This thread is starting to get a little iffy in some places. I hope it doesn't get to the point where I feel like I need to lock it or start removing posts, so as an attempt to head that off: if...
Exemplary
This thread is starting to get a little iffy in some places. I hope it doesn't get to the point where I feel like I need to lock it or start removing posts, so as an attempt to head that off: if you don't want to continue arguing about something, please don't continue arguing about it. Don't try to get the last word or "one last shot" in, because that's how the arguments continue to escalate (and usually end up turning personal).
This is another one of those topics where almost everyone has already made up their mind and it's very unlikely that you're going to convince anyone to change their opinion, no matter how rational you think "your side" is. Please try to recognize that and walk away from unproductive conversations instead of getting more aggressive about it.
Right? My wife and I are DINKs but even we're barely scraping by. Between the cost of living, paying off student debts, and just trying to keep savings afloat is RIDICULOUS in and of itself! One...
Right? My wife and I are DINKs but even we're barely scraping by. Between the cost of living, paying off student debts, and just trying to keep savings afloat is RIDICULOUS in and of itself! One unexpected expense comes your way and there goes a big chunk of work! Not to mention the looming sense of doom that is healthcare expenses as we get older.
Same boat here too. My husband and I decided a long time ago that we were not going to have kids, and we recently had the discussion that even if we wanted to we wouldn't be able to afford it.
Same boat here too. My husband and I decided a long time ago that we were not going to have kids, and we recently had the discussion that even if we wanted to we wouldn't be able to afford it.
Short form for Double Income No Kids, i.e. in a relationship, generally financially or environmentally motivated over prioritizing children or offspring. Sometimes (sadly) used in a derogatory manner.
Short form for Double Income No Kids, i.e. in a relationship, generally financially or environmentally motivated over prioritizing children or offspring. Sometimes (sadly) used in a derogatory manner.
This article feels almost desperate to me. Ideas like population control are pretty radical and almost certainly won't do nearly enough. However, I understand the desire to join something like...
This article feels almost desperate to me. Ideas like population control are pretty radical and almost certainly won't do nearly enough. However, I understand the desire to join something like BirthStrike. Not having a child is something that's largely under your control. It's a tangible action you can take that you know will have an impact. But it isn't enough. We need to tackle the drivers of climate change. That involves making a lot of sacrifices ourselves, and unfortunately, probably means forcing others who don't want to sacrifice to give up as well. Our current system of capitalism is not sustainable and there aren't any actions that you can individually do that will be enough.
I really wish it were as simple as not having a child and going vegan and giving up your car (I say this as somebody who does all 3). But it isn't.
Statistically, I'm sorry to say that those actions are basically meaningless. Even if every single member of the population implements those changes, we will only see a 10% decrease in CO2...
I really wish it were as simple as not having a child and going vegan and giving up your car (I say this as somebody who does all 3). But it isn't.
Statistically, I'm sorry to say that those actions are basically meaningless. Even if every single member of the population implements those changes, we will only see a 10% decrease in CO2 production. They're little more than token actions.
We need to tackle the drivers of climate change. That involves making a lot of sacrifices ourselves, and unfortunately, probably means forcing others who don't want to sacrifice to give up as well.
I think what would work is creating a international organization that is capable of handing out a 'climate death' charge. If your company is contributing to more than 5% of CO2 production, you get a single warning, 6 months, and otherwise you're thrown in jail forever.
At this point, economic sanctions will do nothing. Any other political measure short of long, long, jail time, will do nothing. Any person with over 1 billion dollars should be forced to liquidate half and subsidize the council, which will redirect the money directly into alternate energy projects.
Before people whine about me being too harsh, it's important to remember that we are looking at either: A) murdering or throwing around 90 people in jail, using their money to save ourselves. or B) very possibly the death of our entire species, and countless others.
Imo, not having kids leaves you with zero responsibility for the future of humanity. You can be as shitty as you want because you're not playing the game we're all stuck in. Having kids gives you...
Imo, not having kids leaves you with zero responsibility for the future of humanity. You can be as shitty as you want because you're not playing the game we're all stuck in. Having kids gives you a stake in the future, well at least it should. Maybe if more people had kids, especially the type of person who considers not having kids for ethical reasons, then the world may progress in a better direction. Right now it's playing out like the opening of Idiocracy.
I don't see it this way at all. I'm a human, sharing a planet with a bunch of other humans. I will never have children, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to be shitty for personal gain even though...
I don't see it this way at all. I'm a human, sharing a planet with a bunch of other humans. I will never have children, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to be shitty for personal gain even though I don't have any children that may be effected by it. I will be effected by that shitty behavior, as will my friends, and family, and their children.
I've got empathy for the other life on this planet, and I want to see life, including humanity, be able to thrive and continue to exist. Ideally it would be in a sustainable way, where people voluntarily limit the population to a number that the world can support indefinitely. This can be accomplished by educating more people on the costs of having children, and working to make sure that the children that are born are taught what is needed to keep the world sustainable to life.
As a fellow human living on this planet, I am as responsible for the future of this planet as anyone with children of their own, and having been educated myself I know that even if I am not personally effected, my actions effect the future of the world for everyone I care about, and all those that will come after them. We need to work towards a society where people who think it's okay to be shitty because it doesn't effect them personally can be taught empathy for their fellow humans. Everyone has a stake in the future of this planet, whether they have kids or not, and that responsibility has to be impressed upon us all if we're going to be able to continue to live on this planet.
