Thread: Should there be child restrictions

Well, in europe people should be encouraged, the native birthrate is sub 2.11 and thus is unsustainable. If we wish to be self sufficient without immigration we should enourage having children in the western world. Perhaps developing countries should place restrictions but that's up to them to decide.

62 million is enough (perhaps even too much) for the UK at least. Maybe a rate of around 1.95 should be aimed for but the current native rate of 1.6 (Last time I checked) is simply too little.

It would be wonderful if we could stop having children until all orphans are adopted out, then the world can continue makin' babies again.

i don't like kids and i'm never making any, so don't worry about me. i'm going to get sterilized when i can.

in my opinion, one of the most responsible things you can do is to not make any children. that relieves the burden those extra people would put on everyone else - no need to set aside any extra resources.

people who keep saying "the more the merrier" can go fuck a fruit basket.

If the government has this right, what else would this lead for them to enforce? preserving food consumption by governing how much food one family can buy? Governing the economy by setting restrictions on how much money a certatin family can make? To better then environemnt by governing and setting restrictions on the amount of miles you can drive your car a day?

Those examples may seem absurd now, but if you grant the government the right to control persoal freedoms like how many kids you can have, think about what else the governement might see fit to govern. It's giving the government too much power. I don't know about you, but thinking of the possibilty of having a government like that is a bit frightening.

Originally Posted by cygnus

i don't like kids and i'm never making any, so don't worry about me. i'm going to get sterilized when i can.

in my opinion, one of the most responsible things you can do is to not make any children. that relieves the burden those extra people would put on everyone else - no need to set aside any extra resources.

people who keep saying "the more the merrier" can go fuck a fruit basket.

Smart, wealthy people need to make more kids; dumb, poor people need to make less.

The dumb, poor people are most likely not going to stop making kids anytime soon, so if we don't then the next generation is gonna be composed solely of dumb, poor people.

bringing people out of poverty and educating them are the best ways to deal with overpopulation, especially in developing, third-world countries (the ones with insane growth rates).

i don't know why people say something like, "oh no the government is gonna go stipulatin' on us!"
we're not in china.


spart, i think you're putting too much emphasis on "smart genes." sorry, but that logic really comes across as racist or just socially darwinistic. and if these supposed smart people try to keep up with the dumb ones, we'll just have twice as many dumbfucks.

Originally Posted by Repo!

but if you grant the government the right to control persoal freedoms like how many kids you can have

Its no bodies personal right to overpopulate this planet. You have 2 options, You can let the world overpopulate to much and have a plague come by and decrease our numbers drastically or you can regulate how may kids people have and over the next 200 years the population will decrease. Either way the numbers will decrease but atleast if you limit how many kids people have no one will have to suffer.

Originally Posted by cygnus

spart, i think you're putting too much emphasis on "smart genes." sorry, but that logic really comes across as racist or just socially darwinistic. and if these supposed smart people try to keep up with the dumb ones, we'll just have twice as many dumbfucks.

You know what I mean, dumb as in uneducated. Thanks to wonderful capitalism, poorer people (which are quickly becoming the majority in North America) are unable to seek proper education, and thus are stuck in low-end jobs or even crime. Because of this their kids grow up in misery and are also unable to get education or good jobs. It's REALLY hard for the lower classes to break out of this cycle (but not hard at all for the higher classes to fall in it).

All I'm saying is that if you're in a position where you're wealthy and stable enough to properly raise a child and give him all the opportunities to be successful in life, then it is your "duty to humanity" to have kids.

did you not read the first half of my post?

that would solve nothing. if we agree on the poverty issue, don't you think that if you leave the underprivileged on their own that cycle is just going to continue to churn out more people in the same situation?

making more high class people just so that they can have a cool life is just... no.

From a pragmatic perspective, no, it really doesn't matter what we do.

In time, as with all populations of organisms, we'll reach a population in balance with what the planet can sustain. Thermodynamics doesn't take any prisoners.

