Population Management – The Privilege of Reproduction.  Assumptions are the curse of rational decision-making.  Whether assumptions are made by an individual where the decision has no effect upon anyone, or assumptions that are made by society that affect everyone, assumptions require exposure.  It is not so much that assumptions are bad, but the effects of using them unconsciously, unaware of their existence, is what causes so much harm.  So it is with an already large society that continues to produce children without conscious decisions by either society or reproductive couples. 

Producing children is an assumed part of life.  If you are in an intimate partnership and you are of reproductive age, then children are an assumed item on the agenda of that relationship.  That assumption is so deeply engrained in the human culture worldwide that it goes beyond being a “right” of adulthood.  It is so deeply engrained that producing children is not even given space in the constitutions of democratic nations – so deeply “given” that of course having children is obvious.  Perhaps that is one of the main reasons that no society, organizations, nation or civilization has ever had the initiative to think this social issue through to its end; and for which all have failed.  Perhaps that is why no society, nation or civilization has ever transcended the failures of all prior nations and civilizations. 

For any society to successfully move toward social stability and ongoing peace every assumption of human existence must be scrutinized for their proactive contribution to the social sustainability of that society.  That includes unquestioned and unlimited reproduction.  This is one of those thorny problems that I mentioned would come into existence when a society has chosen to move toward social sustainability. 

When a society chooses to “bite the bullet” of moving toward social sustainability the transition era of the first and second generations will be one where truly thoughtful, disciplined thinking and action will be necessary.  These two generations will need to do something no other generation in the history of Homo sapiens has ever done before – to consciously design the future it wishes to live in for the millennia ahead. 

The decision to move toward social sustainability will automatically include social issues that support a sustainable society, such as determining who receives the Privilege of Reproduction, and who does not.  How is that going to work?!!!