First World Problem

[streetnights]

We waited for too long

Comments

[basric]

Excellent piece. We moved ten miles outside of Nashville to a mostly rural area 20 years ago. We are now three tenth largest city in Tennessee. The Huge farms that existed when we arrived are now covered with concrete and asphalt. We have a bypass and the two lanes through the city are now five.

We import an unbelievable amount of food =now from Chili and othe South American countries.

It's a scary probability.

[streetnights]

Too scary! More so because no one seems concerned that we're importing so much from elsewhere. What if they can't export anymore? What would we do? And that's not even getting into the subsidies and the American agricultural economic issues...

[lawchicky]

Interesting take on the topic. Sometimes we do lose the big picture while we're worrying about instant gratification.

[streetnights]

I think it happens more often than we'd like it to - and more importantly, I think it happens a lot on a more global perspective. While people, individually, may consider the big picture, it doesn't look like societies often do.

[liret]

Looking at population projections always terrifies me.

[streetnights]

Me too! I wonder if all the scientists just sort of think 'well, we'll have better technology and it'll all be okay'.

[wyliekat]

A great take on "First World Problems", not as the flaky stuff many of us talked about, but the real consequences to living as we do.

[streetnights]

*bashful* I don't think it's flaky, and all of them were interesting to read; I just try and consciously interpret topics in different ways. I think that some people feel the need to stick with the dictionary definition of a phrase, and I try and shy away from that.

But I'm glad you liked it :)

[wyliekat]

It's funny how we make up our own internal rules for how the game should be played, hey? For instance, I think I'mma post fiction for the first time in the whole competition and it feels like cheating. I have no idea why, but that's what it feels like.

[the_vernacular]

One time I went on a date with a guy who started telling me that we were at no risk for food shortages and the earth could easily sustain five times its current population. I did NOT call him back after that.

This was really chilling.

[streetnights]

Five times its current population...could you even imagine what the Earth would be like, with 30 billion people? Where would we even all fit? Skyscrapers everywhere? How much farmland would we need for that?

Like...gosh. I just can't even imagine it. Maybe if we could terraform the Arctic and the Sahara, but no one even knows what effects that would have on the world. -shudders-