Yeah, true, but those with kids have a bigger stake.
Everyone has a stake in the future of this planet, whether they have kids or not, and that responsibility has to be impressed upon us all if we're going to be able to continue to live on this planet.
Yeah, true, but those with kids have a bigger stake.
But you also have to ignore the impending doom of the environment, assuming you believe in that.. otherwise it raises issues. I have no children, and I no longer feel the pull to have them. But I...
Yeah, true, but those with kids have a bigger stake.
But you also have to ignore the impending doom of the environment, assuming you believe in that.. otherwise it raises issues.
I have no children, and I no longer feel the pull to have them. But I feel like I cannot speak of the coming climatological/political issues with my friends and family who do have young children. I feel terrible for my nephews.
Honestly, to me it feels like people with young children have to have some faith that the world will get better, as it has for eons. Given some emperical indicators, it does not seem like that at this time in history.[1] I feel like we have passed peak humanism, and peak pro-human natural environment at this point.
[1] I could be wrong. I do realize that the world has seemed to have been ending throughout human history. But the political and environmental climates are moving in absolutely the wrong direction.
I don't believe in unavoidable, impending doom. It's not like there's a massive planetoid heading on a collision course with earth. It really seems like you, and a lot of other people in this...
I don't believe in unavoidable, impending doom. It's not like there's a massive planetoid heading on a collision course with earth. It really seems like you, and a lot of other people in this thread, have thrown in the towel. Everyone is treating the political weather like its the political climate. "It's cold outside so global warming must be a hoax" is similar to "Trump is president so the world is doomed."
That's a fair argument. My point as far as climatology can be summed up here: https://xkcd.com/1732/ My point in politics is very related. Trumpism Republicansim is just a symptom. The future that...
That's a fair argument. My point as far as climatology can be summed up here: https://xkcd.com/1732/
There are plenty of other ways to foster a stake in the future. You can adopt, foster, or mentor already existing children without adding another human to the world.
There are plenty of other ways to foster a stake in the future. You can adopt, foster, or mentor already existing children without adding another human to the world.
I think at this point it's basically over, so it won't really hurt anything. Do what makes you happy. To me, I would like to have kids in an ideal world. I think it would be awesome to raise a...
I think at this point it's basically over, so it won't really hurt anything. Do what makes you happy.
To me, I would like to have kids in an ideal world. I think it would be awesome to raise a strong woman or man. I would love them dearly. It's because of this love I can't condemn them to the grim future in store. I at least will be in my 50s or 60s before it gets really, really bad. Relatively young, but still time to live a good long life. Kids born now are going to be at their peak of their potential when it gets baked away.
It's an interesting thought. But to me having kids seems like opting into a guillotine held against your neck for years. If you have children you can essentially die multiple times over. And as...
It's an interesting thought. But to me having kids seems like opting into a guillotine held against your neck for years. If you have children you can essentially die multiple times over. And as long as your children aren't self-sufficient you're entirely responsible for their well-being. I don't want that kind of absolute responsibility.
This is mostly just because the Western world makes it heinously expensive to have kids and really difficult to actually accommodate parenting. If you have even a basic bit of help, like...
Exemplary
This is mostly just because the Western world makes it heinously expensive to have kids and really difficult to actually accommodate parenting. If you have even a basic bit of help, like grandparents who live nearby to babysit, it becomes dramatically easier. Many cultures that prioritize family life do a lot more to value the institutions and norms that make family life possible.
What's more is, right now your kids are just hypothetical so all you think of is the costs involved with having them but you don't have any emotional attachments that would make you want to do the work.
This is no different from having a significant other. In theory you're just getting companionship in exchange for having to dedicate a bunch of time, money, and emotional investment in another person. In practice, you don't think of it that way. You just have a relationship with a person who you care about and you oblige yourself to them because you care about them. When you have kids it's the same way. You look out for them because you love them, not because there is a guillotine hanging over you. And taking care of them feels more like making sure you're brushing your own teeth than someone putting a gun to your head and forcing you to do it.
If you have zero empathy, sure you can live that way. My wife and I don't plan on having kids, but we're still living as eco-friendly as we can so we can sleep a little better at night knowing...
Imo, not having kids leaves you with zero responsibility for the future of humanity. You can be as shitty as you want because you're not playing the game we're all stuck in.
If you have zero empathy, sure you can live that way. My wife and I don't plan on having kids, but we're still living as eco-friendly as we can so we can sleep a little better at night knowing we're not being complete dicks to the planet, and we're doing our part.
Aside from that, this feels like the same reasoning people give for believing in god, "What, if there's no god then why be good at all!?" Um, because I don't want to be an asshole?
Don't you think that you'd be a lot more serious about this if you had a kid? You do just enough to sleep at night, but your personal impacts are negligible.
we can sleep a little better at night knowing we're not being complete dicks to the planet
Don't you think that you'd be a lot more serious about this if you had a kid? You do just enough to sleep at night, but your personal impacts are negligible.
i don't really buy that the states of having a child, wanting a child, or not having one correlate very well with how much people campaign on addressing climate change or personally do in their...
Don't you think that you'd be a lot more serious about this if you had a kid? You do just enough to sleep at night, but your personal impacts are negligible.
i don't really buy that the states of having a child, wanting a child, or not having one correlate very well with how much people campaign on addressing climate change or personally do in their lives to address climate change, personally.
