Wish List

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, now with a Morguefile photo by FidlerJan.)

(Topic credit goes to &Susanzeitler for http://www.bubblews.com/news/6246273-my-wish-list . My comments on that one got long enough to be a separate Bubble.)

First of all, I'm glad that by writing this as a response to &Susanzeitler's Bubble I get five wishes instead of the usual three. Five wishes are easier!

1. I'd wish for people to acquire the ability to live in peace, (1) by committing themselves to the Highest Good for all, and (2) by having one child or none so that future generations don't grow up emotionally damaged by overcrowded living conditions.

2. Peace presupposes that people have enough to eat. But it might be necessary to mention that people also learn to live in peace with animals, killing only the ones that actually endanger humans, and letting other animal species live naturally.

A few weeks ago someone who'd been away for a while reported that she was unaccustomed to seeing "cats all over the streets" in her old neighborhood, and it made her wonder "why people don't care." People do care--about cats, and about other people--when they understand that the need in human residential areas is to control traffic to keep cats and humans safe, rather than trying to keep cats indoors and prevent the cats from doing their natural job!

Personally, if I visit other humans in a residential area and don't see any cats on the street, after a few blocks I start to wonder what's wrong with the neighborhood. I start to remember that in parts of Prince Georges County, Maryland, we accepted anti-cat policies as necessary to protect a rare bird species known as Bachman's Warbler, and the result was that rats became the dominant predator species. A catless neighborhood is a plague waiting to happen.

3. Peace also presupposes that humans don't produce more babies than there are jobs for those babies to grow up and do. More jobs being done by machines mean fewer humans being born. Peace means more peace between wives and husbands as both accept that nature intended us to share many kinds of pleasure other than making babies.

4. However, peace also presupposes peace with the environment...so the idea of an individual owning a motor vehicle or a computer seems ridiculous. Very few of these expensive devices with huge carbon footprints are built. And the idea of spraying poisons on large areas of land is recognized as an outburst of violent insanity, definitely enough to get anyone who expresses it banned from Facebook (although in a society where people practice peace I don't imagine Justin Carter would actually have been arrested).

(See https://www.change.org/p/release-my-son-justin-carter-being-prosecuted-for-a-facebook-comment . Change.org is not a commercial or "referral site," even though every time you sign a petition in aid of something reasonable people want the system tries to trick you into signing a more dubious petition, so beware.)

5. Finally: in order to live at peace, people actively cultivate peace with themselves...getting counselling if they need it.