overpopulation

Ecocide is Omnicide

Movie still from The Road (2009), adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name. (Photo courtesy of Boomtron.)

“Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.”

—Joseph Campbell

I really don’t know where, if anywhere, to go with this one. Suffice it to say I’m feeling quite scatterbrained lately, what with the horrifying events unfolding seemingly everywhere in our tumultuous world and just how little attention and recognition they receive. (I should really stop watching the news for a while.)

I guess I’ll just start by mentioning that you’d do well to prepare yourself to entertain another one of my rants—a rant is very likely what this will amount to—and that this particular rant will be decidedly more detailed than the tirades I’ve put up on this blog thus far.

However—and secondly—I do think an essay like this one is something sorely, so sorely, needed, especially given the circumstances we now face…

Anyway, here it is: though many certainly feel this sort of assertion has been so beaten to death that it’s effectively been put through a thousand deaths and rebirths just to die a thousand more times as it’s driven down to the bottom of hell, it bears repeating—and will bear repeating until the human race either perishes or fixes this shitshow—that things are going very, very wrong for our environment here on Earth.

No surprise there, surely! As I said, this thing has been absolutely pulverized! It’s not really news to most anyone anymore.

“So,” you might ask, “why are you even mentioning it?”

It’s a decent question. While I did give you a fair warning about all the redundancy and such, am I not simply belaboring the painfully obvious, regardless? Am I not just wasting my time, if not also your time, and if so am I just writing this in some stubborn defiance of myself, in a reflexive defensiveness arising from an inability to admit that I’m not really saying much, if anything at all, that’s “new”? And to what end, if any end, then? What kind of genuine environmental advocacy can actually be accomplished on a WordPress blog that gets maybe a few piss-dribbles of views a few times a year, its author shouting into a void? (Perhaps most important is that I ask myself if I’ve now been reduced to psychoanalyzing my own inclinations as a prospective blogger…)

No, no. Sorry, friendo, but I really do think any individual should be afforded the privilege to bitch and moan about the decimation of the biosphere if ever there were a subject worth bitching and moaning about.

You can call me cynical or glib or edgy for saying this, but, this being my rant, I’ll say it anyway: I am progressively at odds with the course global civilization has pursued and, despite the clear consequences of following this trajectory, pursues still. Very many people are increasingly aware that catastrophe is around the corner, that the “alarm bells” of environmental ruin have been blaring for decades now, yet humanity—seemingly powerless to free itself—continues to be held hostage by a band of reckless, avaricious kakistocrats as they drive the rest of us off a cliff. Yes, I have no doubt that the failing enterprise of global industrial necro-capitalist (I’m borrowing a term from Prof. Subhabrata B. Banerjee, PhD, a […]

[…] from finds itself failing precisely because it rests upon a system rotten at the very root.

And yet that’s not to suggest I don’t enjoy the fruit —penicillin, microwave ovens, tequila, curry, the Internet, movies, and so on—but rather that the path we’ve collectively taken has become incredibly treacherous over the past century, and is now doubtlessly approaching a precipitous clifface. (Largely in order to bear those very fruits!)

Does that make me a hypocrite? That I see the problem rooted in mass-production (among other things), yet buy into coporatocracy?

I will be frank: I sincerely feel that we, as this dizzyingly complex and interconnected and technologically wondrous society, are either on death’s doorstep right now or, if not, may well reach that threshold soon. Let’s not keep pretending otherwise, please! And, while you might say The chips are down and we Sure, the human enterprise, human civilization, has never without faults, and so long as humanity is humanity I sincerely doubt we’ll acquire some ever-metastasizing, self-immolating engine of avarice we call the “global economy”, merely masquerading as what might other is, in retrospect, beginning to look little more than a fever dream, a lot less than anything one might call “civilized.”

Guy McPherson, often considered one of the most pessimistic climate researchers—McPherson spearheads the “near-term human extinction” (NTHE) movement—calls industrial civilization a “death cult.” I hate to agree with him on that, but it really does seem to be the case nowadays. Even Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, warns that current consumption patterns constitute a “global suicide pact.”

Yes, we have many luxuries and conveniences, all born of the cooperative efforts civilization has won us—but at what cost?