Honestly I'm not sure what "more serious" would mean for us aside from going full-blown vegan. We're vegetarians who succumb to cheese on occasion but don't keep any in the house, neither of us...
Honestly I'm not sure what "more serious" would mean for us aside from going full-blown vegan.
We're vegetarians who succumb to cheese on occasion but don't keep any in the house, neither of us drive/I walk to and from work, we recycle, compost (even though our apartment doesn't have composting, I have to ask a neighbor if it'd be OK that we use theirs), opted into green energy, grow our own herbs, shop at the farmer's market and co-ops, and volunteer for our local environmental nonprofits when they need us.
So no, I don't think I'd be any more serious than I already am if we had kids.
Again, we're not having kids because we feel the planet is doomed. Making that choice doesn't then somehow slide into "Planet's fucked! Let's fuck it more!" I can still care about other people's kids and the generations to come-- we're in fact talking about being foster parents when we can afford to be. When I have the ability to make accessible, personal decisions that can benefit others without overly taxing myself in the process, I'm going to make those choices when I can.
I doubt more people having kids will really help. I could easily people using their children to justify their shitty behavior as well - it's the "I'll do anything for my child" mentality. Let's...
I doubt more people having kids will really help. I could easily people using their children to justify their shitty behavior as well - it's the "I'll do anything for my child" mentality. Let's say the climate situation got much worse, wouldn't we see more riots and looting as people fight to survive? Wouldn't parents have even more reason to act violently, since they love their children so much?
Even without this extreme scenario, having children doesn't really prevent from focusing on the short term to the detriment of the long term wellness of humanity. All the oil tycoons had children too, and that didn't stop them from building their legacy by destroying the planet.
It's only recently that people have stopped having children, so the point we are now was due to people who had children (at least in part). A stake in the future didn't stop them from behaving horribly.
I don't think the people you described were aware of the pressing environmental catastrophe. That's kind of a new thing, so parents alive today may think a bit differently.
I don't think the people you described were aware of the pressing environmental catastrophe. That's kind of a new thing, so parents alive today may think a bit differently.
This implies people can only make ethical decisions when they have a personal stake in doing so, which I think is patently untrue. This is as asinine as religious arguments claiming atheists have...
not having kids leaves you with zero responsibility for the future of humanity.
This implies people can only make ethical decisions when they have a personal stake in doing so, which I think is patently untrue. This is as asinine as religious arguments claiming atheists have no reason not to be murderers and rapists because they don't believe they will be punished in an afterlife.
I was thinking in more economic terms, not religious. For example, I don't own stock of any companies, so I don't really care if the stock market goes up or down. If I did own stock in a company,...
I was thinking in more economic terms, not religious. For example, I don't own stock of any companies, so I don't really care if the stock market goes up or down. If I did own stock in a company, then I'd care more and try to do something if poor decisions were made.
This seems like a fallacious argument similar to the one that many religious people use surrounding morality: i.e. you can only have morals if you're guided by a religious compass. It's also an...
This seems like a fallacious argument similar to the one that many religious people use surrounding morality: i.e. you can only have morals if you're guided by a religious compass. It's also an incredibly heteronormative comment. What, LGBT people can be shitty & have zero responsibility because many of us don't want or have kids?
I'm childless, intend to remain that way, and care deeply about the future. The future of the planet. Please don't assume other people's motives.
Rubbish, I'm not assuming anything about anyone. People with kids have a bigger stake, well at least they should feel that way, imo. Also, check that heteronormative stuff at the door. There are...
Rubbish, I'm not assuming anything about anyone. People with kids have a bigger stake, well at least they should feel that way, imo.
Also, check that heteronormative stuff at the door. There are plenty of gay people who have chosen to have children. If you're infertile for whatever reason, well the next best thing is adoption.
Yes, you are. You're assuming that the correct moral worldview is to either have or adopt kids. That's a subjective opinion, nothing more. Trying to project that onto others reeks of conformist...
Yes, you are. You're assuming that the correct moral worldview is to either have or adopt kids. That's a subjective opinion, nothing more. Trying to project that onto others reeks of conformist ideologies.
To care about the future of humanity is to not have kids. Humanity depends on a symbiotic relationship with the planet to thrive. When we tip that balance, as we currently are doing, it's no longer symbiotic—we've become a virus on our planetary host.
This is a simple thing, and your comments cleanly demonstrate how you shape your world view. Caring more for the planet because you have your kids makes your motivations selfish, rather than...
This is a simple thing, and your comments cleanly demonstrate how you shape your world view. Caring more for the planet because you have your kids makes your motivations selfish, rather than selfless. You're only going to go through your actions for them, not for everyone.
Also, check that heteronormative stuff at the door. There are plenty of gay people who have chosen to have children.
The heteronormativity is inherent in your chain of comments, demonstrated by the callous ease of which you imply it is to have children. Many LGBT people will never get to have kids, and for most that go through the process, it's like climbing Mt. Everest.
Are you calling me selfish? There are always two selfish sides in that game. Yeah, and many non-LGBT people have similar problems and many LGBT people don't have a problem. Stop trying to demonize...
Are you calling me selfish? There are always two selfish sides in that game.
Many LGBT people will never get to have kids, and for most that go through the process, it's like climbing Mt. Everest.
Yeah, and many non-LGBT people have similar problems and many LGBT people don't have a problem. Stop trying to demonize me, we're all horrible in someone's eyes, and I'm okay with that. I'm done with this particular conversation.
