The Sinking Ship

My father worried about over population and now I worry about over population.

I used to tell my students America is like a great ship at sea. Lifeboats with people from other ships, not as shiny and new, approach the America and we take them on board. In spite of warnings from the ship's engineers, in spite of observing our ship sinking lower into the water, in spite of approaching storms, we continue to take everyone and anyone on board. Without expanding the ship's infrastructure to meet our needs, without investing in human capital instead of financial capital, without focusing on the education of our young and our newcomers, without requiring everyone to pull their fair share, without storm preparation, the ship will eventually sink beneath the waves.


Why don't we heed the warnings? Maybe we're too busy amassing our fortunes, or maybe we don't care anymore, or maybe we're afraid of the solutions, or maybe we are so weighed down by ill health, poverty, and debt that we don't have the energy to listen and take action before it's too late.

Can we save the ship from sinking? Perhaps. I have yet to hear an acceptable solution (IMHO) and I refuse to take part in simply throwing those less fortunate overboard. Unless we change course dramatically, (perhaps stripping the ship to bare bones causing folks to return to their own less spartan vessels until we make the necessary repairs and modifications to this great ship?) our progression seems inevitable.

Hope still flickers deep within the recesses of my heart that someone somewhere will have the answer that is supported by enough people to change our course. If those who believe in profits over people, power over servitude, and hoarding over investment, assume control of the ship (and at this posting, that seems likely to happen) then while I believe the idea and the essence of America will always survive and endure, the ship itself will sink.

If I were a historian in 3050 I might say America inexorably went the way of the lost city of Atlantis, or the democracies of Greece and Rome. And from a recent article I read, I might be saying it in Chinese.

As for me, in my youth I might have sounded a battle cry but nowadays, I'm just looking for an empty lifeboat. I think I'd rather take my chances on a cold and stormy sea.