That explains why I fly into a murderous rage and start stabbing people after eating potatoes. =:O

Seriously though, I totally agree about it just being a matter of people simply staying calm and not getting offended or threatened so easily.

But I think that is sometimes difficult, and I think that overpopulation has something to do with it. It is interesting to me that there is more violent crime per-capita in cities than there is in the countryside. And that if you put too many animals in too small a space, we observe that they begin to fight with each other more often than when they have more space (at least non-herd animals, anyway). I think people may be the same way. Pack us into too small a space, and it is unavoidable that we lose much of our personal freedom, just because there are more people that are more easily affected by what we do. This is the major factor that leads me to believe that agrarian societies are superior to more urban ones.

I worry that with world population exploding, it will lead to bad things and societal decline. Gradually I mean, not some kind of sudden apocalyptic whatever or something. :P I mean, I believe that individual freedom is the most important thing for all of us, and so I don't believe that we have the right to dictate to anyone how many children they are allowed to have, or any other kind of population control either, so there is no easy solution (within my philosophy, anyway).

But, at the risk of sounding like a gloom-and-doom person, I also think that nature keeps herself in balance, and we humans are just a tiny little blip on the geologic timescale of our planet. We're far far overdue for a major pandemic, and I wouldn't be suprised if nature self-corrects herself through something like that once our population rises to a level where it is truly unsustainable. It would be nice if we could voluntarily limit our population growth as individuals, but I don't think that can happen (unrealistic utopian ideal, that), so..... Yanno.

Hmmmmm, that does sound awfully gloomy. Heh. I don't think it will happen any time soon. Far far future stuff I mean. I think there is still plenty of space, at least for now! I'm not an apocalypse crazy! Hehe.