#AcharyaPrashant #आचार्यप्रशांत #Philosophy #BhagavadGita #vedanta #population #climatecrisis #environment
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Video Information: 25.01.23, IIT-Ropar, Greater Noida
Context:
~ Overpopulation is a crime today.
~ Overpopulation is the biggest problem in India.
~ What are ways to reduce fertility rate?
~ Where are we heading as a country?
~ How are we responsible for the climate crisis?
~ Government policies for population control.
~ India will soon be most populous in the world.
Music Credits: Milind Date
➖➖➖
Video Information: 25.01.23, IIT-Ropar, Greater Noida
Context:
~ Overpopulation is a crime today.
~ Overpopulation is the biggest problem in India.
~ What are ways to reduce fertility rate?
~ Where are we heading as a country?
~ How are we responsible for the climate crisis?
~ Government policies for population control.
~ India will soon be most populous in the world.
Music Credits: Milind Date
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Good evening sir. Sir, my question is on population. We were just talking about it and in a couple
00:11of your answers previously you've mentioned about the population and you also touched
00:18upon that point that we have recently surpassed China according to the most recent estimates
00:26at the beginning of this very year and currently India's population stands at around 1.4-1.2
00:33billion people. So by this estimate we are the most populous country in the world and
00:41we are going to add the maximum number of people from now onwards to the very good amount
00:47of time and the population projection says that by 2050-2060 we will keep growing. So
00:55in many of your videos, many of your talks you have always mentioned that you know how
01:01population is at the very root of so many societal problems, so many environmental problems,
01:08so many problems related to the planets and we see this figure and that too for a country
01:15like India which is very unprepared in terms of many things. So what is the way forward?
01:21What should we do? Is there any important role of policy makers and if we are at this
01:29level of population, can it ever be an advantage in this bleak atmosphere? So that's the question.
01:38Advantage to whom? You will have a larger number of people proceeding to occupy territory from a
01:55neighboring country. How can overpopulation be an advantage? Advantage to whom? Why? In what sense?
02:07So that's not even imaginable to think of overpopulation as an advantage. Overpopulation
02:25is not merely a problem, it's a crime. It's the most dastardly crime today. How to control?
02:40There have to be both positive and negative measures. We very well know that when populations
02:53get more educated, the fertility rates drop. We also know that when there are better medical
03:02services and education is guaranteed and there is social security and greater participation
03:15of women in the workforce, again the fertility rates drop and all these are great things
03:23to have irrespective of their effect on the fertility rates. We want people to be educated
03:32even if that does not decrease the fertility rate. We want women to be empowered and to
03:39be financially independent even if that does not decrease the fertility rate. So all these
03:46are virtuous goals that come with the added benefit that they have a sobering effect on
03:54the fertility rate. So these are the positive measures we must take. On the negative side,
04:03on the disincentivizing side, you must not be subsidizing people who choose to have more than
04:13two kids. The government must say, on one hand I am ensuring that the two kids that you have
04:21will have great health and great education and I stand as the underwriter. We'll provide schools
04:32and we'll provide hospitals. So once we have done that, we do not want you to have a third kid and
04:41if you have a third kid, then we stop all the subsidies or at least reduce the subsidies.
04:49And there are so many benefits that citizens draw from the government and if you come from
05:06a disadvantaged or impoverished section, then there are additional benefits you get from the
05:13government. So the government does have a significant handle on individual decision
05:22making by using the financial relationships that the government has with the individual
05:35the government can very strongly disincentivize the individual from having kids, more kids than
05:48two let's say. Equally if you decide to have no kids or just one kid, there should be material
06:01benefits. There should be immaterial benefits as well. You should be encouraged, incentivized in
06:14a financial way, also in a social way. Why should you not be presented with an award? Why not? You
06:25are setting an example. So we confer this award on you. Deshmitra or Samaj Bandhu, some kind of
06:34an award and that couple then deserves to be highlighted in media and the government controls
06:43a lot of media. Don't we know that? Once a couple decides we are not going to have kids, let the
06:50couple be presented as a role model. So there is a lot that can be done and you do not need to take
07:04draconian measures like at the time of emergency. You do not need to forcefully sterilize people.
