Soylent Green (1973), a dystopian sci-fi movie, depicts a world suffering from overpopulation, climate change, and extreme inequality, where the rich exploit and own the poor, who survive on the evil Soylent Corporation’s processed plankton. As 2022, the year in which Soylent Green was set, has now passed, the movie’s grim predictions of overpopulation have proven misguided.
The United Nations recently announced that the world’s population is now estimated to have reached 8 billion — up from 7 billion as recently as 2011. This latest milestone has seen renewed alarmism from those who believe that the planet is already overpopulated.But is population growth really such a threat to humanity? There are many reasons to believe that, quite the opposite, population growth actually amplifies opportunities for tackling humanity’s greatest challenges.
Trump is just the latest manifestation of an old American instinct.
It’s healthy for us to periodically revisit these discussions about the basic structure and principles of government. It’s probably less healthy, though, to tie one’s like or dislike of the electoral college to one’s preferred outcome in any particular race.
Not only have their ideas failed on their terms, they have backfired, creating more lawlessness than before.