(Be forewarned that this is a blathering philosophical, introspective, pessimistic science fiction thing that rambles on _at length_ about human overpopulation) I am the Lorax, by Sue Blair -------------- Humans are an infestation on the planet. An infestation is defined as a spreading or swarming in or over a region in a troublesome manner; to live in or on as a parasite. There are billions of people on the planet and the total number of non-livestock/non-pet animals combined total is in the thousands. There are very few trees in the US that are over 100 years old since the redwood forest was destroyed when California "fell into" the sea. Humans have plowed down everything green or breathing on the planet and have erected housing complexes and strip malls in their place. As a feeble tribute to the past beauty, some token saplings have been planted. Every strip mall has a Starbuck's Coffee and a Hollywood Video featuring 100% family films. Thank god for Fusion Video where I can order a porno or a gory film. It would be nice to be able to rent them though like we used to, much cheaper. Americans argue that we have achieved zero population growth. If that's true, then why is the traffic so bad and why does my area code keep changing? Not to mention the parking. Americans point to China and Japan and say that those places are overpopulated, but we aren't like that. People forget that the "civilization" in Japan and China has been around for thousands of years. It was around 500 years ago that we invaded and took over the US, so our society is relatively new. However, even in that short span of time, we were nearly able to wipe out the buffalo, Lake Erie, and the American Indians. River Rouge is still in serious disrepair. It is rumored to have fish living in it now; even if they have less than two (or greater than two) eyes, they are still fish. Some people might even want to eat them. Montana is the same as Michigan which is the same as Georgia. Things aren't as bad as they are in New York, but they still have Central Park, which is nicer than any of the parks in the midwest suburban areas. I can't imagine why the cities in the US have names, since everyone has forgotten the people that the cities were named after and they are all the same anyway. Might as well just have numbers instead of city names, like numbers in the telephone book. It is amazing how the trees can live in spite of all the pollution. People are talking about floating cities on the water. I dread to think about the pollution that will ensue. The fishing boats, liners, and cruise lines are already destroying the waters by raping all of the resources and by dumping garbage, not to mention the toxic spills. The crime rate is high. There were millions of serial killers in jail. Nobody wants a jail by _their_ house, even though they think the death penalty is wrong. However, they compromised when it became necessary to put in a new prison by their house. At that point, folks began looking more closely at the death penalty and decided that it was the lesser of two evils. Nobody wants a garbage dump by their house either, but they create garbage every day. Where is it supposed to go? People fall into a trap of by blindly listening to the government, their religion, parents, friends, teachers, the media, without analyzing what is being said and by whom. Commercials portray a fluffy 'nuclear family' existence with 2.3 kids. Is that really the American ideal that we should be striving for, or do the Tide people think that they can sell more soap if everyone has 3 kids? Does that boy really think that you are cute and charming or does he want to scam your homework for the next class? Does the minister really care about you or does he just want your cash so that he doesn't have to go out and get a real job? If you can, by your own thoughts and arguments, justify why it is wrong for people to drive when they are blowing a 1.0 on the breatholyzer, then buy into cops busting people for this. What about smoking a joint on the diag? Can you justify busting people for this? If so, would you get into an unmarked police car with a person showing a badge, and saying that are you are a suspect wanted for questioning? About 20 women did and they are dead now, the victim of a serial killer. We need to question all forms authority and not be afraid of it. It is not wrong to question your religious beliefs; if they are right, then they will stand up to analysis and you will believe more strongly than before. We still have congressional representatives casting our votes for us. With the technology available, we could each cast our own votes. This isn't being allowed since people in congress don't want to lose their jobs and their groupies in Washington DC. Or maybe it's because the general American population is too stupid to be trusted to make decisions for themselves. Or they might not be as easily influenced by bribes from businesses who are polluting the environment. Everyone is still striving for their dream of a house of their own and 2.3 kids. There are no animals left in the wild; in fact, there are no wild places left. Humans built bioengineered housing complexes over desert land and jungles. Of course, the jungles were plowed down. In the past, bioengineered housing was not necessary in jungle lands, but the deteriorization of the ozone layer was causing beastly hot weather for the humans there. The only wild animals are left in zoos. The space available in the zoos is inadequate. The animals get flabby and bored. Some go insane and repeat the same act all day long until they become exhausted and fall over into sleep. Then they start over again the next day. Some commit suicide, which the zoo personnel mark down as unfortunate accidents or "old age". Animals don't mate as quickly in zoos, probably because they aren't exhibitionists during the day and are locked in individual cages at night when they're horny. This is a problem for animals who go into estrus once every four years. Of course, monkeys are like humans, so they masturbate in front of zoogoers and have sex every day. People think I'm strange for not wanting the "American dream" and tell me I'm selfish for not wanting to have kids. I bummed out my parents when they asked about kids since I told them frankly about my thoughts and feelings on the issue. They want grandchildren. I also upset my husband's parents. They already have grandchildren, but they are practicing religious folk rather than pretending religious folk. I respect their views, despite the impracticality of their views. But, one must live their own life. I'm not going to have kids to make other people happy. They really believe that human life is more important than any other life on the planet and that human life should be protected and expanded at any cost. They think that the millions of pedophiles and armed robbers are more important than the 50 rhinos existing on the planet. They would blow up a zoo before they would blow up a prison. But, if we continue on, the only available food source will be other people. I'll have to see how they feel about that. Of course, there are reserves for cows and pigs and other animals that people like to