Ask Alexandra – March 2015

1) Dear. Ms. Paul,

I have recently watched your TED talk on overpopulation and would like to comment on several factors that you brought up.

I agree with you when you stated that the world is overpopulated because the population of the world is seven billion people. That is a lot of people. It seems like a blaspheming amount when you think about how it was four billion around the time when you were going to school compared to now. I also agree when you stated that resource availability is a problem that continues to lead to starvation and poverty because “Almost half the world – over three billion people – live on less than $2.50 a day” (Poverty Facts and Stats Author And Page Information by Anup Shah, This Page Last Updated Monday, January 07, 2013).

However, I disagree with when you said, “but they would also be wasteful” referring to children because children are beautiful inspiring little miracles. A quote I found and agree with says “One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day” (Susan Orlean). Children are bundles of joy like the sun shining a bright smile at you. I also disagree with the statement you made about the one child policy because we are a developed country whose advancing so fast in technology such as GMOs, Precision agriculture, Drones, etc that just arguing supply and demand is not enough. If you look at all the technology and what it can do now its hard to imagine what technology we’ll have and what it will be able to do in 10, 20, 30 years. Not to mention you do not even have one child so you don’t even know how it feels to have children. Also like you and your mother even said you could be choosing not to have someone who could really make a difference such as find the cure for cancer, be the next president, or invent something extraordinary which could even be an invention to help this problem. In addition, by you telling people to only have one child they are likely to counteract because that is our human nature. Humans don’t like to be told what to do and more than likely they will do what they want to do. In conclusion, I don’t agree with the one child policy but we can agree to disagree.

Thank you for teaching about this issue and making me think about the topic of overpopulation.

Sincerely,
Lauren Hargat

Hi Lauren,

I appreciate you listening to my TEDx talk on overpopulation. I am glad we found some common ground, and that you agree the world population has grown very large in a short amount of time. You also see that there is a resource availability problem.

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant when I said children are wasteful. I totally think they are “beautiful inspiring little miracles” but they will also use many, many resources! Resources that we just do not have enough of anymore.

In terms of one of those children inventing something amazing, their chances go down when schools are overcrowded – even in the United States, the richest country in the world, our government cannot afford to give every

I do not have the faith in technology that you do, but even if I did, I do not want to live in a world of 11 billion people. I am tired of the traffic (it takes an hour to go 10 miles in a lot of places), concerned about the pollution (Paris had worse air quality last week than it has ever had before and had to ban some cars from driving to get it down) and scared of the water situation all over the world (Sana, Yemen will become the first capital city to run out of water; California is in a drought so bad we are tapping water tables that have not been touched for tens of thousands of years). Technology cannot make crowds go away, and it cannot bring back untouched land.

If we truly love our children, we will give them the chance at a better world. We can all agree that quality of life will be better if we do not have to figure out how to give 11 billion humans food, water, shelter, schooling, peace, quiet, privacy, jobs.

Thank you for your thoughtful email. I look forward to hearing from you again sometime in the future.
Alexandra

2) Alexandra, first of all you are one of my favorite actresses. I always enjoy watching you on film. You make it look so easy.

One of my favorite movies is “Christmas Crash” with Michael Madsen. You two have quite a chemistry together. The movie is not available yet or at least I haven’t found where I can get it. Do you know when it will become available for purchase or where I can get it now other than France? I don’t speak French. Thanks.
Beverly Watts

Hi Beverly,

I am so glad you enjoyed watching Christmas Crash. Unfortunately, Christmas Crash is not to be found online or in dvd in English. Like you, when I did a search I found it in Spanish and French only).

However, you might be able to get it directly from the production company, which is near Vancouver in Canada:
NGN Productions
604-637-9790
http://nasserentertainment.com
Nassent@pacbell.net

Good luck finding it. Let me know if you manage to get it!

Thank you for writing in.
Alexandra