This might mean mass starvation in the near future, especially with oil running out. On the other hand, factors like economics may cause a more gradual transition. What we're actually currently seeing is birth rates declining worldwide. Hopefully that'll continue and somewhat dampen the violence of the transition.

But yeah. I don't worry about these things so much. When humans become concerned about nature... I always find that a rather arrogant position. Humans are nothing to the will of nature. If there are too many humans, nature will sort that out by herself.

Originally Posted by Thatperson

Well, in europe people should be encouraged, the native birthrate is sub 2.11 and thus is unsustainable. If we wish to be self sufficient without immigration we should enourage having children in the western world. Perhaps developing countries should place restrictions but that's up to them to decide.

62 million is enough (perhaps even too much) for the UK at least. Maybe a rate of around 1.95 should be aimed for but the current native rate of 1.6 (Last time I checked) is simply too little.

The mistake here is equating population decrease with 'sustainability'.

It could well be the case that there are an excessive number of humans on the planet, so a decrease is in fact the sustainable option.

Before we started relying on hospitals and medicine to keep our population up and consistent, we were only having one or two children because the mortality rate was LOWER. Now, people are multiplying like flies because of both the increased amount of medicine and the lack of rule saying there's a limit. Now there's asses like the Gosselins having eighteen children, not only damaging the population but also donning a sort of "fake lifestyle" to their children. I agree 100% with the statement that there should be a child limit per family.

People don't need more than one or two children; it just gets too messy. Each new child to a parent will have half the attention they'd have received if they were the only child. Then there's the issue of poverty... I feel that there's not enough resources on the planet to keep all of us alive because there's too many of us to begin with.

people who keep saying "the more the merrier" can go fuck a fruit basket.

I have to agree with Repo here... I'm all for not overpopulating the world, but I don't think the government should have the power to force people not to have babies.

Originally Posted by Hidden

I have to agree with Repo here... I'm all for not overpopulating the world, but I don't think the government should have the power to force people not to have babies.

IMHO having more than a few kids is just a lack of self-control, that should be controlled. We're clearly failing at that.

Originally Posted by Puffin

Before we started relying on hospitals and medicine to keep our population up and consistent, we were only having one or two children because the mortality rate was higher.

that's a little off - a higher mortality rate actually means that people have more children. the point is that the infant mortality rate in developed countries is lower, life expectancy is up, and it's more sensible to not have such large families. those in developing nations have such a high rate of population growth partly because they need children to support them, especially as they age. [edit: this is also caused, worldwide, by women having children earlier in life - which is strongly related to education]

Originally Posted by Hidden

I have to agree with Repo here... I'm all for not overpopulating the world, but I don't think the government should have the power to force people not to have babies.

again,

Originally Posted by cygnus

bringing people out of poverty and educating them are the best ways to deal with overpopulation, especially in developing, third-world countries (the ones with insane growth rates).

i don't know why people say something like, "oh no the government is gonna go stipulatin' on us!"
we're not in china.

the government has more of a responsibility to address these things more competently, and actual control like you mention is very unlikely to happen in the western world.

Ah, well... I knew what I was trying to get at.

Originally Posted by Puffin

Before we started relying on hospitals and medicine to keep our population up and consistent, we were only having one or two children because the mortality rate was higher. Now, people are multiplying like flies because of both the increased amount of medicine and the lack of rule saying there's a limit. Now there's asses like the Gosselins having eighteen children, not only damaging the population but also donning a sort of "fake lifestyle" to their children. I agree 100% with the statement that there should be a child limit per family.

Erm... Source? From what I've read, people have less children now than they did before.

People don't need more than one or two children; it just gets too messy. Each new child to a parent will have half the attention they'd have received if they were the only child. Then there's the issue of poverty... I feel that there's not enough resources on the planet to keep all of us alive because there's too many of us to begin with.

Yes, although I think there are also benefits to having siblings.

Originally Posted by Puffin

IMHO having more than a few kids is just a lack of self-control, that should be controlled. We're clearly failing at that.