We live with the delusion that these “hard-won” luxuries are everlasting, or at least long-lasting, but neither is true. The fact is that today’s society steals from the future, and exists at the expense of many future generations. (If they should live to see what has become of the world.) This is evidenced by an annual global resource overshoot, which occurs earlier and earlier each passing year.

In the process of extending our ecological footprint, we also destroy the very bedrock of our global civilization. All wealth ultimately comes from ecosystem services provided by a healthy environment, that health implicitly including a stable climate. We have natural capital there. We have the food and water and shelter on which we all depend. Yet deforestation, for instance, now occurs on an unprecedented scale. Not to mention the dire state of the world’s oceans, now being acidified by atmospheric carbon uptake on a level never before witnessed.

We all, in our own ways, pursue freedom. And I think we should. The law of liberty is all-encompassing. Humans are hardwired to pursue happiness. But what kind of happiness would it be, should we not be allowed to fail every once in a while?

Problems arise, however, when so very many people make so very many bad decisions on such a regular basis that their pursuit of freedom, individually—in their own lives—is consistently irresponsible, and destroys the opportunities that would otherwise be afforded to future generations. The kind of food and water insecurity that unabated climate change will reap, for instance, will all but make sure that future generations do not have the time or resources to pursue their passions with the same level of opportunity, the same range of options (or “luxuries”) that we now have.

Let’s be clear about this, once and for all: Anthropogenic climate change, especially when compounded with other types of environmental destruction (resource mis-allocation and over-consumption, land degradation, pollution, etc.) represents the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. The problem is so vast and multifaceted. It is one precipitated by both personal and societal choices, by stubbornness on the part of politicians, greed on the part of stockholders and investors, selfishness on the part of individuals, willful ignorance on the part of corporations, and so on.

The Circle of Life (date unknown), by Steve Cutts

Anyway, in the spirit of brutal honesty and existential dread, here’s a little more data:

The United Nations’ UNFCCC’s COP21, a pivotal meeting to take place in Paris later this year (from November 30 to December 11), is intended to rein in humanity’s carbon emissions so as to keep the world under 2C warming (above the pre-industrial average) this century. However, current pledges by the world’s countries (INDCs, or Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) fall incredibly short of an adequate goal, perhaps by 19 or more gigatons of CO2. While all the world’s countries are expected to submit some kind of binding pledge, only a fraction (as of 9/11/2015) have stepped up to the plate, even though little more than 2 months remain before the conference gets underway. Current pledges (which aren’t even guaranteed to be carried out) only account for about 59.4% of global carbon emissions.

Science writer David Auerbach called the UN’s work on climate change “a nice gesture, but hardly a meaningful one.” I would tend to agree. He also concludes, echoing the notion of Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, that humanity will be extinct by 2100 due to climate change and dwindling resources.

It’s also worth mentioning that 2 degrees of global warming may itself be considered quite dangerous, according to a number of scientists, including James Hansen (one of the world’s greatest authorities on climate science, known for raising awareness of dangerous climate change in the 1980s). It certainly wouldn’t bode well for Pacific island nations, many of which prefer a 1.5C goal—one that is essentially impossible to achieve without some kind of miraculous technology, or an unimaginable shift in global trends. Some of the world’s biggest emitters (including Brazil and India) have yet to submit an INDC.

As it stands, a 4C or greater warming scenario is the most likely for this century. That kind of change in temperature will lead to a world that is unrecognizable by today’s standards, and one in which civilization may itself find no quarter. The Earth’s atmosphere currently contains above 400ppm of CO2, and about 2000 ppb of methane. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising by about 2ppm per annum. The last time the Earth saw 400ppm CO2, sea levels were between 15 meters and 25 meters higher than they are today. (~50-~82 feet.) 350ppm (ideally less) is often regarded as a “safe operating space” for humanity and Earth’s ecosystems. We are on track for far more greenhouse gases to enter the atmosphere. We need to go “negative,” and yet residual CO2 (that which is not absorbed by the oceans—itself the cause of ocean acidification) continues to build up in the air, remaining there for potentially hundreds of thousands of years.

