Overpopulation and Greed: Is There Any Future for Mankind?
We are looking at a scenario where nations have the population of India and the per capita consumption of the U.S. Multiply these two, and what do you get? Utter tragedy. Unless there is this basic recognition, which you can call a spiritual awakening, that the good life doesn’t consist of conspicuous consumption, we are hurtling towards a great disaster. It is already upon us.
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Questioner: While COVID-19 has severely affected many world economies, many things have come into the limelight in the wake of the pandemic. People have realized that life is precious and that nature has limited resources. How do you see the future of the economy? Will we move towards a resource-based economy? How would future technologies impact us or life as such?
Acharya Prashant: In the short term, probably consumption will keep rising. The bigger picture is that the Earth just cannot sustain the kind of consumption we are exhibiting.
So, how do I look at the future? Well, mankind will be forced to reduce its population. You cannot continue to be eight billion, ten billion, twelve billion, and then say, 'Well, in the natural course of things, we are anyway going to stabilize at twelve billion.' Even eight billion is just too much; it is too much by many times. Twelve billion is unthinkable, and you are talking of twelve billion when all these twelve billion aspire to have a per capita consumption similar to that of the United States.
