What is finitephobia? People who have a illogical fear of running out of resources. This paranoia isn’t new. Well educated people have promised all kinds of scarcity disasters. One day we’re faced with overpopulation; a few decades later it’s water or oil. At the heart of American scarcity paranoia is the idea that the average Wal-Mart consumer is fat, uneducated and polluting the planet. Elitists all over the fruited plain like to look down at these stupid peasants.
Nothing lasts forever, but the idea that we’re at the precipice of running out of vital resources is absurd. There’s no evidence to suggest we’re almost out of any resource. The world could use more clean water, but the Earth isn’t running out of water. In order to have more clean water we have to pay for it. Another popular finitephobia is that the United States is becoming overdeveloped. Well over 90% of the United States is undeveloped, but this doesn’t seem to stop communities from implementing Smart Growth. There’s nothing smart about it.
Ultimately, the irrational fear of scarcity becomes problematic. Here’s a prime example from a finitephobe I encountered at Creative Loafing’s the 941 blog. I tried to make this point about finitephobia and was promptly greeted with a mixture of anger, profanity and condescension. Here was Susan Nilon’s reaction:
It doesn’t take much intelligence to look around you and see that we cannot sustain ourselves at the rate we are going. If you can’t recognize that, then please step aside. You are in the way. [emphasis added]
There’s the rub. “I am in the way.” Well, that’s a fairly totalitarian way of looking at a differing opinion. What’s the solution then? Everyone with my opinion must be exterminated in order to “fix things.” I jest, but when this kind of religious devotion to finitephobia sets in it becomes nearly impossible to have a logical debate. How do you debate someone who is “looking around” and claims “we cannot sustain ourselves at the rate we’re going”? Do we have to stop growing? De we start sterilizing humans? Will the world appoint a Growth Czar to make sure there’s no illegal breeding?
I’m troubled by the elitist mentality by many Americans. It’s especially annoying when these people can’t even form a logical argument. It might be fun to drink cocktails and make fun of people who shop at Wal-Mart. When this sentiment starts shifting from snobbery to a “these people are in the way” then there’s a problem. One last point…. Why is it that so many people who are worried that growth is unsustainable are the same people who don’t see any problem with unsustainable government growth?
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