Couple climate change with other forms of environmental devastation and resource wastage, and you have a “perfect storm” of future holocausts. Nearly 10 billion people are projected to live on this planet in 2050, consuming ever more resources at an ever-more unsustainable rate. (Consider that India and China, the two most populous countries in the world, are consuming more and more resources in a more hedonistic “Western” fashion.) Of course, with the effect climate change may very well have on crops (not to mention water availability), I think we will likely see a massive cull of the human population over the course of this century. According to a co-national, government-funded study (developed by Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute), global catastrophe may plausibly occur over the next 30 years if humans don’t change their ways.

All this being noted (though it’s ultimately a drop in the bucket compared to the larger reality of what we’re doing to ourselves and the planet’s ecosystems and climate—and I could continue on much, much longer), it is high time—it has been high time for quite a while—that the human race consciously shifts its patterns of consumption and pollution in a dramatic fashion. Environmental destruction can only continue so long. Our species is in the business of fouling its own nest, and frankly it’s damning to ourselves and all future generations. It’s reprehensible, dastardly, evil on an unimaginable scale. It’s us running up against the edge of our Petri dish, and only then wondering where the agar went. And this at the expense of almost everything we know and care for.

The horrifying reality of our situation comes down to this: ECOCIDE IS OMNICIDE. That is, you cannot plunder and squander away the very basis of your life, the source of all that sustains you, without destroying yourself in the process. There’s really no other way to put it. Yachts and McMansions just don’t cut it, especially on a planet carrying what will soon be 10 billion people, already stripped of many of its finite resources.

So, considering that humanity seems less than inclined to change its course, I think the best advice we can take—in these most insane and soon-to-be-awful of times—is to “participate joyfully,” as it were.

Of course, life has never been peachy perfect. We all suffer in our own way. But we also have the option to make the very best of our circumstances, come what may. If we cannot change our destructive habits, and will ultimately destroy ourselves in the process, we ought to at least do what makes us happy. Hell, we ought to be doing that anyway. That’s always been, if anything, the perennial truth. To again invoke Joseph Campbell, “follow your bliss.” Cliché, yes—I’m sure you’ve all seen an image macro, or side of a hippie Volkswagen, featuring that line—but as meaningful as ever. It has always been crap out there in some form or another, but that doesn’t mean we can’t carry a great light on our journey through the darkness. It doesn’t mean we can’t, at the very least, smile before the end—untimely or not.

Taking a Hint From the Georgia Guidestones

(From the University of Michigan online.)

The U.S. state of Georgia has something of a personal Stonehenge. And, while I’ve never been to Georgia—and, really, I’ve never been inclined to go—I think I can assume that these stones are a bit… heterodox… for their place below the Mason–Dixie line.

When I think of large tablets being erected in some southern state, I imagine a marble copy of the 10 Commandments making an awkward addition to a courthouse or State Capitol. But the Georgia Guidestones, nestled in the earth in the state’s Elbert County, are anything but religious strictures. They are, rather, suggestions and “guidelines” on how humanity can conduct its affairs on this planet, rather than please a celestial being beyond the Earth. Having derided the Guidestones as artifacts of the “New World Order,” tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorists have desecrated them a number of times now. But the message of the Guidestones still stands strong. It reads:

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

The Georgia Guidestones. (Source unknown.)

I can pretty much agree with all of this. But the most important guidelines, I would say—especially considering humanity’s current predicament on a fragile planet of finite resources—have to be 1, 2, 9, and 10. Let’s look at the current state of world affairs, and dissect the importance of the first and last two guidelines:

1. “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.”

Current population levels, clocking in at about 7.2 billion (as of 2015), are wildly unsustainable. We have committed ourselves to serious overshoot. With this many people on the planet, and the population expected to rise to between 9-11 billion by the end of the century (if our species can even make it that far without wiping itself out, and much of the Earth’s biodiversity with it!), we are barreling toward catastrophe. Couple this with climate change, environmental degradation, resource depletion, and pollution, and it becomes clear that we are leaving ourselves, and our decedents (if they even manage to survive), a hell on earth. I don’t think that 500,000,000 needs to be a strict number which we should follow, but in general we should aspire to have a much lower number of humans living on the planet. This would free up a huge amount of resources for both humans and other lifeforms to reap and share. When we look at the dramatic loss of fresh water, as well as mineral depletion and the fast-approaching “peak everything,” it becomes clear that this is a better course of action. The loss of half the world’s wildlife should serve as a wake-up call.

