The Greatest Threat to Mankind

Recently, while perusing the various inane posts one can usually find on the Facebook app, I happened to notice a question asked by somebody out there with way more time on their hands than any one person should be allowed to accumulate. The question was, “What do you consider to be, the biggest threat to mankind?” I scrolled through some of the typical responses like, “Hunger”, “Greed”, “War”, “Terrorism”, “Disease” and so on. I was saddened and disappointed to see that a former acquaintance of mine had written his response as simply, “China”. Having lived and worked deep in the heart of China for eight wonderful years and having, during that time, made more than just a few friends from a group of citizens that would have gladly given me the time of day or the shirt off of their backs or the food off of their table, I really took exception to this guy’s comment. So, I responded by saying that I hoped he was joking, and if he weren’t, then shame on him for saying something so flippant and so unsupported (at least by him), considering that he had never set foot in that country or made even the most distant of acquaintances with anyone remotely connected to the country. He responded to my response by reminding me that the Chinese government were still in the process of holding two Canadians hostage in return for a detained Chinese national who just so happened to be the CEO of Huawei Company and finished by saying that my wife and I were indeed lucky to have escaped from China when we did and to feel lucky that we never had to go back there. I, of course, could not let that comment go either. In the paragraphs below, I have written my final response to that man.

Just to be clear, Patti and I don’t believe (as others might), that we “escaped” from China in “the nick of time”. We simply “returned to” Canada for family reasons and plan to go back to China someday when we have the resources to do so. We lived there for 8 years and like the hundreds of foreigners we worked with (including Canadians, Americans, South Africans, British, Portuguese, Australians and others), found it to be one of the warmest, friendliest, safest and most exciting places we have ever lived. Everyone should be as lucky as we were to have had that experience.

With regard to China being the greatest threat to mankind, I don’t think we as Canadians can be self-righteous enough to forget the atrocities that we have committed against mankind in our own country (i.e. treatment of Japanese CANADIANS during WWII, treatment of Indigenous CANADIANS in residential schools in the past and, non-provision of water on reserves presently). By ‘greatest threat’ being China, do you mean Chinese people or Chinese governments or Chinese military or Chinese politicians or . . . Saying that China is responsible for the problems of the world or for the problems of Canada is a pretty generalized and ambiguous statement. I imagine that a greater threat to mankind than China, would be the elitist supremacist attitudes that seem to be emerging in the Western World in particular and harbored by people that do nothing for the betterment of mankind, but rather foster divisiveness and hatred.

