Lady M. "I did enjoy our conversation earlier. By the way have you had any feedback from the browsers?"
MHK. "Indeed I have. The very first person to listen to our conversation was the informaticien Henry Cardenas, who sent the files to the website in Leeds. He remarked, "Just remember me, will you when you get the Nobel Prize". I replied that I would be more than happy to 'keep my skin' - thank you very much indeed! In fact, we are in a dimension way above Nobel Prizes, we're somewhere up in the stratosphere - in 'the sacred'. 'The 'population problem' is the one and only human problem of this order of magnitude -, unique, vast, and seemingly insoluble. To think of 'prizes' is indecent. Even global warming, which is closely linked to it, comes second. What the Nobel Institutions could do is to award The Peace Prize to 'The 1-child'. Perhaps the parents of all '1-children' could enter them for the prize, and a limited number of prize winners be chosen by lot to go to Stockholm and get a medal and diploma. This would lift the Hardinian taboo properly, and set benign uproar buzzing." [Note: There are, very properly critics of this piece, I have left it in for the moment as being the best way to indicate the awesome scale of the problem].
Lady M. "Do you really
mean to tell me that, by helping to keep the Hardinian taboo firmly
in place in respect of demographic entrapment, the United
States Government is actively preventing humanity from taking an
essential step towards solving its greatest problem?"
MHK. "Indeed I do. What
else can one conclude from the evidence
that I have already given you?"
Lady M. "But it is unthinkable!"
MHK. "Well, we had better get used to thinking it!"
Lady M. "My God! Sorry, that's blasphemous. I mean My Goodness! The mind, as they say, 'boggles' . No wonder the poor browsers have difficulty 'taking it all on board'!"
MHK. "Mind you, I shouldn't overdo its effect in maintaining the Hardinian taboo, but it does seem to be having a key role in preventing the dialogue opening. The State Department cannot be very keen to see the debate on entrapment opened if it persuades The Lancet not to publish one's papers, threatens ones personal security, and has one interviewed by its 'Agency'. And all this into the context of the rest of the evidence, which although much of it is more important, is much less immediately obvious."
Lady M. "So what happens next?"
MHK. "I think that, in order to avoid further gross international disgrace, Bill Clinton should make a public apology, and go down in history as the greatest US President in all time." [We beg to be forgiven the lèse majesté, but it is of necessity essential to maximize the 'benign uproar'. Ed.]
Lady M. "That would lift the Hardinian taboo in minutes to the immeasurable benefit of you 'earthlings'.* It would do an enormous amount to reduce further starvation and slaughter."
MHK. "There has to be an immediate, rapid and radical policy swing. UN policies for food and population really have now reached 'cloud-cuckoo land'* - wherever that is! A couple of continents are demographically trapped (never mind China) - yet this is never even mentioned! The fact that the rate of increase of global grain yields is now less than that of population has yet even to be discussed in UN meetings. It is also less than all experts consider necessary, see. Even 'family planning' has become so 'politically incorrect' that it has become 'reproductive health', and as for 'population control'...!!"
Lady M. "Tell me what would you do, if you were Madelein Albright, Secretary of State and responsible for the US State Department?"
MHK. "I don't imagine that anyone in the State Department really anticipated the hole that she is now in - or really wanted to get her into it. Its staff imagined, in so far as they realized that there was a Hardinian taboo, and thought this far ahead, expected that they could hold it down for ever. They also imagined that their activities in holding it down could remain covert for ever, and did not expect anyone to call them to order. Most importantly, they did not anticipate the effect of the web, and its role in furthering benign uproar. Remember that Hardin has written that he thinks that 'the solution' to the 'population problem' cloud come quite quickly, although he has never said how. The web may be that 'how'".
"Madelein Albright is therefore sitting on a proper can of worms, or more likely a keg of political gunpowder. She has two choices:"
"She can sit tight, in which case the US policy position on population will become increasingly untenable, and farcical - and that of the rest of the world increasingly tragic."
"Or she can take a vigorous proactive* stance. She can immediately lift the Hardinian taboo, open the dialogue, get her think-tanks thinking, initiate a series of conferences world-wide, and prepare the way for long term policies of lifestyle change - and aid massive disentrapment programmes in the developing world. Even if, for 'political reasons', she cannot do all this, she could at least take some useful steps behind the scenes to lift the taboo and open the dialogue."
Lady M. "What about the governments of the trapped countries?"
MHK. "The trouble is that most of them don't yet know that they even might be trapped. The Hardinian taboo on the general discussion of entrapment has kept them in ignorance. What they need to do - urgently - is to write to the UN agencies, particularly, UNFPA, WHO and UNFPA, and ask "What is this 'entrapment thing' we have heard about?" Are we really trapped and what should we do about it? Then they should bang loudly on the international conference tables, and insist on disentrapment programmes. This would be a very simple step and it would set benign uproar going properly - despite what Bill Clinton and Madelein Albright might or might not do. All the governments of trapped countries need to do is to write a few official letters to the right UN agencies. But they must be careful that neither they nor their representatives are 'bought off' in one way or another, especially by the offer of jobs in the UN. They had better get busy quickly."
Lady M. "All this is not exactly going to make you very popular - is it? You don't really think you are actually going to be loved for all this, do you? Just think of the vested interests of one kind another you have got stacked up against you! The toes you are treading on...! Aren't you scared?"
MHK. "Come off it, on February the 7th next year I shall be 72! I must admit, it does give one a certain frisson, but it certainly adds zest to 'the remains of the day'! My youngest son observed, "Dad, those who want to get rid of people like you have a 'window of opportunity'. If they wait too long you become martyrs". With the opening of this website, I am no longer in that window. I have less than no wish to be martyred. Those who would wish to see me removed from the struggle to lift the Hardinian taboo are reminded that this earthly life could conceivably have no greater reward than to end it in this way. They are also reminded that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church". Besides, to wish for martyrdom is a sin."
"My very dear and ever practical wife remarked that it would be "A wonderful way to go, and would do the cause of disentrapment a power of good! - they might even set up a Foundation in your name!" So much less lingering than carcinoma of the colon."
"Happily then, an untimely end would increase benign uproar,
not reduce it."
Lady M. "The time is ripe for change.
I can feel the Hardinian taboo lifting, and I can hear orthodoxy
cracking up.
See you again on this website soon - Deus volens*. If He doesn't we will meet in eternity - lots of time for conversation there!"