2. “Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.”

I will say that I’m not to keen on the “fitness and diversity” bit. (It sort of smacks of eugenics.) But, in any case, we most certainly should guide our reproduction wisely. To begin with, isn’t it morally questionable to bring a child into a world whose future looks as grim as ours? Secondly, if we do bring children into this world, why are we bringing so many of them into nations where poverty, war, instability, and food and water scarcity run rampant? The explosive population growth of developing countries shows that many parents are not considering their children’s futures, nor the future of the planet. It doesn’t take much brain power to realize that, on a planet quickly entering the opposite of an ice age, and one of finite resources, having a bunch of kids is not only bad for oneself and one’s country, but for society, the world’s ecosystems, and the future as a whole. People should consider where and when they have children, and how many they are going to have. Granted, many pregnancies are unwanted, and a lack of access to birth control thus imperils many societies. Sadly, for cultural and religious reasons, many countries still ban contraception. My contention is that they only do so to the detriment of their own national stability.

9. “Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.”

Before you pass this off as some cliché hippie platitude, I would suggest that you take into account the fine points of this statement. The operative phrases in this passage—”truth,” “beauty,” “love,” “harmony,” and “infinite”—are some of the most important aspects of the human experience, and well represent the goals and aspirations of many people the world over! The personal and spiritual achievement of self-actualization (though implicitly indescribable), could be very well expressed using these phrases. And what does this world need more, if not a change of heart—a collective heart that embraces opportunity, infinity, harmony, and love—that leads to prosperity for all living beings? As comedian Russell Brand has stated, “The fusion of spirituality and activism feels like it is emerging for the first time since the Sixties.” I hope he’s right.

10. “Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.”

We seem to be doing a terrible job on this last one. All of the aforementioned issues add up to this: humans are currently a disease to the biosphere. In our current predicament it seems that humanity, and the biodiversity of the planet, will be destroyed by selfishness, greed, and ignorance. (Buddha was on to something!) Perhaps we would like to save ourselves, our children, and future generations from the calamity of climate change and ecological destruction? We must dramatically change course if we want that better future, and, as of right now, it has been decided that extra yachts are more important.

We can change our practices and policies in order to live more harmoniously with the Earth’s ecosystems, thus ensuring not only the survival of many plant and animals species, but also our own.

Pope Francis and Inconsistent Climate Concerns

The baldachin over the tomb of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. (Source unknown.)

“I’m not a scientist.” That’s a phrase which, nowadays, seems to echo through the halls of the Capitol in Washington. Despite the overwhelming consensus on the existence of climate change, and its severity, many American politicians seem content to ignore the horror that awaits.

Well I’m not a scientist, either, but I find it easy to understand and accept the science on climate change. I’d rather it (anthropogenic warming) didn’t exist, but we can’t go on just ignoring the facts, anyway. Many of the environmental crises that face the world in the 21st century can be understood through a basic review of the—I would argue—highly flawed and discordant societal systems of which we are all a part. It takes no more than a little cursory research, some empathy, and intuition to get the fact that the world is going to hell in an ecologically-devastated hand basket.

Well, it’s not all shit. (Not just yet, at least.) Despite a kind of virulent denialism on part of many political and business leaders, a few important religious figures have stepped up in response to this growing, impending disaster. Pope Francis is perhaps the most championed person in this category. He has gained some considerable attention on the issue, especially due to the announcement of a forthcoming papal encyclical which would urge Catholics to combat the crisis.

Anyone who has been following Francis’ undertakings would be right to call him something of a progressive, at least relative to most of his predecessors. But on the issue of climate I think that Francis is a bit inconsistent. In fact, he fails to really challenge one of the major contributors to climate change (and other environmental catastrophes): overpopulation.

The connection between overpopulation, and thus over-consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, is clear. (It’s no small wonder that larger carbon sources can be connected to more densely-populated areas.) And yet the Pope has no effective way of addressing this issue. In his recent visit to the Philippines, he merely suggested that Catholics not breed “like rabbits.” His view of contraception is still in line with his predecessors, and this is impacting the world in a truly negative way. The Canadian Guelph Mercury reports that the Church’s insistence on abstinence from birth control is contributing to the impoverishment of many people in Uganda, for instance. This is a direct contradiction of the Church’s stance on charity, and its efforts to alleviate poverty around the world. I myself was raised a Catholic, and I was often told of the virtues of giving to the poor. However, it’s simple logic that, the more people there are, the less there is to go around. That isn’t to say that the allocation of resources isn’t itself a problem, but that overpopulation greatly magnifies a persistent issue of wrongful consumption.