eat. Prices on meat are sky-high. Fish is expensive too because the supply is dwindling. of course, there are the wheat and rice multi-level ranges. Seaweed is tasty; alot of people are eating it now; it's moderately expensive because it's a bourgeois politically-correct item that people can eat to say that they aren't eating animals. Hopefully it will be a while before the waters are as raped as the land is. I was thinking today that the number of cars in the Whisperwood strip mall is more than the total number of elephants on the planet. All of the new housing developments have nice nature names, like Rambling Pine Trail, Clear Lake Grove, but where are the pines and lake, let alone the grove? Oops, there are three four-foot tall pines next to a 25-foot man-made lake. Sorry, I missed that with all the pickup trucks blocking my view. All of the big trees have been plowed down and the wildlife that was living there concreted over. There are no more 'woods' for the animals to retreat into. The animals invariably end up as road kill. Nobody seems to care about the animals though, as long as they can have their house, their piece of the pie. Humans are always more important than animals. If we want to see some animals we can go to the zoo. We were generous to set up the zoos to let the animals live. We like the animals since they amuse us. I asked the land development (land rape) folks why they always plow down all of the big trees. They said that they don't want to get sued if a big tree were to fall on a person's house or store. Well, folks generally have insurance and trees seem to be sturdier than that. Also, if the houses and the trees were spaced far enough apart, then there would be no danger of a tree falling on a house. Heck, the houses are so close together that the houses are in danger of falling on each other. No wonder why neighbors get into arguments and kill each other. At any rate, I argued that most people would want big trees in their yard for the kids to play on, set up a tire swing. If you gave the people a choice, they would take the tree and sign a contract eliminating the land company from all liability. It takes 50 years for a tree to become 1 foot in diameter, so it will take several generations for a token sapling to grow into a tree big enough to hold a swing. They said that would be too time-consuming and that people would sue them anyway, saying that they didn't understand the contract and were pressured into it by salespeople. What I see here is just laziness and a lazy lobby faction of construction workers who don't want to take the time and effort to work around the trees. That would cut into their profit margin. I suppose that the greed and need for speed of a single builder will overcome a tree that has been there longer than the lifetime of a any single human. Of course, there are other things on the planet besides strip malls and housing complexes. I left off "industrial parks" (oxymoron). These also plow down the land in the same way as strip malls and housing complexes and so are hardly worth mentioning. The "farms" are esentially now industrial parks operating on multi-levels with artificial environment and lighting. More efficient that way. The halycon day of the farmer on a plot of land with smelly animals and manure is gone. Today, the manure is used as fuel for the bioengineered farm and the animals are hosed down daily so that they don't smell. Europeans still continue to smell, although they have been unsuccessful in their endeavor to keep their population down as well. You would think that more smelly people in a more enclosed space would make mating prohibitive for humans. Pheromones. Yum. Society is becoming increasingly violent and uncaring. There used to be 'live nude girls' on the net, now there is 'kill the nude girls' and the sequel 'dead nude girls'. People always say that "there is always room for one more", but I would have to say that there is always room for one less. One less serial killer, one less pedophile, one less tree plowed down, one less housing complex, and one less strip mall. Kill the serial killers and pedophiles and repeat offenders. I don't care why they did what they did. We have already done research on these fucked-up people. They cannot be helped and they won't stop. Just eliminate them so they won't commit more crimes and my tax dollars won't have to pay for them to toy with the researchers. Repeat offenders- these people are too stupid to live. Three strikes and you're out. Thanks for playing. How much damage must these people inflict before enough is enough? Plow down the forever prisons and institutions and make some animal reserves (not for pigs and cows and chickens, but for tigers and rhinos, giraffes and elephants). --------------------------------------------------------------------- Afterword: --------- Originally, I wrote this for English composition class in 1984. The exercise was to look into the future 10 years from now and write about what your life is like and what you are thinking and feeling. Today, I updated the thing to get rid of outdated terms and some other lame stuff that I hadn't noticed earlier. I added some stuff and some paragraphs in. I also changed the title from the uninspired 'Thoughts in my diary 10 years from now'). Needless to say, I was a snob since I thought that everyone's writings were generally fairly boring since they talked about getting married, having a family, and included delusions of grandeur as the CEO of a corporation. I felt that was boring, pedestrian, and self-centered. Though there were a couple of good ones; one person talked about being an astronaut and feeling closer to God while in space, peaceful and introspective. The other people in the class generally thought that my paper was depressing science fiction and that I had missed the point of the assignment since I should be going for non-fiction. However, I actually was going for non-fiction. Science fiction is the speculative and logical conclusion of what is happening now. It is remarkable how many things in science fiction are coming true over time. I was reading '1984' for a philosophy class and I was living with a granola-munching freak who was going to join the peace corps after college (not Coleen). I was also reading 'The Parent Trap' (not the Disney film) which is a good book describing why being a parent is such a drag. Hip parents would give it to their kids to scare them into not getting pregnant in their teens. Have things gotten better or worse for the planet since 1984? Authors have explored this shit in a more talented fashion: Anthony Burgess, The Wanting Seed (aka Soylent Green). The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle. I'm sure there are others. My teacher gave me a good mark but said that the transition between the paragraphs could be more smooth (I fixed that a little today also). Also, I made some glaring errors on the original. After I said that California had fallen into the sea, I said later: California is the same as Michigan is the same as Georgia. Duh, what a tool. I also said that seaweed was cheap. It's strange how little I've changed. I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.