Lambdin, Spencer

HONORS 100
Harrington & Willis
11/7/15
Reflection on To Repair the World
In my opinion, the largest issue facing modern society is the
dichotomy between growing global populations and the desire for
equal yet high standard living. In our current societal standing,
resources are highly unequally dispersed and efforts to smooth this
inequality are met with governmental and societal roadblocks due to
individual and group greed and selfishness. As we progress throughout
modern times, individual desires have increased parallel to increasing
technological, agricultural, social, etc. advancements. Similarly, as
healthcare advancements are made, population sizes are drastically
increasing. And so, we have the highly unsustainable practice of
increasing personal desires with an increasing number of individuals
with these desires. In order for us to solve this dilemma, we as
individuals and as societies, must overcome personal selfishness for
the greater good.
In a world where hope and history rhyme, our society would need
to fundamentally change and unite in order to solve this impractical
course. The first step we would take is to slow, if not eliminate
population growth for now. Already, half of the world lives in poverty.
We should not tax our resources and abilities anymore than we already
are by increasing the population. By increasing the population, we are
simply adding more strife to our dilemma. The second step in a world
where hope and history rhyme consists of two inversely related
options. First of all, we somehow create technological advancements
that allow us to raise those in impoverished circumstances to bearable,
if not thriving standards. By increasing our ability to produce food and
clean water, we would be able to raise people out of poverty and allow
undeveloped countries to decrease effort spent on agricultural and
allow manifestation of developed economies, and thus increasing
standards of living within these areas. If these technological
advancements are available, then the opportunities for
underdeveloped countries will drastically increase without any
negative effects on developed countries, and possibly overall positive
effects. However, if these advancements are not feasible, then the
second option becomes necessary. The second option in a world where
hope and history rhyme is the re-disbursement of wealth from
developed nations to developing nations. In this scenario, developed
societies would have to overcome their inherent greed and selfishness
in order to embrace socialistic policies. People would have to adopt a
far more compassionate mentality, in which they should not derive joy

from their privileges and goods unless everyone has an equal chance
to gain these same opportunities. Therefore, the more technological
advancements made, the less privileged individuals need to sacrifice
and vice versa. Once those suffering in immense poverty are allowed
to achieve an acceptable level of success within the world, and we
have remaining resources, then we have the option of allowing
population growth. Therefore, in a world where hope and history
rhyme, we stop population growth until we either re-disburse or create
wealth so that every individual has the opportunity to live a
respectable and joyful life.