In any case, the Catholic Church needs to reform its views on contraception and overpopulation if it wants to be consistent, considering both its stated climate concerns, and its concern for the world’s poor.

“Pax et bonum!” proclaimed St. Francis. Let’s take his words to their logical conclusion. Let the Catholic Church move in a direction that is consistent with its views on climate change.

We’ll All Learn to Love the Cold

(From Alpha Coders.)

This past year, it became clear to me that the vast majority of the world’s leaders are either suicidal, insane, or both. And not only that! When they go, they want to take you and me with them!

In the face of the current climate crisis very little is being done. It seems that presidents, prime ministers, kings, and chancellors would much rather take short-term economic ease over the long-term survival of the human species. This really is insanity—self-destructive, masochistic, damning insanity—considering that the IPCC’s warming limit (2°C) for dangerous climate change is perhaps only two to a few decades away. (And, according to at least one report by the IPCC, even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today, we would still be “locked in” to a global temperature rise of 1.45°C above the pre-industrial average. (And considering that at the current 0.85 degrees (mean surface temperature above the pre-industrial) we’re already witnessing hugely detrimental effects to agriculture and the environment, a 0.6 degree increase will undoubtedly bring much more chaos.)

Granted, the view that what’s helpful to the environment always comes at the expense of the economy is decidedly wrong. (It seems that way to me, at least. Not to mention a growing number of politicians and corporations…) And it must be! Because we aren’t going to convince billions of people to revert to hunter-gatherer survival, or communal simplicity, when the alternative is a fucking flat screen and a smartphone and a dollar for a McDouble.

This is where anarcho-primitivists (who want or promote said reversion—effectively modern Luddites) and ultra-environmentalists (notably Derrick Jensen—although, to be fair, his critique of civilization is also bound up with notions of anthropocentrism and other, extraneous philosophical stuff) think the world should head (or should’ve stayed) if we want (or wanted) any kind of sustainable, and meaningful, future. They should, however, be aware that they are up against over a billion Chinese and Indian nationals eager to live the kind of unsustainable lifestyle enjoyed by most Westerners at this time. They should be aware that stopping this is next to impossible, and that the best that can be done is to adapt and mitigate NOW, to the best of our abilities.

This whole conundrum, of course, is alarming. And I agree with many of those concerned that modern civilization, especially with its hyper-capitalist bent, is clearly unsustainable. But what can and should be done, instead of a reversion, is an attempt at education, reformation, adaptation, and—as I say—mitigation. “Think globally, act locally,” the mantra goes. Yet the world is in dire need of a global answer to a global problem such as climate change, a problem which is both propelled by the unsustainable scramble for finite resources, and at once also accentuates the current and future lack. (Food and water scarcity seems unavoidable with current projections (including 9 billion+ people on the planet) unless something drastic is done.) The United Nations and the slew of experts behind the IPCC seem to have little effect on the policies of individual nations, and most of these countries are unwilling to do what it takes to save humanity from the inexcusable drove of suffering and death that climate change is sure to bring, should they not act.

It seems, then, that more than ever the future is in the hands of individuals. If we cannot rely on our governments to do anything useful, then it is up to us to make a change that is both local and global in its scope.

If we don’t do anything—and, actually, terrifyingly enough, even if we do something—we ought to learn to love the cold. Because it will get much, much hotter, and much more dangerous. People will be much thirstier and hungrier and the seas will rise and the world will burn. All the more so, I’m just saying, if nothing is done. We ought to take what we can get, you know? Even if we can’t completely stop climate change in its tracks, it’s just sensible to do what we are able to in order to make the future as bright as possible, under the conditions we’ve already brought upon ourselves. (And the rest of the planet’s biosphere.)

My fear is that even the most minimal efforts to combat this won’t really materialize. (Yes, the current pledges by world governments and business leaders amount to less than zero, as far as I’m concerned.) And why, then? Because no one gives a shit. In a lackadaisical epoch of Call of Duty and Oreos, very few muster the courage, resolve, and willpower to tackle the future. And if there is a future to tackle, it certainly is the one just ahead of us.

