This was a favourite challenge in the early 1970s. For those who can remember what a Mini Cooper was like, other than its legendary fast pick up and road hugging ability, the Mini Cooper was a little fun car. And it was shaped like a small lunch box fit for a driver and a front passenger. The little space behind could squeeze a couple of adults in a very compromising manner but definitely not for two fat guys.
The challenge then was to squeeze as many bodies, living beans, into the Mini. And if I am not mistaken, the record was 17 or 18 bodies. How could they do it? The bodies were crumbled like contorted sausages, not the nicely sardine pack. And the poor guys or gals at the bottom must be gasping for air and feeling the weight. But never mind, they would not die of suffocation or compression. They would remain in that uncomfortable position for a minute or two before being dragged out to live another day.
The moral of the story is that you could force people into very uncomfortable little corners for fun, for a moment. But when you want them to stay that way for anything longer they would not be able to bear the discomfort. No way.
You want to squeeze in 10 million or 20 million people into this island? For goodness sake, get your head examined. Or you are going to rent out your properties for triple the value to live on your rent while you migrate to Australia or some bigger country to live a life of spatial luxury? The temperature is rising here. The people are angry and the foreigners took are losing their cool and bashing up the natives. And we only have 5.4m people today. You want to double that and double everything and think it is fun?
If it is to prove how clever you are to squeeze more people into a foxhole, just try to put more people into a 3rm flat for a try. I think I can easily stuff in 300 people with room to spare, like stuffing bodies into a Mini Cooper, to prove a point. But that kind of things are not for real, not a condition for people to live their lives.
Again, why would you want to squeeze 18 people into a Mini Cooper? Why do you madly want to put 10m or more people into this island to over populate it? The world leaders are trying to save the world by cutting consumption and reducing populations. What kind of fools are insisting on increasing population and consumption but turn around to exhort people to be green to save Gaia?
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/