The Mercedes-Benz ad for the E Class offers a depopulated vision of future.
There is no traffic.
There are no people on the streets.
Robots drive the E Class.
The new slavery without the masses.
And you never have to whip a robot to obey an order from the masters.
This is your tomorrow.
World population 2050 = 50 million.
With no bartenders.
The population of Manhattan will be one million.
ps here's the URL for the ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS81h8J2Y3E
The population of the planet in 1952 was approximately 2.635 billion people. I was born in May that year. I will be 63 in two months.
Several years ago UN announced that humanity has reached seven billion people faster than predicted by the most Malthusian experts on growth. The death rate of 150,000 people each day can not keep pace with the birth rate. 50 million short every year from the 1952 population means that over 3 billion people have died since my birth.
3,000,000,000 was a rough figure as was my estimate that 700,000,000 people out of 7,000,000,000 are 60 or over.
One-tenth of the world older than me and 90% younger.
That latter percentage includes my son Fenway and Fluke and my daughters Angie and Noy.
Forever young one way or the other.
ps I heard a population expert asked a question by a TV interviewer.
"What will be the population of the world in 2050?"
"One billion," the venerable scientist answered without a pause to think.
"One billion? The UN predicts 8 billion." The reporter checked his notes.
"They're wrong." The scientist was not impressed by the UN numbers. "One billion worldwide."
"And what will happened to the extra six billion people on the planet now?"
"They will be gone." The scientist laid out his thoughts about how nature will reduce the global population through floods and natural disasters due to environmental change. "And there is nothing we can do about it."
"That is a very dire forecast." The reporter was taken aback at such pessimism.
"No, because those years will be very exciting for the young. The old will not survive. Not them it will be hell, but for the young, it will be a new time of adventure."
In 2050 I will be 98.
I will be living in Thailand on the shores of the new ocean.
My rice factory will turn out the best beer on the planet.
My children will be happy. Their children too. And their children too.
It's all about location for the oldest man left on the planet.
Shotgun in my hands.
Over one billion motor vehicles are in service around the globe. No one on the planet can recall a time without cars or trucks, although as a child I recall the ragman riding the streets of Jamaica Plain, calling out, "Bring out your rags."
I have taken rickshaws in Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand.
But most of my overland travel has been done by cars and the other day I was at an opening for LC Armstrong. Her husband runs an energy acquisition company. Many of the invitees were business associates. An artist was arguing against fracking.
"It's a dirty business."
"We don't do much of it."
They were into slant-drilling in Long Beach.
"That's what all oil companies say."
Profits for the energy industry was up everywhere.
"For us it's the truth."
"It doesn't matter," I interjected with a glass of wine in my hand.
"Why doesn't it matter?" the artist had just returned from a successful campaign in Europe.
"Because we're already doomed. The world cannot sustain cars or this economy based on cars."
"And what will take its place?" The oil exec was wearing a hand-tailored suit. "Electric cars?"
"No cars."
"No cars?" exclaimed the painter.
"No cars at all. No electric cars. No gas powered cars. No cars." The auto industry loved building ugly electric cars.
My prediction unified the painter and oil exec.
"Cars will be here forever."
"They weren't here 200 years ago and that is part of forever. Fifty years from now there will be no cars. Maybe even sooner." I wasn't about to tell them that the world population with be reduced by climate change from the present six billion to 500 million. People aren't ready for that news.
"Never happen."
"Never has a funny way of not being never." I shrugged and went over to my host.
"Thanks for the lovely evening."
Philip loved my writing and I asked him for a job.
I wasn't a hypocrite about cars. I loved GTOs and needed money for my kids. They will see the time of no cars and I think I will too.
If I'm lucky.