It is tough to be a Canadian these days and still be self-righteous regarding the transgressions of others, especially when Canada’s own track record, for crimes against humanity, has certainly been proven recently, to be less than stellar. As Canadians, we really need to rethink this random finger-pointing to which we have grown accustomed. If we feel we can be excluded from blame for the residential schools’ atrocities just because we live in a different time or space or because we are one of those with an “orange shirt” hanging in our porch – think again. In the eyes of the world, we are Canada just like Chinese people are China and German people are Germany and Afghanistan people are Afghanistan. We will likewise, be blamed by the rest of the world for anything terrible that happens within our borders, whether we believe we were part of it or not. Remember too, that there are a lot more than a billion Chinese people who also don’t believe that two Canadians should be held out for ransom (but by the way, whom have been recently released in response to the release of the Huawei executive’s prior release) by the Chinese authorities doing so. When it comes to greatest threats to mankind, it may be more accurate to include America(ns) for the role played in government-sponsored coups and slayings in pretty much every third-world nation on the planet. Why not also include them for their part in uprooting Central Africans from their homes so they could be used as slaves and subsequently for the abysmal treatment of the descendants of those who were enslaved. Why not include the UK (citizens) for their hundreds of years of Imperialism that stunted the economic growth and population of India, and most of Africa? While we are at it, let’s mention Spain and the Spanish and Portugal and the Portuguese for their destruction of Indigenous culture in Central and South America. Don’t forget Japan(ese) for their slaughter of Chinese nationals in Nanjing and Shanghai. What about Germany and the Germans who were part of the extermination of 6 million European Jews during WWII. And finally we need to include Canada and its Canadians for the way we treated our own citizens (of Japanese or German descent) during World War II and our Indigenous citizens in residential schools in the late 1800s and into the twentieth century in an attempt to control that population and culture. Again, we cannot be self-righteous about threats to mankind – we are part of it and always have been. However, no one is part of that problem because of his or her national boundaries. We are part of the problem because of our attitudes and beliefs. If we feel that we are “better than” or “supreme to” other races and cultures on the planet and if we feel entitled to resources and money and power in the name of destiny and God or whatever, then we will take advantage of someone, somewhere, somehow and we will rule over them and point fingers and lay blame and everything else that goes with that attitude. In order for someone to be very, very rich, someone else has to be very, very poor. The planetary system is a “closed” one. There is only so much real wealth in the world. If 2% of the earth’s population possesses 98% of the wealth, then the other 98% of the earth’s population has to share the remaining 2% of the wealth. The math is basically simple, however the sharing of that remaining 2% is neither simple nor fair and equal. Of the left-overs, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of wealth in Western, white, industrialized, technologically-advanced, first-world nations. The left-overs of the left-overs have to be re-shared by everyone else. These inequalities in wealth distribution lead to inequalities in education and health-care and infrastructure and resource development and use and communication and basic life needs. When impoverished individuals and groups and nations become desperate for the fundamental things in life they will resort to desperate measures to obtain them. War, terrorism, genocide, and rebellion are simply the pimples that arise on the skin of our toxic human world. A second problem is that biology is not on the side of impoverished humans. As a species, we are not that far removed from the pre-human ancestors that gave rise to us. Because of this genetically-influenced recency, we still are driven by an instinctual need to propagate. We are still driven by sex. You can see it in our media and our ads and our music and our politics and cars and houses. Sex sells and it controls us. The difference between the rich world and the poor world however, is that in the rich world, sex can be, and is, controlled by everything from actual birth-control to money, to power, to choice, to time and space. As a result, population can be controlled and everything that goes along with a controlled population can also be controlled. Control then becomes an issue for anyone within a controlled world. Anything that is deemed “out of control”, must be dealt with in some way. Banks and stock markets serve a purpose in controlling the well-to-do world. Finger-pointing and blame and segregation and exclusion also play a major role in controlling the well-to-do world. On the other side of the coin/planet, in the poor world, sex cannot be controlled and population increases as a result. When population grows unchecked, then a lot of other problems arise also. Pollution, disease, civil war, terrorism, refugee migration and the list grows on and on. When the impoverished notice that they are different than the wealthy, the poor become angry and when they become poor enough, they become desperate and when they become desperate and angry at the same time, they boil over and shit starts to happen. On the other hand, when the wealthy notice that they are different from the impoverished, the wealthy start to exclude the poor, segregate, point fingers, blame and ultimately use some sort of physical means to control and/or eliminate the poor from the picture.

Which brings us back to the question, “What is the greatest threat to mankind?” Some may argue that it is overpopulation – which sounds feasible if you say it fast. All of the major world problems, like pollution and disease and species extinction and climate change can pretty much be directly related back to overpopulation. I believe, however, that overpopulation stems from the problems created by an unequal distribution of wealth (real and otherwise). A skewed wealth-distribution that favors the very rich and inhibits the very poor, also destroys education, eliminates good nutrition and health resources and other meaningful opportunities for the poor. Without proper education and resources, birth-control and family planning are not a realistic option. The population of poor people rises in all parts of the world. More poor leads to more desperation. More desperation leads to more crime and terrorism. The poor become poorer so that the rich can become richer. As the rich become richer, more urbanization occurs and more resources are used and developed and humans leave a bigger and bigger footprint on the planet and more people have more families and the problems escalate. And there you have it, overpopulation has its roots deep in the unequal distribution of wealth (the unwillingness to share), and not only across the planet but also within national boundaries.

I believe that limits need to be placed on the accumulation of wealth. I believe that governments need to implement tax reforms that cap personal wealth at a pre-determined amount. Does anybody really need to be a billionaire? As an example, if a corporation clears an annual profit of $50 billion, then a certain percentage (say 25%) can be protected by the corporation for the purposes of reinvestment in future development. The remaining 75% of profits go immediately, through taxes, to the government for wealth redistribution through wage subsidies and housing grants, Medi-care and continuing education, etc. The purpose of this chronicle is not to devise a plan for the redistribution of wealth across the planet, but merely to point out that inequalities in wealth and subsequent opportunities have led to major differences amongst individuals, groups and nations around the globe which has ultimately led to divisiveness and hate and blaming and finger-pointing which has, in turn, led to even bigger problems.

Perhaps we can turn to the model of “Salary-capping” used in the sport world, to insure that the rich don’t become even richer at the expense of the poor – and that every team and every player has an equal opportunity to become competitive/cooperative and successful. The “real world” needs to imitate the professional sports world and institute some changes that maintain integrity and equal opportunity for all players involved. I honestly feel that this policy has worked for major professional sports leagues in providing a viable and high-quality product. The reason I know this works, is because I would much rather watch a sporting event than FOX News or CNN. In conclusion then, mankind will never be threatened by China but it certainly is, and will continue to be threatened by a belief that it is alright NOT to share equally and NOT to provide fair access to, the riches of the planet.