Is the future of humanity really that important? Millions of other species have been and gone and the planet continues to be. After we inevitably kill ourselves off, there is a fair chance that...
Is the future of humanity really that important? Millions of other species have been and gone and the planet continues to be.
After we inevitably kill ourselves off, there is a fair chance that another iteration of homosapien will come along to replace us.
And after we, individually, have died and our kids have died etc. we'll be oblivious to the demise of humanity anyway. What stake in all this do any of us have beyond our children and their children (and possibly their children, if you parent young or die old)?
And I'm not suggesting this as an excuse to behave shittily.
To be fair, these things are only valuable because we value them. If we didn't exist they'd carry no more value than a mountain vista, (which itself is only valuable because we value it).
Art, philosophy, engineering, science, these are feats that only we have acconplished. We have an imperative to preserve that.
To be fair, these things are only valuable because we value them. If we didn't exist they'd carry no more value than a mountain vista, (which itself is only valuable because we value it).
I'm just saying the argument you're making is a bit circular. You're using humanity's accomplishments as a justification for humanity's value. But humanity's accomplishments only have value...
I'm just saying the argument you're making is a bit circular. You're using humanity's accomplishments as a justification for humanity's value. But humanity's accomplishments only have value insofar as there are humans to value them. So in the end you just wind up saying that humanity is valuable and worth preserving, which is a destination you could have arrived at without having to bring the imperative of preserving all art and culture and stuff into it.
Put another way, the day might come where our descendants are no longer recognizably "human" and don't even have value systems that would value the things we do. I'm not sure we'd need them to desperately hold onto atavistic reminders of the stuff their ancestors used to like in order to consider them worthy of dignity.
Important to what? Humans are the only thing that can decide what is important, right? I'd wager that the majority of humans think the future of humanity is important. Depends. If you zoom out to...
Is the future of humanity really that important?
Important to what? Humans are the only thing that can decide what is important, right? I'd wager that the majority of humans think the future of humanity is important.
What stake in all this do any of us have beyond our children and their children (and possibly their children, if you parent young or die old)?
Depends. If you zoom out to a cosmic timescale, then what's the point of anything?
The event occured about 250 million years ago and is known as The Great Dying, here's a NatGeo story about it - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/permian-extinction/ I...
That logic is entirely wrong. There are many reasons to care about the future of humankind that don’t depend on having children. I have a younger sister, a nephew for whom I’m the godfather and...
That logic is entirely wrong. There are many reasons to care about the future of humankind that don’t depend on having children. I have a younger sister, a nephew for whom I’m the godfather and young cousins that I love very much.
I also have a general concern for all humankind, including those I have no knowledge of.
Your argument is just a false dilemma, according to which you either have kids or you don’t care about the future of humankind. There are way more options than that.
it's just my opinion the logic isn't entirely wrong, you're the one making it black/white. It's a spectrum, those with biological children have the biggest stake, those with no children have the...
it's just my opinion
the logic isn't entirely wrong, you're the one making it black/white. It's a spectrum, those with biological children have the biggest stake, those with no children have the smallest/no stake. Those with adopted children, relatives, etc are in the middle. But again, my opinion.
It wasn't intended to be an argument to have kids. You do you, but it'd be nice if some of you came out of your despair pits and dare to be optimistic about humanity's future.
The original argument was fallacious because it was a false dilema. Now you’re just moving the goalposts, which is equally invalid. Furthermore, saying something is an option is not a reasonable...
The original argument was fallacious because it was a false dilema. Now you’re just moving the goalposts, which is equally invalid.
Furthermore, saying something is an option is not a reasonable defense against criticism. Opinions can and should be questioned, we do that every time.
I disagree, I am not moving the goalposts. You incorrectly assumed their initial position so you could set up and execute an absolutely epic logical takedown. I think you fell short.
I disagree, I am not moving the goalposts. You incorrectly assumed their initial position so you could set up and execute an absolutely epic logical takedown. I think you fell short.
Unfortunately, those with the presence of mind to actively abstain from having children for population control, are currently those who should be raising children with such ideals. As it stands,...
Unfortunately, those with the presence of mind to actively abstain from having children for population control, are currently those who should be raising children with such ideals.
As it stands, they will simply be 'bred out' of existence, while those whose belief or lifestyle lends itself to multitudes of children will suffocate the world with ignorance.
I kind of hate this line or reasoning, since it reeks of condescension and falsely assumes children inevitably end up exact ideological clones of their parents, when IME the truth is that they can...
I kind of hate this line or reasoning, since it reeks of condescension and falsely assumes children inevitably end up exact ideological clones of their parents, when IME the truth is that they can and often do diverge quite significantly thanks to educational and peer influences, amongst other things, which all play a part in people's development.
I agree that we are not clones of our parents, and that we are definitely shaped by our environment. Many cultures or lifestyles which lead to excessive breeding tend to enforce closed communities...
I agree that we are not clones of our parents, and that we are definitely shaped by our environment.
Many cultures or lifestyles which lead to excessive breeding tend to enforce closed communities which inhibits deviation of thought from that of one's parents. Some strong-willed individuals will break free and form their own world-view regardless, but they will always be an extreme minority.
P.S. Even fiction can become realised. The hubris to dismiss a possibility on this basis only makes it more likely.
this claim really does not pass the eye test to me. most cultures or lifestyles with lots of children--with really only the exception of those in the developed, western world specifically--still...
