Familiar breeds
The adage, familiarity breeds contempt, is generally used to mean that once you get to know someone well, you begin to find things about the person that you dislike, which leads to fault-finding, and the next thing you know, you are on the exit ramp to contempt. It is a very short trip sometimes. I have nothing to rant about that.
Yesterday, I ranted about the increasing sense of informality in post-modern life that leads to contempt for the courtesy and respect we need to keep society civilized. In a culture’s curriculum, Manners 101 is the class where you learn to keep your hands in your lap, instead of around someone’s neck. It should be a prerequisite for Intro to Society.
But that’s not what I want to talk about today. The decline into barbarity is growing, not only because familiarity breeds contempt, but (and I hope you are sitting for this insight) because familiarity breeds.
That’s where all those babies are coming from, people: familiarity. It means “undue intimacy.” Look it up. And undue means “excessive.” According to U.N. estimates, we have 7 billion people on this planet, and as we speak, a lot of them are getting familiar.
If you enjoy that kind of excess, you can watch familiarity breed in real-time here.
For those of you who are mathematically inclined (I’ll give you a moment to straighten up), you will both enjoy and understand the following formula that explains the population growth:
where
▪ N is current population
▪ T is the current year
▪ C = (1.86±0.01)•1011
▪ T0 = 2007±1
τ = 42±1
This, of course, can be simplified thus:
F = BB
where
- F is familiarity
- BB is billions of babies
Are you as concerned as I am? You should be. Finding a parking spot is going to get a lot harder, and there are going to be a lot more people who don’t know what to do with their hands.
(NOTE: This neck-breaking news would not be possible without Wikipedia, which posted that first formula by Russian physicist Sergei Kapista, which spellcheck first insisted should be Quipster, and then insisted that quipster should be hipster. He sounds very cool. The simplified formula came from me, in case you were wondering.)
year-struck 
After they’re bred,,they’ll need to be fed,,and who’ll give the bread,,to pay for they’re meds,, the taxpayer it’s said,,until they are dead!!
Smiles.
Not being mathematically inclined, I am glad you have simplified the formula. If somehow we could factor in more familiarity that is well-bred, perhaps we will avoid being overtaken by oafs. Or rabbits.
Licensing might be difficult to enforce.
All very scientific, especially in your ability to simplify the formula with such elegance. Is it any wonder that I did *not* excel in the sciences, when my teachers continually refused to simplify thus? Maybe they were just too busy breeding contemptuous babies.
I do believe I have the gift of simplification; it is not for nothing that my mother called me simple-minded.
Great post — funny and clever. Thanks for putting it all in perspective!
Glad you liked it.
I have always been a firm believer that people need to be licensed before they do some things. Pruning is one of them, reproducing is another. It’s not a popular concept but I hate seeing square yellow forsythia. As for octamom, good grief! Fun post.
It’s not completely farfetched – you need a license for hunting, fishing, and getting married. And I agree, the doctor responsible for octamom’s eight should be jailed. Glad you liked the post.
Oh dear me … parking spaces are going to be scarcer, how will I cope? Currently I drive around to try to find two vacant spaces so I can ease my (small) car in without the need to parallel park it. Seriously, those world meter stats are scary.
It does give you somewhat of a panicky feeling to watch those numbers on that world population site. More and more people and fewer and fewer resources (including parking spots).
Stanley Kapista’s last name is dangerously close to the Russian and Polish word for sauerkraut: kapusta. Just an observation…:-)
If it’s just a difference between “u” and “i,” we can work it out. : )
I meant Sergei. Sergei Kapista/Kapusta.
Sergei, Stanley, it’s all sauerkraut to me.
lol lol lol….love love it!
So glad you do.
Love your commentary…very funny. And, again, I’m impressed with your math skills.
🙂
My math and my mind are both simple.