Competitiveness and overpopulation: a sleeping, dangerous bomb nobody seems to care about
The real social problem
Today most people worry and think about possible roots for all the social problems we are facing- crime, unstable economy, political corruption, lack of morals and values, selfishness, greed and so forth. While it is certain that these issues are of extreme importance and deserve our attention, there is another big, terrible problem that a very few amount of people are aware of: competitiveness in a planet that is uncontrollably increasing.
Many people view being "competitive" as a good thing. In fact, when you read or hear that someone is "competitive" you will think of that person as intelligent, smart, and with a bright future. The truth is that when we put together "competitiveness" with population growth, the result is very close to pure chaos.
I am going to use some math here to later explain the extreme danger that is coming to our world if we don't do anything to stop the way it operates in terms of jobs and economy, not to mention social issues:
7,000,000,000 billion today in the world
Let's say 65% of them are less than 18 years old
But some countries put their children to work so let's decrease the 65% to 55%
That means that for everybody who can work based on the culture, the world needs a little but more than 3.5 billion jobs. As you can expect, there are not even half of that amount of jobs.
In the United States which is has a capitalistic economy which has become more more complicated as new laws have been passed that require special permits, certificates and otherwise any form of "proof" that you are capable to do the job, the panorama is turning somewhat bleak. Finding a job has become more complicated because not only are there more people competing for these jobs but also those who are already employed have been making it tougher for the unemployed to get the jobs. They have enforced the competitive level of such jobs such that what used to be a job easier to find several years ago, today requires a lot of effort. For example, I once applied for a simple cashier job a gasoline station. The prerequisite was to fill an assessment. For some reason, a person like me who am graduated with a Bachelor's, was unable to pass the assessment. I was as honest as possible. Problem is that no matter what they say about being as honest as possible to fill a job, that honesty works against you. For example, if you answer that you are introvert, if the recruiter definitely wants an extrovert, then forget about the job. You were honest... and you did not land the job. Effectively, it would have been worse if you lie because you introvert nature would have been noticed later and problem could have occurred.
Human overpopulation, aside from creating problems in terms of the increase in competitiveness that will end up with millions unemployed, means that because of the complexity of life today, many of these will end up in a criminal life out of desperation to survive. People who are financially stable do not take the time to think about how many others who are in the brink of collapse live their lives, and rapidly judge them without thinking what actually makes that people turn that way. Some say that "it does not matter", but the reality is that it matters a lot because, if we don't identify the roots, what makes a person turn bad, and what makes that person harm others, we cannot have the right tools to help avoid that to continue happening. Most criminals have a turbulent childhood. We say that no child deserves to live in a dysfunctional environment, but we still have a lot of bullying in the schools, we continue to endorse people to not plan their lives ahead and prepare so they can raise a family properly, and especially those who have financial stability do not care about others being able to improve financially, too. Selfishness is one of the greatest roots for everyday's problems, and one example of such selfishness is the irresponsible breeding of children in a world that has been found does not have the resources to sustain all people, at least they have not been managed to be reached by all people in the world.
As population grows and live a normal life of family and work becomes more and more complex, the real question is do we really want to live a life in the basis of an illusion? It's natural that a man and a woman dream of living a happily ever after life when married and raise their kids and enjoy their family time. Nevertheless, the stress at work, the possibility of constant traveling which means constant absence in the house, the reality of bullying and other forms of social problems at school, the risk of losing the job in an unstable economy and any other event that can happen simply obliterates such a dream. If you are this kind of person that tends to get angry easily, then this type of life is not good for you today. You have to know that today's most jobs require some sort of sacrifice, because of the high competition and the uncontrolled desire for power which makes managers to ask more from the employee, including their time with their family. Today there are many jobs that require people to basically be on-call. That means if you are in a concert with your son and your boss calls you because of an emergency and you are this kind of person who gives priority to your job over your children our of fear of being fired if you don't do what your boss tells you, then perhaps it's time now to think if you want to have such a life, instead of simply skipping having a family since the job is your number one priority. Remember, today there are millions of unemployed people as well as unhappy employed people ready to move to some new job, and many managers do not think it twice to fire someone regardless of the implications it can have over you and your family.
Today this is so common and yet nobody seems to address the problem. We continue to worry over the same things and do not realize that this explained above is a huge and extremely dangerous social problem that is getting out of control. Today it is easier for young people to recur to illegal activities due to not being raised properly. The easier solution is to find a way to have a business of your own, but then again it is not that simple. Generally here you need to be certified by doing the most basics of business. You cannot just pickup some place and begin cooking, you need ingredients and a proper place and you might to invest, the same happens with other kinds of jobs, you need some sort of permit and it is not free. Everything has turned very competitive and difficult, and yet there are more people coming and coming to this mess.
The only solution to this problem is to accept and admit that either we change the way the operates financially, or we decelerate the rate of birth. Competitiveness will turn ugly in a couple of decades if we don't give space for the people to have a normal life, if we decide to continue caring only for ourselves and the rest can screw up we will live in a world where suicide would be the only solution for many people, worse than it is today because the help given is not enough, is not free, and simply does not exist for these people. Crime and suicide are direct consequences of both overpopulation and increasing competitiveness to live a normal life- that is, not being living homeless and without any sort of healthy stability.