07:13That's not even needed. There are so many other ways you can both incentivize and
07:21de-incentivize people. But for this to happen, you need a government that can make this happen
07:34and for that to happen, you need people that can vote that kind of government to power. And for
07:44that to happen, you need to have an agency that can first of all educate people towards the peril
07:54of overpopulation. That agency should be able to challenge the long-standing cultural notions.
08:06If a woman does not procreate, her life is wasted. The purpose of life is to have a full
08:19nest and a full nest is defined by the abundance of kids in it. You are a great person if you are
08:35a great mother. If you have been a great mother, you are a veritable goddess. You can be worshipped.
08:48So the population will first of all have to be educated in a spiritual way so that we realize
08:58that procreation is not the purpose of life, especially not the woman's life. And that time,
09:09golden time, peak time, precious time spent taking care of the babies is not a particularly great
09:21investment. Come on, let's be bold and honest enough to say that upfront. There is no great
09:31virtue or value in changing diapers and washing diapers and catering to all kinds of animalistic
09:43needs of an infant. There is nothing great about that. It does not even require a person of high
09:52consciousness to do all that. Even animals do all that. So let the woman know very clearly that if
10:03she is wasting years and years behind a baby, she is actually wasting her life.
10:09And she has been conditioned to very coolly say, you know, now there is the baby. So how can I
10:24continue working? Six or seven months before childbirth, some of them take leaves and then
10:36they don't return to the workplace for the next 4-5 years. Sometimes even 10 years. Sometimes they
10:44never return at all. They need to be very clearly told without mincing words, even if it hurts and
10:56offends, that they are wasting their life. The patriarchal society has placed such a great value
11:11on motherhood that women do not feel
11:18bothered at all,
11:22harmed at all,
11:23or ashamed at all. Just wasting all their life running behind kids.
11:36They feel they are doing something very honorable, very respectable, very valuable.
11:43I am not saying you should just pick the newborn and drop it somewhere and get rid of it. No.
11:54But you should know very well that time spent on the newborn,
12:01time spent on child raising is not a particularly great investment.
12:07And you have limited time as a human being.
12:14So even if your biology and your physical tendencies demand that you must have a kid,
12:20please keep the number of kids to a minimum so that the wastage is minimized.
12:30The time spent on one kid is enough investment. Do not spend more time on more kids.
12:42What are you doing all the time? I mean think of the life of a new mother.
12:50Think of her life.
12:58How is her life different
13:03from the life of any other
13:12female mammal
13:18that has newly given birth?
13:21Think of a buffalo or a goat.
13:29All the time they have to just look after the kid and they cannot read, they cannot
13:33take care of themselves. If you are a sports person, your sports are gone.
13:40If you are a traveler, you cannot travel anymore. You cannot even visit the cinema halls.
13:51You cannot go shopping. You cannot even sleep with abandon.
14:01All the time you have to be tuned in.
14:13Can you go and sit in a library and spend dedicated eight hours there
14:20You can't do that. Not for two months, not for four months. You cannot do that for next many years.
14:31What about your dance classes?
14:37What happened to your swimming schedule? You were a champion swimmer.
14:41What happened to your tennis matches? You were so fond of challenging everybody around.
14:54And you had a great volley and a great backhand. What happened to all that?
15:01And you used to sit and continuously think and meditate on the great questions of life.
15:11You were thinking, who am I? Why do I exist? What is meant by nations? Why is society organized the way it is?
15:18Those moments used to be your internal bread and butter.
15:22Now can you spend those peaceful moments in quietness and solitude? Can you do that?
15:30Then why are you so eager to pop a baby?
15:36Why are you so eager to have a baby?
15:39The baby is the master, the mother is the servant. That's obvious. For many long years.
15:47And that's a biological connection.
15:50And that's a biological connection.
15:52The baby is the master, the mother is the servant. That's obvious. For many long years.
15:58And that's a biological connection. And the same biological connection will mean that once the baby grows up, he'll have his own life.
