We cannot afford enemies any more... Within a generation or two human society will be in total destructive disarray. Heaven knows how bad it will be. The most optimistic view I can take is this: Things will get so bad within a dozen years that it will become obvious ... that we must, whether were like each other or not, work together. We have no choice in the matter. ... Technologically, we can stop overpopulation, but we have to persuade people to accept the technology. ... Babies are the enemies of the human race ... Let's consider it this way: by the time the world doubles its population, the amount of energy we will be using will be increased sevenfold which means probably the amount of pollution that we are producing will also be increased sevenfold. If we are now threatened by pollution at the present rate, how will we be threatened with sevenfold pollution by, say, 2010 A.D., distributed among twice the population? We'll be having to grow twice the food out of soil that is being poisoned at seven times the rate." - Meaning and context.">

We cannot afford enemies any more... Within a generation or two human society will be in total destructive disarray. Heaven knows how bad it will be. The most optimistic view I can take is this: Things will get so bad within a dozen years that it will become obvious ... that we must, whether were like each other or not, work together. We have no choice in the matter. ... Technologically, we can stop overpopulation, but we have to persuade people to accept the technology. ... Babies are the enemies of the human race ... Let's consider it this way: by the time the world doubles its population, the amount of energy we will be using will be increased sevenfold which means probably the amount of pollution that we are producing will also be increased sevenfold. If we are now threatened by pollution at the present rate, how will we be threatened with sevenfold pollution by, say, 2010 A.D., distributed among twice the population? We'll be having to grow twice the food out of soil that is being poisoned at seven times the rate.

— Isaac Asimov

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "We cannot afford enemies any more... Within a generation or two human society will be in total destructive disarray. Heaven knows how bad it will be. The most optimistic view I can take is this: Things will get so bad within a dozen years that it will become obvious ... that we must, whether were like each other or not, work together. We have no choice in the matter. ... Technologically, we can stop overpopulation, but we have to persuade people to accept the technology. ... Babies are the enemies of the human race ... Let's consider it this way: by the time the world doubles its population, the amount of energy we will be using will be increased sevenfold which means probably the amount of pollution that we are producing will also be increased sevenfold. If we are now threatened by pollution at the present rate, how will we be threatened with sevenfold pollution by, say, 2010 A.D., distributed among twice the population? We'll be having to grow twice the food out of soil that is being poisoned at seven times the rate." in the context of "As quoted in Isaac Asimov (1977) by Joseph D. Olander and Martin Harry Greenberg, p. 165" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Isaac Asimov" (Quotes, General sources, 1971–1980) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Isaac Asimov

About Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov (c. 2 January 1920 – 6 April 1992) was a Russian-born American biochemist who was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction, his works include the Foundation series and I, Robot.