Fertility Rate and Food Insecurity

  *  The Birth-Control Gag Rule is back.  Beginning with Reagan, Republican administrations have courted faith communities by withholding support from NGOs and agencies that provided abortion information.  I wonder whether the gag rule would survive widespread knowledge of the geographic relation between fertility rate and food insecurity.

The fertility-rate map can be found at http://globalfertilitymap.com/#4.3,20,3

The food-insecurity map can be found at http://www.edwardrcarr.com/opentheechochamber/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Food-Security-A-2011-map-007.jpg

* The food-insecurity map corresponds exactly to the fertility-rate map. There are 42 countries with fertility rates above 4 children/woman, rates that would double or triple the population every 25 years.  Those same 42 countries experience the worst food insecurity.  No other countries experience severe food insecurity and no other countries have fertility rates above 4 children/woman.

* This relationship cries out for objective, rational, practical, ethical discussion.  I believe that fertility rate is the independent variable, that excessive population relative to agricultural output and/or extraction and manufacturing revenues results in food shortage.  That is, high birth rate causes food insecurity.
* The primary cause of high fertility rate is probably cultural, a social structure where high fertility is celebrated, perhaps formerly needed.

* Nevertheless, one might expect a vicious cycle wherein food insecurity would increase birth rate. Hungry citizens bind to their clans and ignore their society's future.  Fearful leaders of hungry people take refuge in kleptocracy and neglect societal needs.  Demoralized government workers are corruptible.  Thus, societal failure incident to food shortage can hinder rational responses to overpopulation and to food shortage.

* Regardless of the dynamic, NGOs and international agencies should and probably will do more to incentivize reproductive responsibility.  Food-secure countries will eventually despair of feeding exponentially growing food-insecure societies.  That's when the population bomb will explode.  The gag rule will be seen as unkind and dangerous.
  *  The essential problem of exponential population growth with limited resourses has been known for centuries:  Thomas Malthus (1798).
However, modern urbanization might render this concern irrelevant:  Empty Planet 

Civilized vs savage societal leanings

* Every animal has primitive drives to spread its DNA indefinitely.  In the wild, those drives are appropriately unrestrained; savagery is appropriate.  Hoping to avoid gratuitous harm, humans can agree to bridle those drives through family life, religion, education and coercion.   That is, we can try to be civilized rather than savage, though tribal drives still loom.
* I often imagine societies dwelling and shifting on a continuum between savage and civilized, being pushed toward one end or the other by circumstances, activism and leaders.  Liberals typically push toward civilized, and conservatives typically push toward savage.  Too far in either direction may be harmful, impractical or unstable.
* More savage is a wider distribution of population on the contentment spectrum as results from unbridled capitalism, slavery, segregation, conquest, racism.  More civilized is a narrower distribution of population on the contentment spectrum, as results from progressive income tax, inheritance tax, earned-income credit, food stamps, housing subsidies, infrastructure buildout, public education, Social Security, MediCare, MedicAid, ObamaCare.
* Civilized is caring for future generations via environmental defense and resource-sparing regulations, solving social unrest by systematic sharing.  Savage is solving social unrest by faster conversion of nonrenewable resources to already bountiful products.
* Savage is unjustified military threat or action, also unrestrained population growth.  Civilized is mutual respect among individuals and groups different by race, language, myth or geography -- eventually responsible family planning.
  * Civilized is aesthetic leisure activities but condemnation of opulence.   Savage may be more attractive and satisfying than civilized, judging from the popularity of brutal sports, McMansions and shopping.
* Savage is believing that the poor need more suffering to incentivize responsibility.  Civilized is seeking the least suffering consistent with satisfying society’s needs.
  * Civilized is curiosity, insatiable quest for objective truth.  Savage is certainty, satisfaction with myth or conventional wisdom.
  * Civilized are Richard Feynman and the Obama family.  Savage are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and DJ Trump.

Courage needed for dangerous times

 * Thirty years ago I wrote a song, Three-star woman, lamenting my mediocrity.  In retirement, though, I’ve been a successful advocate and facilitator of recreational culture.  On my death bed, I’ll take comfort in that modest contribution to civilization.

 * What signature accomplishments will comfort Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker on their death beds?  Will they be proud of silently allowing their party to be infected by the hateful lies of Rush Limbaugh and his imitators at Fox News and Breitbart?  Will they be proud of repealing Obamacare, forcing their neighbors to watch loved ones suffer and die unnecessarily or be impoverished by medical expense?  How will they view scuttling the Iran nuclear deal or the Cuba opening?

 * Will they be proud of supporting a delusional Republican sociopath in the oval office?  Have they consulted the American Psychiatric Association on the risk of the nuclear button being in reach of a mercurial, sensationalistic, resentful narcissist incapable of empathy, remorse or embarrassment?