UTOPIA

There might come a day where pregnancy will become an obsolete idea. The conception of child through the process of sexual intercourse will become a thing of the past. Something that humans of that era, will find incomprehensible. People might resort to adopting or a “no child” policy. But then, it will drastically impact the population growth and the food chain. It goes without saying that absolute zero birth rate will result as the end of human race. Since, we don’t want us to get extinct, our survival instinct, which is intricately embedded on our genes, will kick in and push us ahead and motivate us to figure out a way. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The question is why our future generations would have to adapt to a lifestyle that would decimate the birth rate to a significantly lower range. Reason in two words: OVER POPULATION. Needless to say it’s a highly under-rated topic that actually needs better understanding and better attention. Whatever conflict we come across, be it global, or national or even personal problems, all of it comes down to one root issue, over population. Name it and I can give you all a walkthrough to the root. Now, although much similar thing to ask, why this issue needs our immediate attention? Because all our resources are rapidly getting depleted. Don’t take my word for it. There’s a website called theworldcounts.com, where you can check all the numbers like, Human population, World average temperature, Mass of CO2 emission, Rise in sea level etc. And all of that value has a counter, that is set by an average increment, and it is increasing in a blinding speed. For instance, there’s one value in particular that has blown my mind and that is the mass of resources that is continuously being extracted from our planet. Within the time it took for me to write the number 22,311,942,300, the stated number increased itself by the difference of about 1000 and the number is 22,311,943,600 now. The unit is in tonnes and the number is moving up without any halt. As I will be finished writing the last word of this sentence, the number will go considerably higher. 22,311,973,894 tonnes of resources has been extracted by now. In a mere few seconds, 30,000 tonnes of resources have been extracted. That is scary and a lot. There’s one more value (which frankly I find funny), that has piqued my interest and although we are not there yet where we achieve this massive scientific feat, the aforementioned value is a mere (I’d say) hypothetical. It’s about the number of planet earth we need. Yes! We definitely need more than one life (as we know it) sustaining planet to survive the disease of over population. The number is 1.7582891300 and increasing. Sure there are a lot of ways to generate or replace some of our resources, but that would be just delaying the inevitable. So what would be the most ideal solution for this problem? Before we get to it, I want to bring your focus on the current situation that has made me get my ass out of my self loathing lifestyle, to take a notebook and pen down my thoughts. We are in the midst of a lockdown caused by the 21st century pandemic COVID-19. It has stopped everything and has directly impacted the livelihoods of all classes of people, especially the daily wagers. However, I am privileged enough to carry on with my life, even with this major setback, all thanks to my parents for the financial aid (No! I’m not ashamed) and my friends with whom I live with, who are helping me by listening to my complaints and tantrums all the day, but they don’t have any choice. I pity them! Anyway, due to the aforementioned privilege, I can let my mind wander towards the optimistic viewpoint of the situation. I see the outbreak as a speed breaker of infrastructural, economical, (maybe more) development. I believe, I’m not an exception here to say that this particular period has made us realize how the planet is healing and how we are healing with it. It has made us realize our existence, our inner calling and for some, their fear of dying without accomplishing anything substantial. That fear worked as the prime motivator to do this, to let my readers know, my thoughts or as I mentioned, before all the garbage that hopefully added a few pages, the solution of Over population. Back in my college days, I read a novel “Inferno” by Dan Brown. I’m not an avid reader, but I guess that’s quite apparent if you observe my writing style. But I like his books. Dan Brown’s stories has always intrigued me, especially the Langdon saga where he reflects the history in such a way that it gets etched in our mind. I tell you, no history class, in my entire school life, has accomplished to pique interest among the students, let alone produce good results. Anyway, in this particular story, the protagonist Robert Langdon finds himself on the pursuit of a man who has promised to unleash a deadly virus that has the potential to get classified as a code red level pandemic. As the plot proceeds, Langdon learns what the virus actually does. Apparently, it is air borne, and it would infect every living human being. Although, it would stay dormant on the 2/3rd of the world population. The rest of them, on which the virus would get activated, will lose the ability to procreate. In other words, 33% of the world population will get sterilized. But that’s not all. The genius of the virus is that the first infected generation (G1) will pass on the genetic material of the virus to the next generation (G2). Thus, infecting G2 completely. But even then, the virus will get activated on the 33% of the G2 population. The rest would successfully copulate and reproduce G3, and thus the process will keep on progressing, towards every upcoming generations, conveniently keeping the birth rate and over all population at check. Personally, I find the idea mind blowingly genius. As much sad or devastating it would be for some family, I can’t help but admit that this is the most fantastic way to control the over flow of humans. However, it is nothing more than a fictional tale. I’m sure experts are inspired from this idea and most probably some of them might be working on it in a “hush hush” manner. But that bridge will be crossed when we get there. The reality demands something drastic. A change in our lifestyle which, I assure you, could be a healthier way to tackle the onslaught of the undermined pandemic: Over population. The solution I present, stems from an optimistic perspective. As much as it frustrates me to witness the mistakes that we all have been redundantly making, as much as I often wish for the entire human population to get “poofed” out of existence, I choose to see the good we still can do. I choose to put my faith on every individual, termed as Homo sapiens, to do what needs to be done. Because at the end, it is not the responsibility of some deity to bless us with divine solutions. Rather, it is the responsibility of each and every individual to follow one solution, one protocol and then the result will, undoubtedly, be divine. Frankly, the much anticipated solution is fairly obvious. After reading about it, you might say, “Was this the payoff for such a huge buildup? “ You might even feel disappointed. But there lies the irony. It is so obvious but yet it is not accepted. The build up was an attempt to try to make you understand about every hooks and nooks of the solution. Without further ado, here we go. At first, I would like to borrow the ratio 1/3 from “Inferno” and implement the idea with it. Now, I would like you to imagine a town with the population of 100 people, and the sex ratio 1:1. Mind it that the said sex ratio is used only to simplify the example. Let’s say a system is established there that only 1/3rd of the populace, voluntarily, will not take part in producing the next generation of offspring. The rest of the people can proliferate so that the total number of people of that town remains 100 for the next generation. The process of adoption can also be considered if the biological parents are willing to provide the other non-procreator parents with one of their child to be looked after. After the new generation reach the age of breeding, the same system gets applied to them and so the population stays stable. The same system would have to be applied for all the upcoming generations to maintain stability. The only catch is that the selection should have to be voluntary. Humans rebel at the thought of getting a few rules imposed upon them. The idea of their freedom to choose getting eliminated, provokes them. Voluntary actions, on the other hand, is self restricting. It is much more efficient, if properly preached. However, we all know there are a number of factors that can influence the voluntary nature of an individual. But if the aforementioned solution is contentedly followed, it can not only eliminate all kinds of conflicts and issues to a greater extent, but also it will stand to be the next phase of evolution of humans, which can be seen as a cumulative consciousness. By cumulative consciousness, I mean every individual of the population, living for one sole reason and that is, a healthy and prosperous survival for themselves and all the forthcoming generations. That will be utopia.