Many cultures or lifestyles which lead to excessive breeding tend to enforce closed communities which inhibits deviation of thought from that of one's parents. Some strong-willed individuals will break free and form their own world-view regardless, but they will always be an extreme minority.
this claim really does not pass the eye test to me. most cultures or lifestyles with lots of children--with really only the exception of those in the developed, western world specifically--still live in places with abysmal rates of child mortality, predominantly in africa but also to some extent in asia and the pacific islands, and almost certainly aren't doing it because their culture demands it or to satisfy some ideological dogma, but because that child mortality rate more or less necessitates it if you want to have even one adult child.
...not really? there are a lot more africans than mormons (or western denominations which go out of their way to have large families period, frankly), and that disparity will only increase as...
...not really? there are a lot more africans than mormons (or western denominations which go out of their way to have large families period, frankly), and that disparity will only increase as africa explodes in population over the next 80 years. mormons and similar religious types are actually kinda irrelevant, population wise.
the disparity of ecological impact between africa and the developed world is far more a product of the developed world being... well... developed and extremely consumerist, and africa largely not...
Consider the disparity of ecological impact of Africa vs USA / UK. Then also the power of each country to urge worldwide change if so desired.
the disparity of ecological impact between africa and the developed world is far more a product of the developed world being... well... developed and extremely consumerist, and africa largely not being either of those things because of the institution and legacies of colonialism and the many wars which spawned because of colonialism creating arbitrary borders everywhere than it is a product of people having too many children in the west because mormons or something. the same is true of power. it's also very likely that the gap in both of those things will, as africa develops and explodes in population, evaporate mostly or completely.
...yeah? if anything, if people don't make significant efforts to ease africa into the process, it's actually probably going to be what pushes us over the climate cliff, because of the massive...
But is this change likely to occur to any significant degree before we reach a crisis point, in which the current powers would be involved?
...yeah? if anything, if people don't make significant efforts to ease africa into the process, it's actually probably going to be what pushes us over the climate cliff, because of the massive impact the rapid expansion and industrialization of africa will probably have on everything ranging from power dynamics in geopolitics to pollution and climate policy going forward. the entire continent is under current projections going to basically double in population in the next 30 to 40 years and then do that again (and that's with birth rates decreasing), and most of its countries are already struggling to curb pollution and preserve the scarce resources they have while also having to contend with a growing class of people who aren't incredibly poverty-stricken that's likely going to import western habits of consumerism.
But how can external powers become involved if they don't first establish internal population guidelines?
if anything, if people don't make significant efforts to ease africa into the process, it's actually probably going to be what pushes us over the climate cliff
But how can external powers become involved if they don't first establish internal population guidelines?
population is technically a part of the problem, but the planet can--with strain--probably sustain all of the people that will be on it if people actually do things like support education which is...
But how can external powers become involved if they don't first establish internal population guidelines?
population is technically a part of the problem, but the planet can--with strain--probably sustain all of the people that will be on it if people actually do things like support education which is a valuable tool in building futures for people and lowering birthrates, invest in more sustainable modes of agriculture and technology which doesn't necessitate the mass-use of land for food cultivation, promote renewable energy and nuclear power over natural gas and coal, establish and proliferate less consumerist and more sustainable values and encourage people to downsize their lives and carbon footprint, help develop systems of distribution which are more egalitarian, and so on. it's not a zero sum game where we have to reduce population explicitly or else--it's just, if people don't want the planet to be a spectacular hellscape for half the people living on it, there's going to need to be a shift in consumer values and some downsizing on the part of people who currently contribute most to the problem coupled with the cultivation of similar values in developing areas and actual investment in those places in multiple ways rather than just occasional food donations and sums of money which go into the pockets of dictators.
Population greatly magnifies the impact of every one of the issues you have listed, how does this not scream 'top priority' as an underlying root issue? How long can the planet handle the strain...
Population greatly magnifies the impact of every one of the issues you have listed, how does this not scream 'top priority' as an underlying root issue?
How long can the planet handle the strain of overpopulation while we wait for every other fix? The human population has exploded in an alarmingly exponential manner over the past 100 years. Relatively speaking on a planetary-resource scale, this is minuscule timeframe. Soil fertility decrease leading to nutrient-poor foods, microplastic buildup affecting the food we eat etc. These issues and more that we may not be aware of will take time to fully present themselves. We can't afford to assume the planet can "probably" take some more strain.
Dismantling consumerism and capitalism in favour of sustainability and egalitarianism is a just and noble cause, but this is even less likely to be achieved than population control. Only those who benefit from it have the power to enact change, and it's obviously not in their best interest to do so.
I would also argue that half the population (at least) is already living in a hellish landscape - they just don't have a voice. All the more reason for us to lead by example.
probably because we literally can feed and shelter and give a pretty good life to everybody who currently lives on the planet and possibly even the next few billion who will come onto it--all of...