In summation: Let’s not crash head-on into oblivion, but ease ourselves into the world we want to have, and that we want future generations to have.

We Are Not Alone

(Source unknown.)

REDACTED doesn’t seem a terribly common name, even if it is unisex. So few people know REDACTED—at least around REDACTED—that when I tell them my name they have to do a double-, triple-, or even quadruple-take, attempting to correct themselves.

“REDACTED?” They’ll ask.

“No, REDACTED.”

“REDACTED? You said REDACTED?”

“REDACTED. REDACTED. REDACTED.”

“With a “REDACTED“?”

… Anyway, that’s sort of how introductions tend to go for me. It doesn’t peeve me anymore, really. Now it’s just funny. I fully expect to be, and indeed I am, known as Brian to at least a few people. Primarily a former co-worker from Peru.

Have you ever been tempted to go online and look up your name? It’s a strange feeling. Next time you do decide to Google yourself, put your name in quotes (of course). I would then highly recommend clicking the “Images” tab—what pops up can be anything from stiflingly boring, absolutely hilarious, mortifying, depressing, or outright shocking.

The fact is that we aren’t alone with our names. Names, those things that encapsulate us as individual beings… you’d think there would be some inherent sacredness about them. No. Sorry. They’re nearly omnipresent, at least for the majority of us.

Imagine my surprise when I found out just how close to “Jon Doe” “REDACTED” is:

Apparently I’m … REDACTED…

I also have the pleasure of being a REDACTED, as well as a REDACTED. Yes, I’m REDACTED. (Two of them, at least.) I’m also from REDACTED, interestingly enough. (I’m admittedly a little envious of this other REDACTED. REDACTED sounds pretty damn good, especially with the ass-kicking (I mean that in a bad, bad way) winters we get here.)

So maybe I’m one of a few million people with REDACTED to their name. So what?

Considering this, I began crediting myself as “REDACTED” in my blogs and such. There’s no way that anyone else could possibly be a “REDACTED“, right?

Wrong again. But only by a hair: There are two—two—REDACTED other than myself. (Well, that’s what Google can detect with its wizardry, in any case.) Apparently one of them lives in Illinois, and the other one was arrested in Philadelphia for possession of heroin with the intent to distribute.

As intimidating as heroin dealers might be, I have to admit that, after finding this out, I had a little bit of a sort of morbid desire to meet this guy. He’s what? Two, maybe three hours from me? Pennsylvania isn’t so far from yuppie-nutmeg-country. It would have been pretty jaw-dropping to meet another REDACTED, much less a REDACTED at all.

It was my intention, as an aspiring writer—of sorts—to quite literally make a name for myself, one that would stand out amid the crowd, the sea of John Does, John Smiths, Sarahs and Ashleys and Chads and Joes. What will I do now? I can’t really use my full name. It just doesn’t roll off the tongue too well. “Ryan Vincent Stewart” doesn’t have the same ring as “John Stuart Mill” or “John Lee Hooker”.

And you know what? It wouldn’t matter anyway. Because, apparently, there’s a REDACTED in West Unity, Ohio.

Now what lightens the mood a bit is REDACTED, son of REDACTED, apparently a serviceman in the U.S. Army during WWII. After all this debasing of identity, I got a bit of a kick out of that.

It just goes to show that if you do enough snooping ’round digital space you’ll find all sorts of useless facts about people you’ll never meet, or who’ve been dead and buried for god knows how long now. Maybe that makes me a proverbial “creeper,” or just an asshole, or whatever.

All of this is ultimately the consequence of living in a world of 7 or 8 billion and counting. What? You expected to be unique? You are one helluva ubiquitous snowflake, my friend.

Maybe, after all, we shouldn’t condemn celebrities for giving their kids such fanciful names as Pilot Inspektor (son of Jason Lee) and Jermajesty Jackson (son of Jermaine Jackson). Then they’ll go down in history without parentheses after their name on the pertinent Wikipedia page; they will be known for something more than the fact that they are the offspring of people who regularly bathe in liquid gold.

Maybe, after all, we ought to start naming everyone John Doe, or John Smith, or…