Monday, March 18, 2024

Gaia's Groove: 5 of 8

Let’s Make a Deal

 

Gaia said, “It’s time we had a little chat, you and I.”

Gaia said, “Yes, I mean you. You! You Humans!  You naughty beasts! Bad children! Bad! I have had quite enough of you! It’s time for me to prune you back! Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way?”

“Now that I have your attention, listen up! You’re too successful; you’ve outgrown your niche! If you want peace with me – your Mother! – then you must do at least one of three things: raise your death rate, or lower your birth rate, or expand your niche.”

“Make no mistake; I can make option one stick! I have plenty of plagues stored up, and droughts and floods and much else! So you’d better show me some respect. As for option two, I’ve already sent out plenty of breed-no-more signals, which you are already obeying!”

“Oh, you’re interested in option three? You want there to be even more of you? And you want to stick around for awhile? The kind of awhile that I call awhile? Well then, act like you’re interested! Change your ways! Plan to colonize deep time!

“Oh, some of you already have plans? Let’s see… sustainable, high-power, low-cost tech… A fine dream, dear clever children! Do you have it? Oh, only two out those three so far? But you’re working on it?”

“Then keep at it! Take all the decades you need to get it right! Meanwhile use up the old tech, and let your population implosion take its course. When your clean green high-tech is ready, let it take over! This I command by the Power of the Invisible Hand!

Friday, March 15, 2024

Gaia's Groove: 4 of 8

Kulturkampf

 

          The Horsemen and the Bikers waged Kulturkampf all over the globe. The Horsemen prevailed in the countryside; this pushed the people into the cities, where the Bikers ruled.

          In the cities, children were expensive but unprofitable, so demand for them fell. Thus Gaia turned ecological stress into economic pressure.

The Devil, watching this, said, “An elegant revenge!”

Gaia said, “Market forces. My kind of system.”

Gaia, Miss Liberty, and the Devil saw Unbirth’s ways differ between cultures. In East Asia, young adults took a Daoist path, and let themselves lose at reproduction. Japan had ‘grass-eaters’, who stayed at home, worked little if at all, and forsook cars, houses, love, marriage, and family. China saw young people ‘lie flat’ and ‘let it rot’.”

That’s the Watercourse Way, but that’s not the American Way. In the individualist West, young adults doomed to fail at reproduction sought fulfillment in other sexualities. Thus non-breeding gender minorities became popular. These included, tellingly, asexuality.

Left and right, the Kulturkampf agreed: down with kids. The left aborted kids pre-birth; the right shot kids post-birth. Left and right, the Kulturkampf agreed: get rid of excess Humans.

Miss Liberty said, “They debate only about details of timing and method; population reduction pre-birth, by abortion, or post-birth, by guns. I call that the ‘guns-versus-abortion-debate’. The aim is the same.”

Gaia said, “They both obey my command.”

The Devil said, “Forced-birthers resist Gaia’s Revenge, but they want a free lunch: an expanding population without a social safety net or a sustainable ecology.”

Gaia said, “Let them try any tricks they wish. But I bat last.”

 

 

         

 

 

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Gaia's Groove: 3 of 8

The Five Bikers

 

The clouds parted, a beam of sunlight shone through, and Miss Liberty floated down from the sky. She landed, she curtsied to Gaia, and she said, “My turn, sister!”

Gaia said, “Can you reduce their numbers?”

Libby smiled. “Let’s find out!”

The goddess of Freedom sent forth spirit warriors. These Bikers rode all over the Earth, quietly preventing Human lives.

These were Miss Liberty’s Five Bikers:

Pornography on a pink motorcycle;

Contraception on a blue motorcycle;

Abortion on a black motorcycle;

Alt-Gender on a rainbow motorcycle;

and Expense on a green motorcycle.

Their master, Unbirth, followed them on a silver motorcycle.

The Bikers rode under a banner bearing this motto:

FREE TO UNBE.

These metaphysical marauders did not kill; they cancelled out. They erased. Their victims did not die because they were never even born. A Biker’s prey ceased ever to have been. Millions vanished, but nobody ever noticed. It was an eerie struggle, a ghostly battle with the unborn. The Five Bikers did not kill; they annihilated.