Population greatly magnifies the impact of every one of the issues you have listed, how does this not scream 'top priority' as an underlying root issue?
probably because we literally can feed and shelter and give a pretty good life to everybody who currently lives on the planet and possibly even the next few billion who will come onto it--all of those things are currently possible with the range of existing infrastructure we have on this planet and what will be developed in the future--we just don't because of issues of distribution and wealth consolidation and various other factors of that nature. overpopulation is really not the problem, nor are things miraculously going to get better purely because we make it so that there are less people on the planet--global warming as a trend for example really began when there were half as many people on this planet as there are now, and pollution on industrial scales has been an issue since there were a billion people on this planet.
now, would less people make it more likely that such things don't occur? probably, but we're not about to suddenly revert to having one billion people, the population is not going to start dropping any time soon, and we again currently have the resources--if we are willing--to make everybody live reasonably comfortably on this planet as it is if we work at that. in that respect, maybe we shouldn't waste time entertaining the notion that "population control" of any kind is some sort of solution when it's vastly more likely we'll hit the carrying capacity of earth on our own before any serious population control measure gets off the ground, and instead work to manufacture a world where there is less inequality, less consumerism, more green technology, and more sustainability.
What does a 'pretty good life' consist of? We're also not about to suddenly denounce capitalism, embrace egalitarianism, and produce silver bullet agricultural technologies. How are any of the...
probably because we literally can feed and shelter and give a pretty good life to everybody who currently lives on the planet and possibly even the next few billion who will come onto it
What does a 'pretty good life' consist of?
now, would less people make it more likely that such things don't occur? probably, but we're not about to suddenly revert to having one billion people
We're also not about to suddenly denounce capitalism, embrace egalitarianism, and produce silver bullet agricultural technologies.
maybe we shouldn't waste time entertaining the notion that "population control" of any kind is some sort of solution when it's vastly more likely we'll hit the carrying capacity of earth on our own before any serious population control measure gets off the ground
How are any of the solutions you have proposed different in this regard? We shouldn't 'waste time' with any of it then.
instead work to manufacture a world where there is less inequality, less consumerism, more green technology, and more sustainability.
Why can't we do this, while also tackling overpopulation? Especially considering it multiplies the impact of every other issue?
food, shelter, having the necessary conditions of human life met, time for leisure, etc. this is pretty reasonable and--while obviously difficult to attain--is something we can aspire to doing and...
What does a 'pretty good life' consist of?
food, shelter, having the necessary conditions of human life met, time for leisure, etc. this is pretty reasonable and--while obviously difficult to attain--is something we can aspire to doing and probably accomplish on a wide scale if people actually try to do it.
We're also not about to suddenly denounce capitalism, embrace egalitarianism, and produce silver bullet agricultural technologies.
who said we were? none of what i've said in here is contingent on any of those things inherently (not to mention the fact that we are actually producing countless "silver bullet" agricultural technologies which will likely bring the strain off of animal agriculture and industrial scale farming and which will almost certainly help curb the endemic pollution and carbon emissions that are a product of current animal agriculture and industrial farming if we invest and build on them). you don't need to suddenly embrace the good gospel of not being a shithead or the immortal science of marxism-leninism to curb your carbon footprint or make corporations accountable to their emissions or help bring about slaughterless meat production or whatever else.
How are any of the solutions you have proposed different in this regard? We shouldn't 'waste time' with any of it then.
well, mainly on the basis that they're orders of magnitude more likely to do something and orders of magnitude easier than trying to get people to adhere to population control? you're just not about to stop climate change or rampant environmental pollution and degradation by telling people to stop having babies, because the problem is not literally the population itself and those things have been issues with far smaller populations of people as i mentioned. you might be able to curb those things slightly, sure, but even assuming you literally halted all human births right now which won't happen, we still have a population of like, 9 billion people on this planet, the majority of whom likely won't be dying anytime soon.
it thus would be much easier and much more likely to do something if you tackled how those people who do exist live, the distributional problems which cause disparities in accessibility to things necessary to human life, the corporations and industries which contribute most to the problems we face, and the technological grounds to ensure a more comfortable mode of living for the people who are already here and will continue to exist here. frankly, there's a reason that none of those big bold climate reports tell you that the solution is to make people stop having babies--people simply are not going to stop having babies or approach having them at a rate below the replacement rate in most of the world in the next 50 to 100 years, and there is really no way to organize that on the timescale we have in a way that will make a meaningful dent in the growth of the human population.
your best bet, if you genuinely care about births as a whole big thing, is as some folks like @NaraVara have said in this thread to back female education and healthcare, because those correlate with birth rates and will help keep the plateau lower; however, actual population control in any organized way is a pipe dream, even moreso than things like the hopes that we'll keep warming under 1.5C.
that is true, yes, but i can say with certainty as it stands right now that such an event is not going to be from organized population control. the most likely candidate for something like that is...
One way or another, the population will eventually drop drastically.
that is true, yes, but i can say with certainty as it stands right now that such an event is not going to be from organized population control. the most likely candidate for something like that is a natural disaster, probably followed by the natural decline of population when most or all of the world reaches births below the replacement rate a century or two in the future based on current projections; neither of those, obviously, is organized.
No shit... but even though natural selection isn't fictional, Idiocracy's claims about how it works largely are, and the gross oversimplification it presents on the heritability of intelligence is...
No shit... but even though natural selection isn't fictional, Idiocracy's claims about how it works largely are, and the gross oversimplification it presents on the heritability of intelligence is also incredibly misleading.
Idiocracy's appeal is how it's grounded in a kernel of truth: Smarter people are having fewer children. Like you said though, children are not clones of their parents, and intelligence is not...
Idiocracy's appeal is how it's grounded in a kernel of truth: Smarter people are having fewer children.
Like you said though, children are not clones of their parents, and intelligence is not inherited.... But, the environment you are raised in is what will give you your best chances in life and kids raised in poor environments will generally fare worse.
