Within your culture as a whole, there is in fact no significant thrust toward global population control. The point to see is that there never will be… - Daniel Quinn

By the simple act of being locked up, food was transformed into a product—the fundamental product of your economy.

The religions I just mentioned—the revealed religions—are fundamentally wed to our cultural vision, and I use the word wed advisedly. These religions are like a harem of sanctimonious wives married to a greedy, loutish sensualist of a husband.

Now, the way the Zeugen imagined it, the gods have a special knowledge that enables them to rule the world. The knowledge includes the knowledge of who should live and who should die, but it embraces much more than that.This is the general knowledge the gods employ in every choice they make. What the Zeugen perceived is this, that every choice the gods make is good for one creature but evil for another, and if you think about it, it really can't be otherwise. If the quail goes out to hunt and the gods send it a grasshopper, then this is good for the quail but evil for the grasshopper. And if the fox goes out to hunt, and the gods send it a quail, then this is good for the fox but evil for the quail. And vice versa, of course.If the fox goes out to hunt, and the gods withhold the quail, then this is good for the quail but evil for the fox. Do you see what I mean?
"Of course."