The earth can support 1.5 to 2 billion people as per the resources it possesses. Now, we stand at a number of 7 billion. Over-population has been a problem of the masses since more than a decade now but the numbers do not seize. Couple that with facts and you ask yourself -- have we turned the world to a time bomb?

It is 2017 now and with an ever increasing population, the questions of nature having been drained dry, and the picture of the world on the brink of destruction with humanity being a lost cause continue to haunt us. One thinks then -- are the schools of thought a result of cynical minds trained by the effect of the epidemics? To understand either side of the phenomena, let us rewind a little.

From depths of hell- Dante, Dore and Brown

Gustave Dore- Painting of hell Canto 7 Dante's Inferno Gustave Dore- Painting of hell Canto 7 Dante's Inferno

In the 13th century, Dante Alighieri, in his 'Divine Comedy' gave the most vivid image to the abstract concept of heaven and hell.

In doing this, he also inspired a number of artists, painters and writers to imagine and create their own versions of hell as a raging inferno and heaven as a paradise.Gustav Dore painted the hell depicted in Dante's work with his own grim vision of human bodies piling up on each other, sickened by plague, rolling in their own excrement and tortured by their own burden. What is interesting is how apt the vision stands even today.

Botticelli - Map of Hell Botticelli - Map of Hell

As many may recognise this relation as a part of the infamous Inferno from Dan Brown, what is essential to note is the centre of the debate-- the moral crux of humanity burdening the earth and themselves with the mere presence of an ever-increasing population.

This brings us to two astounding schools of thoughts to have come up recently-- antinatalism and a sort of plague theory.

Decoding the plague

While it is true that chances of global epidemics are increasing every day because of an increased population, what the other side of the coin holds seems to be an even graver aspect but somewhere plausible.

Since times immemorial, the human population has been growing in almost a geometric progression. London was the first to hit the 1 billion mark in 1800 but then, in just another hundred years, the population reached two billion and so it went on till today where it stands at 7 billion and is predicted to hit 9 billion in 2050 by WHO.

Yellow Fever/Black Death Yellow Fever/Black Death

Be it yellow fever or the dark ages, nature lashes out when it has been over powered. So, with this population statistic, are we to expect another epidemic soon enough? Also, is the epidemic then not a necessary evil? Almost every problem today from natural or medical to moral can be traced back to excessive people and limited resources. So, as staggering and nerve wrecking the thought may be, it can be readily believed that a plague will be a saviour for humanity.

Art, Literature and Philosophy

Michelangelo's The Last Judgement/Giovanni Francesco Romanelli Michelangelo's The Last Judgement/Giovanni Francesco Romanelli

The revolution in western art and literature has its roots in the proof of the greater ages that arrived after diseased times, be it the Italian Renaissance that followed the Bubonic Plague, or the Industrial Age that emerged right after the Black Death.

Philosophy has its own schools of thought - both for and against population and its growth, the most gut wrenching being Antinatalism.

The debate thus shifts to a moral ground-the future epidemic, which seems rather inevitable, will once again pressurise the earth's humungous population to give in to the seven deadly sins again and again, struggling to survive among dwindling resources; on the other hand, it is the epidemic itself that can be the ultimate cleanser of Earth's population.

Thus, the question that is left becomes-- is the necessity of a plague a moral debate anymore?

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