It won't necessarily keep getting worse, but if you talk people into not having kids, it's probably those that can afford them (and thus afford their kids an education and a good and healthy environment to be raised in) that will listen.
This is why to the question "should I have kids in the wake of climate change" I've started saying: yes, and put all the chips you can on those kids being the next politicians and CEOs that will take decisions that are good for our planet. Because that is what we need. Not less people, but more good people.
Which is meaningless info. What is important is how educated kids are getting. If you want a smarter population then campaign for better education systems This is along the same line of logic of...
Smarter people are having fewer children.
Which is meaningless info. What is important is how educated kids are getting. If you want a smarter population then campaign for better education systems
I've started saying: yes, and put all the chips you can on those kids being the next politicians and CEOs that will take decisions that are good for our planet.
This is along the same line of logic of putting all your chips in the lotto expecting it to make you rich rather than putting it in to savings and smart investments. The planet most certainly needs less people. A new child, no matter how environmentally conscious they are has a monumentally higher impact than one less person in the world.
I'm not sure where you got that. Multiple studies have shown that intelligence, and virtually all cognitive abilities are highly heritable. That doesn't mean that if you have stupid parents,...
Intelligence is not inherited
I'm not sure where you got that. Multiple studies have shown that intelligence, and virtually all cognitive abilities are highly heritable. That doesn't mean that if you have stupid parents, you're going to be dumb, but it does mean that if your parents are intelligent, regardless of any other factors, or if you even know your biological parents or not, you are much more likely to be intelligent than someone else in a similar situation.
Now, I don't know if smarter people are truly having fewer children or not, but if they were, average intelligence trending downward over a long enough period of time would be a reasonable hypothesis.
A few thoughts: And who's going to be running the show until then? We will. Are we going to be doing fuck-all during that time? I highly doubt it. I think you're being hyperbolic. What's wrong...
A few thoughts:
they wouldn't be of age to do anything until the mid-40's/early-50's at the earliest where they'd be very junior in their careers.
And who's going to be running the show until then? We will. Are we going to be doing fuck-all during that time? I highly doubt it.
It'd only be disaster mitigation from then on. On top of that, if they were lucky enough to become old they could expect to experience the world of 2100 a couple decades beyond.
I think you're being hyperbolic. What's wrong with disaster mitigation? Maybe they/we will mitigate this disaster. What kind of world do you want your children to live in? It was never going to be a utopia, even if we never used fossil fuels. There will be conflict of one sort or another. Some will prevail, some won't, just like it's always been and always will be.
I personally question the ethics of making a new life—unable of consenting to existence—and introducing them to a world and a life that I strongly believe will cause them great misery.
You're forgetting their perspective. One must want something one doesn't have in order to be miserable. They won't know how good our grandparents/parents had it. The world they have will be all they truly know. They'll know there's a problem to solve. That will be their life, and they'll enjoy success.
You seem to be a good person. I don't think you should get a vasectomy, but if you do, please adopt and train the kid to be as thoughtful as yourself.
This is both ignorant of demography and absolutely racist. Basically any data you care to look at shows pretty unambiguously that total fertility correlates with access to birth control and female...
This is both ignorant of demography and absolutely racist.
Basically any data you care to look at shows pretty unambiguously that total fertility correlates with access to birth control and female literacy. The proportion of people who have ideological commitments to having more kids are vanishingly small and even for many of them their total fertility rates tend to track with overall changes in TFR. High birth rates are not an output of culture or self-restraint. It's literally just poverty and access to healthcare.
All you need to do is teach women to read and give them access to healthcare/birth control and fertility will naturally drop to either match of fall short of replacement. This pattern has held almost everywhere in the world, even in countries that treat women like dogshit in every other respect.
The idea that problems of poverty and access to resources are actually problems of "lesser" people just not being as genetically good as rich/advantaged people is rooted in racist, social-darwinist bullshit.
That comment wasn't racist until you made it racist. @PahoojyMan didn't say anything about total fertility, economic status, or race. What is your problem?
That comment wasn't racist until you made it racist. @PahoojyMan didn't say anything about total fertility, economic status, or race. What is your problem?
I can't "make" things racist. I can just point out the racist assumptions embedded into them. In what zany reality can someone talk about population, heritability, and demography without making...
I can't "make" things racist. I can just point out the racist assumptions embedded into them.
@PahoojyMan didn't say anything about total fertility, economic status, or race.
In what zany reality can someone talk about population, heritability, and demography without making implicit statements about all of the above? This is like saying "He didn't say anything about water or electronics. He just said his phone stopped working ever since he dropped it in the bathtub!"
These can be both impacted by lifestyle, culture, socioeconomic status etc. This was a key component of what I was alluding to. The cycle of poverty lends itself to unplanned pregnancies and the...
Basically any data you care to look at shows pretty unambiguously that total fertility correlates with access to birth control and female literacy.
These can be both impacted by lifestyle, culture, socioeconomic status etc.
It's literally just poverty.
This was a key component of what I was alluding to. The cycle of poverty lends itself to unplanned pregnancies and the perpetuation of poverty through generations.
The idea that problems of poverty and access to resources are actually problems of "lesser" people just not being as genetically good as rich/advantaged people is rooted in racist, social-darwinist bullshit.
Nope. You're still just implying that poverty is a personal failure of impulse control rather than a simple lack of resources.