It's more than just a simple lack of self-control. I'd say it's more from poverty and a lack of education. The general trend seems to be that more affluent families have less children than poorer ones.

Edit: Sniped.

@cygnus: Well then, bring people out of poverty and educate them if that will deal with overpopulation. I was only trying to say that the government shouldn't be able to directly limit the number of children a couple can have (which probably wouldn't happen anyway, as you said, so it's kind of a moot point).

Originally Posted by Hidden

Erm... Source? From what I've read, people have less children now than they did before.

Overall trends say our population is going up.

Originally Posted by Hidden

It's more than just a simple lack of self-control. I'd say it's more from poverty and a lack of education. The general trend seems to be that more affluent families have less children than poorer ones.

this is also because of fundamentalists who think contraception is evil because according to their religion, every sexual act must be an act open to life and between two married people - assuming the woman is a virgin before the marriage or she'd have to be killed. so be abstinent or just take it in the ear \sarcasm

in addition, that kind of control wouldn't happen because the christians who run this country also believe that it's virtuous to have a number of children.

Originally Posted by Hidden

Erm... Source? From what I've read, people have less children now than they did before.

Originally Posted by Puffin

Overall trends say our population is going up.

as i said earlier, people have fewer children in developed nations. this doesn't consider overall population growth and especially high rates of growth in developing nations.

our population is growing exponentially.

during my first year in a university the world population was 6.5 billion, now it's fucking 6.8

Originally Posted by Puffin

Overall trends say our population is going up.

Originally Posted by cygnus

that's a little off - a higher mortality rate actually means that people have more children. the point is that the infant mortality rate in developed countries is lower, life expectancy is up, and it's more sensible to not have such large families. those in developing nations have such a high rate of population growth partly because they need children to support them, especially as they age.

That's what I meant to say. The population may still be going up, but its rate of growth is going down.

Originally Posted by Hidden

The population may still be going up, but its rate of growth is going down.

yeah, that's the thing... the death rate went down and the birth rate went up after the industrial revolution. for a country to survive and do well, the birth rate needs to be much closer to the death rate (as is the case in many european countries).

human population growth

ok, i'm going to summarize part of this with the difference between a more developed nation with no overpopulation (sweden) with one that's less developed and has population issues (mexico)






notice how in sweden the death rate fell coinciding with the industrial revolution. but more importantly, the birth rate gradually fell so that they are now more or less at equilibrium, an example of responsible population management.





so, mexico is very different. the death rate fell, too, but look at how the birth rate is still very high. the rate of natural increase is much much higher, and this puts a lot of strain on the entire population - mexico is definitely not one of the more well-off countries.

indeed the world birth rate should be slowed but in europe it needs to be increased slightly.

Saying dumb people should have less kids would end disasterously. Would 5 GCSE's equate to a pregnancy licence? The thing is, the more educated people complain about the fact that less educated people have higher birthrates, then refuse to have children.

when are you people going to separate "dumb" and "uneducated"?
goddammit, they're not interchangeable.

spartiate just had to use that phrasing
q(-_-)

Normally, this falls under my "all people have all rights to do all things, so long as they hurt no other people or the environment" rule, but this gets a little bit dicey. One has the right to have as many children as they want, but overpopulation is something that would severely affect other people and the environment.

We've either hit or are about to hit the so-called "peak oil" phenomenon, and cheap energy has largely been what has enabled the human population to grow and develop so much. Modern agriculture relies on petroleum; anyone who says that organic or fossil fuel-free systems will sustain our current expanding population is very stupid. If we continue to grow, shit will hit the fan pretty hard when it finally does.

I wouldn't be one to place a fixed limit on the children per family ratio. It somehow feels wrong to do that, and especially wrong to give the government that kind of control over my personal life. Maybe a prohibitive tax structure should be used instead? It kind of follows along the line of "more children=greater burden on society." You can have all of the children you want, but you will pay for them.