Kai: What do you think of this? Leather and Meat without Killing Animals

Ron: It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature. I’m consistently puzzled by the human conceit that we know better than God, than nature, than a system that’s been functioning for hundred of millions of years. Eat and be eaten. Put another way: live, reproduce and recycle. It’s vibrant, biodegradable, organic, endlessly renewable. Yeah, it evolves, but self-perpetuates. Yesterday’s t-rex gives way to today’s skunk. But life goes on. Why this desire to compartmentalize, to set ourselves apart from the system? Life in a petri dish. No thanks.

Kai:
This particular person is simply trying to find a solution to the too-large population of humans, providing clothing and meat without robbing the planet of all its remaining resources. Pop-reduction is #1, of course, but in the mean time …

Ron:
Yeah, I get that. Unfortunately, it postpones the inevitable and merely leads to more of the same. We’ve been trying to increase the food source to “solve” the overpopulation problem since the advent of agriculture. It doesn’t work, hasn’t worked, never will work because there are no constraints on pop. growth once you take away the natural constraints, which aren’t pretty. When food becomes more abundant, more children survive to breeding age. When food becomes too scarce, people starve and pop. is reduced, painfully. When people weaken from insufficient food, predation/disease increases.

Again, an ugly way, but nature’s way. Humans could circumvent this through intelligent, conscious choice to limit pop. growth. Alas, the only ones who do this are the enlightened, educated few who are then overwhelmed by the unenlightened, ignorant masses, further exacerbating the problem.

Most ancient civilizations crashed due to over-use of essential resources. I see nothing to suggest that will change in near future. And this may be as natural a cycle as overpopulating deer, locusts, rabbits or any other species subject to chronic pop. increases and crashes. Ugly, painful suffering, but part of the natural condition? Bigger than our ability to overcome?