16:06First three years of his or her life, when the mother invests practically everything she has into the baby,
16:13the baby doesn't have any memory. Nobody remembers the first three years of his life.
16:19And that's when your mother has been doing the most for you. And you don't remember that. You cannot remember that.
16:33The baby is now eight or ten and you don't remember that.
16:35The baby is now eight or ten and he is already building a separate universe of his own. Does it not happen?
16:41He is already hiding things from the mother.
16:45And the mother sacrifices herself totally for the baby.
16:49Why is the mother so stupid?
16:51The mother is a human being first of all.
16:53The gender comes later.
16:55First of all, you are a human consciousness.
16:57You are not a human being.
16:59The mother is a human being first of all.
17:01The gender comes later.
17:03First of all, you are a human consciousness.
17:05You are not born to raise kids.
17:07You are born to get liberated.
17:21I look at women.
17:23On one hand,
17:25I feel bad.
17:27I feel empathetic.
17:29On the other hand,
17:31I feel furiously angry.
17:37You are responsible for your own wretched state.
17:39You are responsible for your own wretched state.
17:41Don't you know what you are doing?
17:43You are hurting yourself all the time.
17:45You are allowing yourself to get exploited.
17:47You are allowing yourself to get exploited.
17:49Why do you do this to yourself?
17:55Why do you do this to yourself?
18:03The scholarly student becomes a wet nurse.
18:13The baby is shitting all the time.
18:15Urinating all the time.
18:19Was that supposed to be your destiny?
18:22Urine and stools?
18:32Breastfeeding?
18:34That's what you are born for?
18:44Women's emancipation has to be
18:46Women's emancipation has to be
18:48the thing that drives
18:50population control.
18:52If the woman is liberated,
18:56the population cannot explode.
19:00If population explodes,
19:02that's a clear indication
19:04of women's misery.
19:08The more miserable, ignorant
19:10and enslaved
19:12women are,
19:14the more you will find
19:16populations exploding.
19:21See, practically,
19:23man has
19:25zero role in the process.
19:27Let's face it.
19:29He impregnates
19:35and gets away
19:39paying a very small price.
19:43In fact,
19:45in some sense,
19:47his own beastly tendencies
19:49are satiated.
19:51Now the woman is confined to the house.
19:55So,
19:57she has been now
20:01domesticated.
20:07Like a pet mammal.
20:11Now she becomes even more easier to control.
20:13And the man puffs up.
20:15Now I am the provider,
20:17the sole provider.
20:19You stay at home,
20:21I am providing.
20:23You leave your job now,
20:25you are pregnant.
20:27So, I am the sole provider.
20:29And if you are the sole provider,
20:31then you become the master, obviously.
20:33By impregnating the woman,
20:35the man becomes her master.
20:37And the woman does not see that.
20:39Just emotion, emotion.
20:45Emotional foolishness.
20:59And the man goes out to work
21:01and he visits places
21:03and broadens his experience
21:05and learns of things
21:07and grows as an individual.
21:09And what is the woman doing?
21:11Cleaning shit.
21:13And breast feeding.
21:17And preparing bottles.
21:23And rushing to doctors.
21:33And the man is growing.
21:35In terms of knowledge,
21:37in terms of money,
21:39in terms of power.
21:41And the woman is
21:43rotting at home.
21:45That's population for you.
21:51And on top of that,
21:53the man will say, you see,
21:57look at how magnanimous I am.
22:01I am the sole breadwinner.
22:03You two sit at home.
22:05You and the baby.
22:07And I provide for both of you idlers.
22:11What good are the two of you
22:13doing at home?
22:15Just sitting comfortably.
22:17And I am the one who is going out there,
22:19working and providing for you two
22:21slothful people.
22:23Doing nothing, good for nothing.
22:33But she has her
22:35moments of bliss.
22:37She looks at the baby
22:41and forgets her trauma.
22:43She says, see,
22:45can there be
22:47a higher bliss
22:49than the smiling face
22:51of my little one?
22:53Yes, ma'am.
