Overnight polls of world public opinion show that there is only 40% approval for the baseline strategy proposed by the World Information and Coordination Organization (WICO) to deal with the ecological collapse threat, which much of the press has nicknamed DIE (Death by Imminent Extinction).
The strategy involves stopping all births and growth in personal consumption of natural resources until humanity’s extinction pressure on other species drops to zero. Population and individual consumption can then change if there is no resulting pressure. In yesterday’s Global Emergency declaration, WICO provided a set of definitions and measurement criteria that could be used to define and deal with the threat.
Public disapproval centered on three main issues: the significance of extinction pressure; enforcement of limits on birth and consumption; and dismissal of technological innovation that might replace the strategy entirely.
Responding to the polls and other reactions reflecting the low approval, WICO Secretary General Arvin Decatur stressed in a speech this morning that objections to the strategy are expected to be resolved during the detailed strategy development mandated by the declaration. He added that, “Course corrections can be identified and implemented based on new experience and understanding. The urgency of the threat requires direct and immediate action using what we have and know now, and nature is presently a much better engineer than any of us.”
Reality Check
The poll results are totally made up. They make sense based on my reading of related literature and personal experience.
Decatur’s final points are my own opinions. The technological innovation issue is a critical one because it provides a very tempting alternative to control of behavior (self or otherwise), but it requires time to develop and sort out its potentially worse consequences, time that the simulated world (and arguably ours) doesn’t have.
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