WELL, OTHER THAN this horrible pollution thing in beijing, which, by the way, is not only a chinese problem, verily 'tis a problem for us all, there are a couple of other, shall we say, "situations" which beckon for our consideration.
One is of course the rampant virulent flu virus which is sweeping across the united states. The question beckoning here be: be this flu also spreading around the world, where did it originate, and will it decimate the entire species?
One is reminded of the nineteen eighteen flu epidemic, which was facilitated in dispersing by world war one, and all the personell moving back and forth across the planet. It seems that the more strenuously humanity combats viruses, the more the viral world strengthens, diversifies, and proliferates. We may be doomed to eventual extinction by the micro organic world. And the germs shall inherit the earth.
Scientiets have enumerated a handful of deadly threats to humanity, and omong them, along with chemical and biological terrorisism, nuclear war, and asteroid impact, is viral or bacteriological planet wide assault. Do we even have a chance, in the long run?
Equally worthy of our consideration is the simple fact that we, with our determination to extend life for everyone, and our declining birth rate, are rather rapidly creating a civilization of old geezers. By the time we baby boomers are all elderly, say in another twenty years, the world will be a very elderly place, with many old people, many of whom will presumably be retired or ill, needing to be supported by younger generations who simply won't exist.
The chinese are not only killing themsselves with cigarette smoke and polluted air, they are strongly considering lifting their one child per family law, in order to restock the supply of young folks, that tomorrow's billion's of elderly can have...what.....help?
Its either that, or, we can stop all the miracle medicine, and start letting people die again. In the united states alone, there are nearly two hundred thousand people over the age one hundred. We'll have to decide whether we really want to live to be a hundred, and if we do, do we really want to retire, or try to, at sixty five? Probably not. That's a lotta retirees runnin' around, and very few youngsters around to clean up after bingo.
No worries. We'll muddle thru. If we survived the middle ages, we can survive anything.
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