This was a response of mine to a commentator on another one of my diaries, "The New Dovish Imperial Grand Strategy." As is my understanding, the commentator was attempting to assert that the plans of PNAC and PNM, these neoliberal/neoconservative imperial grand strategies, were justified on the basis of the threats posed by population growth. If this were true then the criticisms I level at the high-level planners in most of my diaries and comments would be myopic. However, I believe that this response concisely explains the reasons why that rationale is preposterous.
I think the greatest threats to our existence are the strategic arsenals of the US and Russia. More specifically, I have heard that the US missile defense system is triggered nearly every day and there is a 3-minute window for human intervention to disarm it.
Now, if this occurred, the launch of the missiles I mean, it would be the end of civilization as we know it and could possibly be the end of the human species. The point is, this system has very little to do with population growth, but it is a monumental threat to the perpetuation of the species. And the same is true for global warming, etc.
Global warming and strategic missiles are choices. A choice by the high-level planners, intelligentsia, and corporate "masters of the universe" that I criticize.
So, you have identified yourself as an evolutionary biologist, but evolutionary biology (the poster in fact said he viewed the world as an evolutionary cognitive scientist, but there is essentially very little distinction so I allowed this minor inaccuracy to stand) has very little to lend to all this at its current state. I have stated in other threads that I think social science, in terms theoretical groundwork and all that, is several centuries behind the natural sciences (of course this is based on historical precedent and not adjusted for the exponential nature of scientific development as it has and will compound).
You are looking at the problem in terms of some very myopic issues that are supposedly critical. The focus is on human tendencies as an aggregate and sociotropic issues and all that. However, the problems that are most urgent and most critical are the result of the actions of a very small minority of the human species. Socio-biology is very important, but it has to be developed before we can start utilizing it to justify changes in policies. For now, we must deal with the very technical and very artificial systems we have created that could potentially destroy are species.