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Which is why it's such a problem, with really no solution.
Fewer people working, the system can't survive.
More people working, more people expecting more, more resources used, the system eats itself.
America is used to using the resources. China and India, with 1/3 of the global population, want in on the game now. The dead European empires, which no longer have to secure their own resources(they're under the American empire umbrella), have put most of their tax money into social programs, which need to be paid for. However, with more education, more healthcare, etc, etc, couples have children later in life, and only one or two at that. That's just barely replacing the current population, which won't expand the economy, since there is only so much a person can consume(even us fat Americans). So that's why Europe(and the US) need more immigration so that the countries can survive. There are cultural differences, which can be difficult to knock down sometimes(although that is the end game of globalization).
So you either end up with a more homogenized, uniform, standardized world(globalization), or you have competing interests the world over.
Competing interests cause conflict, which if given enough room to grow, can explode into war. A more monoculture world, there would be less conflict, but less diversity as well.
Unfortunately civilization, or the world really(at least in less of a geological time frame), aren't static. If civilization isn't growing, it's shrinking. It takes a lot of energy to keep it going. If more people are in it, more people expect more.
There really is no answer to it. We could do something voluntarily, but who wants less for less? If anything, we want more for less. That's fine, unless you introduce more and more people, which cancels out any gains you made.
On the other hand, we could do things by force. We could sterilize people. We could pay people not to have children(although with fewer children, where is that money coming from?).
We could extend life further and further, but that will only mean that people will work longer and longer. If we increase the average age to 125, there won't be many retirement parties at 65.
We could have machines do most, and eventually all of the work(since they would be far more efficient), but then why bother with people at all?
Or we keep doing what we're doing, and eventually hit the limits of nature. In 2007, that won't be good for anyone.
In the end, we really have no choice but to have every aspect of life grow all the time(population, corporations, governments, surveillance, taxes, energy, agriculture, healthcare, etc, etc, etc). If any one of those doesn't grow, what happens?
Where all that takes us exactly, someone will find out.
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