"On an average, 324,000 new babies are born into the world every day. During that same day, 10,000 persons, on an average, will have starved to death or died from malnutrition. So it goes. In addition 123,000 persons will die for other reasons. So it goes. This leaves a net gain of about 192,000 each day in the world. The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000.
'I suppose they will all want dignity, ' I said.
'I suppose,' said O'Hare."
So we have, and yes they do. Our population is unfathomably large and growing exponentially. Hundreds of thousands of lives come and go each day, and it is really hard to realize or even conceive of this fact. Thus when a massacre occurs like Dresden and World War II it is an even more difficult subject to discuss. Death is always a sensitive topic but there can never be growth or any justification of those lives sacrificed if we cannot openly discuss and comfort one another about such issues. All seven billion of us on Earth do most definitely want dignity, and revolutions such as the one in Egypt earlier this year will turn up at every place that dignity is denied. Rather than perpetuate a cynical kill or be killed Darwinist mindset, there need to be more cooperative discussions and compromises quite soon. On average now that the world's population has doubled, one can estimate for every bomb dropped twice as many lives will be lost. Thus every war from now on will murder twice as many innocent people, and if we cannot realize these facts and talk about them we may be doomed to repeat history.
Q: What does the phrase "If you're ever in Cody, Whyoming, just ask for Wild Bob." mean to Billy Pilgrim now that the war is over and Wild Bob is dead?
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