Making life is better than making babies || Acharya Prashant, with XLRI (2021)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00So, I am being intrigued by what would be the future of life, considering technology

00:09that has now come into our lives, you know, earlier we used to live with each other, you

00:15know, COVID again, in terms of economies, it has hit the world economies and, but at

00:20the same time, people have realized that life is precious, right?

00:24And nature has really limited resources.

00:27So how do you see the future of economies, or would we go to something which is a resource

00:33based economy or, you know, again, or how would technologies impact us or life as such?

00:41See, in the short term, probably consumption will keep rising.

00:51But since you are talking of the COVID scenario, and you are talking of probably the medium

00:59term as well, the bigger picture is that the earth just cannot sustain the kind of consumption

01:10we are exhibiting.

01:12So how do I look at the future?

01:17Well, mankind will be forced to reduce its population.

01:24You cannot continue to be 8 billion, 10 billion, 12 billion, and then say, well, in the natural

01:31course of things, we are anyway going to stabilize at 12 billion.

01:38Even 8 billion is just too much, just too much, it is too much by many times, 12 billion

01:46is unthinkable.

01:50And you are talking of 12 billion, when all these 12 billion aspire to have a per capita

01:59consumption similar to that of the United States.

02:05So what are we looking at?

02:06We are looking at a scenario where nations have the population of an India and the per

02:18capita consumption of a US.

02:22Now multiply these two and what do you get?

02:27Utter tragedy, right?

02:30Neither are we ceasing to have kids, nor are we realizing that the good life does not

02:46consist of multiplied consumption.

02:52That's how the world is living.

02:54That's how even the development of countries is being indexed, no?

03:03People in which country consume how much and you use that, you take that and then put stuff

03:12in descending order and say, well, this country is the most advanced because it produces this

03:18much stuff.

03:20That stuff could be nuclear fissile material or that stuff could be coal and iron and electricity

03:32and electronics, right?

03:37But nevertheless you know only one way to measure development which is production and

03:44consumption.

03:47And when it comes to production you are not merely producing goods, you are producing

03:52babies too at an alarming rate.

03:55I mean alarming is a gross understatement, it's a very, very lightweight word.

04:05So I mean what is Covid?

04:08Your population really has expanded so much, we are talking of vaccines.

04:12In the popular conversation around Covid, we talk of how governments have failed, we

04:18talk of vaccines, we talk of WHO, we talk of China, we talk of the particular Wuhan lab.

04:25But no one talks of the fundamental underlying reason.

04:30Why did man have to come in contact with that virus at all?

04:36We came in contact with that virus because we have expanded our population so much that

04:42we have to enter the jungles.

04:44We need land for every new baby that is born and how do you get that land?

04:51You get that land only by clearing away jungles and our greed knows no sense.

05:02So we fight with each other and nations want to have an upper hand over their neighbor.

05:10So what do you want to do?

05:11You want to have gain of function research which for namesake is for medical purposes

05:20but a lot of it is actually for military purposes.

05:28Even if for just the sake of defense, still the purpose is military.

05:41You need to fight with the other because you want resources and tomorrow when even water

05:50will be in shortage, why will you not fight with the other?

05:55And when you fight with the other, then you don't hold back your punches or do you?

06:02Then you will fight with the other using everything that you have.

06:06As they say, all is fair when you are…

06:10So that's the thing, unless there is this basic recognition which you can call as a

06:20spiritual awakening, that the good life does not consist of conspicuous consumption, we

06:29are hurtling towards a great disaster.

06:34It is already upon us.

06:36You would have read that the temperature at the place where I am sitting, day before yesterday

06:44it was 7 degrees above normal.

06:48Now is that normal statistical fluctuation?

06:50Obviously it is not.

06:53It is climate crisis and we are going to see much more of this every passing month.

07:02I am afraid the future is not at all bright, the way we are going.

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