22:55The smiling face
22:57of my little one?
22:59Yes, ma'am.
23:05Knowledge
23:09and consciousness
23:11and realization
23:15and power.
23:21These are much, much higher joys
23:23than the smiling face
23:25of your baby.
23:53On the contrary,
23:55we have
23:57girls
23:59who break up
24:01because the man
24:03says,
24:05I do not want
24:07babies.
24:09I want you to lead a
24:11full and free life,
24:13directed towards knowledge
24:15and liberation.
24:17I do not want you
24:19to be saddled with babies.
24:21And the girl
24:23breaks up.
24:25She says, what kind of man?
24:27Probably impotent.
24:37Six weeks into the relationship
24:39and she starts clamoring for marriage.
24:43Six weeks into the marriage
24:45she starts clamoring for
24:51cultural conditioning.
24:55The ideal desi girl.
25:03And there would be so many
25:05who would actually be celebrating
25:07that we are ahead of China now.
25:21Yes.
25:23Yes.
25:49Yes, literacy is
25:51the contraceptive.
25:53But wisdom
25:55is the best contraceptive.
26:11This is exactly what I wanted to point out.
26:13What you just said.
26:15I was looking at some of the numbers
26:17and this is very
26:19true that as the literacy is going up
26:21the TFR is falling.
26:23And the fertility rate will continue to fall
26:25for India also but still we will keep growing
26:27because of the sheer momentum which has already been built.
26:29But what's interesting
26:31is, so I was just reading that
26:33in the UK, in 2020
26:35just post pandemic,
26:37the lockdown era,
26:39the fertility rate has gone up
26:41after a decade.
26:43It was 2012 or something
26:45it was kept on falling, slowly, slowly,
26:47it was some 1.4 something
26:49and it has become 1.51 something
26:51in 2022.
26:53And there's nothing to say
26:55about the literacy rate of a developed nation like Britain.
26:57So point is
26:59that as you just
27:01very well mentioned that education
27:03itself is not enough. Given the time,
27:05freedom and
27:07the thought to wonder,
27:09people did
27:11enter into
27:13this sort of a thing in which
27:15they thought that they are free enough
27:17to have more children. And they utilized
27:19this time to do exactly.
27:21And this figure is also true for many other countries.
27:23Maybe they didn't reverse the fertility rate.
27:25Also, one more thing.
27:27It's not just that
27:29the COVID period gave them
27:31a lot of free time, leisure time
27:33and hence the fertility
27:35rates went up. It's not just
27:37the time factor.
27:39Something additional
27:41as well.
27:43The fear factor.
27:47The more afraid you are,
27:49the more you are likely
27:51to reproduce. The more
27:53insecure you feel,
27:55the more desperately you want to have
27:57kids.
27:59And wisdom,
28:01spirituality alone
28:03can drive away your
28:05core fear.
28:07So in spite of being educated,
28:09if you are
28:11somebody terrified,
28:13you will still
28:15procreate more.
28:25I
28:27could speak endlessly for hours.
28:29We have yet
28:31not talked of the impact of
28:33population,
28:35human population, the population of
28:37this one species
28:39on the populations of
28:41the millions of other species,
28:43billions of other species.
28:45We have not talked of what
28:47it means to have one
28:49additional homo sapiens on
28:51this planet.
28:53What that means to the other species.
28:55What that means to the
28:57planet itself and
28:59its entire ecosystem.
29:01We just
29:03talked
29:05keeping human beings
29:07at the center, especially the
29:09female human being at the center.
29:11But if we could widen
29:13the perspective,
29:15you will find
29:17human population is the
29:19biggest curse on this planet.
29:21The day
29:23a human baby is born,
29:25entire existence
29:27weeps and moans.
29:31The day a human
29:33kid is born, rest assured,
29:35entire existence
29:37is weeping and goes
29:39into mourning.
29:43That's the impact of
29:45one human birth.
29:47And still,
29:49I don't know.
29:51It's all very appalling.
29:57I'll stop here.
29:59Thank you very much.
30:05Thank you very much.