time. I used to think that the chances of my being one of those born after 1900 would be small.  It turns out that I haven't even beaten the odds. In October of 1999 the world population was projected at 6 billion. Half of all the humans who have ever lived were alive at that time. The implications of that fact are staggering.
I frequently hear people pinning away about the good old days. I won't go into to the death rate, the wars, and the social oppression that characterizes human history up to and including most of the 20th century. People determined to see the past through rose colored glasses are not going to be swayed by a few inconvenient facts. But even if they convince the rest of us to go back to the way things were, we've got a problem. Actually we've got about 3.5 billion problems.
The weight of humanity is having a profound effect on the planet. Food production has become industrialized. Less than one person in ten are involved in food production today. This means that means that every person involved directly in food production feeds himself, and nine other people.
At the turn of the last century, the ratio was almost reversed. Roughly eight out of ten people were directly involved in food production. The agricultural methods of the early 1800s didn't produce enough excess food for one person to feed nine others. In fact, it took four people to feed one additional person. If we try to go back to the way things were in the good old days, seven of out ten people are going to have to give up their current occupation and start farming.
The acreage each farmer needs will require more arable land than exists on our planet. Using the old methods means there will be less arable land, because not all land usable by modern farming will be usable by the old methods.   The only way to get back to the eight out of ten ratio is to thin our numbers by about half. That means that out of a family of four, mom, dad, and two kids, two of them will have to go.
Farming isn't the only thing affected by our numbers. I worked in a bank in the late 1970s. Back then, we didn't have a computer in the building. All checks were posted by hand. By the time I got out of banking in the late 1980s the volume of checks we handled increased by a factor greater than ten. It is not possible to handle that volume of paper by hand, so the industry started using computers. It didn't take the "Good old timers." long to start moaning about computers. "What did you do before you had computers?" they would smugly ask, as though they were privy to some profound truth the rest of us were missing. Very often, these were the first people to complain when services slowed down. They were convinced that computers were the problem. Somehow, they didn't see their increasing demands on the system as a factor.
Our burgeoning population affects every aspect of our lives. People who work in metropolitan areas often need two to four hours to get to work, then spend another two to four hours getting home. Pollution and diminishing resources demand greater effort to keep under control. Social security is having a hard time keeping up with the increasing ratio of seniors to younger workers.
To those who simplistically suggest that we go back to doing things the way we used to, before we had all of these problems, I say sure. If you'll volunteer to be one the 3.5 billion we have to get rid of. Otherwise, just keep in mind that, "that was then, this is now."

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