This was a key component of what I was alluding to. The cycle of poverty lends itself to unplanned pregnancies and the perpetuation of poverty through generations.
Nope. You're still just implying that poverty is a personal failure of impulse control rather than a simple lack of resources.
Literally for any of your argument to make sense you would have to be implying this. If you don't accept the premise--that the causative factor in excess fertility is heritable through a Darwinian...
Literally for any of your argument to make sense you would have to be implying this. If you don't accept the premise--that the causative factor in excess fertility is heritable through a Darwinian (implied racial) mechanism--then the rest of the argument and discussion with @alyaza and @cfbabbro falls apart.
I was speaking to the cycle of poverty itself, it was not a personal judgement of any individual trapped inside. The cycle perpetuates itself generationally, with one or more children only...
I was speaking to the cycle of poverty itself, it was not a personal judgement of any individual trapped inside.
The cycle perpetuates itself generationally, with one or more children only exacerbating the issue. I was not referring to genetics at all.
As someone who has spent most of their life under the poverty line, I absolutely understand the traps of this cycle.
My comment wasn't regarding stupidity breeding through, but instead a 'fight' for a majority stance on population control. Ironically those who are for population control will have less (or zero)...
My comment wasn't regarding stupidity breeding through, but instead a 'fight' for a majority stance on population control.
Ironically those who are for population control will have less (or zero) children, thus ceding any majority stake on the matter, in a negative feedback loop.
this piece is one of a few in the past year or so talking about the idea of population control in the name of climate change (see previous discussions here, here, and here); however, unlike the...
this piece is one of a few in the past year or so talking about the idea of population control in the name of climate change (see previous discussions here, here, and here); however, unlike the other pieces, this one weaves in a lot of stuff about life, relationships, and religion, and how those have informed the author's views on the whole idea of birth striking, hence i'm tossing it here instead of ~enviro.
It appears most people have very strongly held and fixed viewpoints on this subject. I've always loved the way this was put in the Matrix. It's ironic that our success as a species has been our...
It appears most people have very strongly held and fixed viewpoints on this subject.
I've always loved the way this was put in the Matrix.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not.
It's ironic that our success as a species has been our successful drive towards procreating, but that also might be our downfall.
I wonder sometimes if that isn't what happened to the trilobytes, and if that isn't also why we never see evidence of aliens.
Every species has that same drive to procreate, but most of them are kept in check by predators, limited food, etc. Any one of them would explode if the limiting factors went away. Just look at...
Every species has that same drive to procreate, but most of them are kept in check by predators, limited food, etc. Any one of them would explode if the limiting factors went away. Just look at invasive species like the rabbits in Australia. Our propensity for procreating isn't special, our talent for overcoming the things that keep us in check is.
as an aside, here is an additional piece from CNN last month about the "birthstrike" movement specifically: BirthStrike: The people refusing to have kids, because of 'the ecological crisis' and...
and here is Spiked's argument against anti-natalism, the birthstrike movement, and similar environmentally motivated ideas: Having kids won’t kill the planet. this piece basically argues among other things that making the birth rate an environmental issue is an awful idea for women's autonomy reasons, that family planning is weirdly racially coded because it's often white well-offs that promote it and of course the recipients of such planning would predominantly be africans and--groan--prioritizes biodiversity over people, and that it's--even more of a groan--an extension of a broader narcissism and entitlement that millennials have.
This thread is starting to get a little iffy in some places. I hope it doesn't get to the point where I feel like I need to lock it or start removing posts, so as an attempt to head that off: if you don't want to continue arguing about something, please don't continue arguing about it. Don't try to get the last word or "one last shot" in, because that's how the arguments continue to escalate (and usually end up turning personal).
This is another one of those topics where almost everyone has already made up their mind and it's very unlikely that you're going to convince anyone to change their opinion, no matter how rational you think "your side" is. Please try to recognize that and walk away from unproductive conversations instead of getting more aggressive about it.
It's crazy that people can even afford to have children these days.
Right? My wife and I are DINKs but even we're barely scraping by. Between the cost of living, paying off student debts, and just trying to keep savings afloat is RIDICULOUS in and of itself! One unexpected expense comes your way and there goes a big chunk of work! Not to mention the looming sense of doom that is healthcare expenses as we get older.
I need to get the hell out of the US.
Same boat here too. My husband and I decided a long time ago that we were not going to have kids, and we recently had the discussion that even if we wanted to we wouldn't be able to afford it.
What is a DINK?
Short form for Double Income No Kids, i.e. in a relationship, generally financially or environmentally motivated over prioritizing children or offspring. Sometimes (sadly) used in a derogatory manner.
This article feels almost desperate to me. Ideas like population control are pretty radical and almost certainly won't do nearly enough. However, I understand the desire to join something like BirthStrike. Not having a child is something that's largely under your control. It's a tangible action you can take that you know will have an impact. But it isn't enough. We need to tackle the drivers of climate change. That involves making a lot of sacrifices ourselves, and unfortunately, probably means forcing others who don't want to sacrifice to give up as well. Our current system of capitalism is not sustainable and there aren't any actions that you can individually do that will be enough.
I really wish it were as simple as not having a child and going vegan and giving up your car (I say this as somebody who does all 3). But it isn't.
Statistically, I'm sorry to say that those actions are basically meaningless. Even if every single member of the population implements those changes, we will only see a 10% decrease in CO2 production. They're little more than token actions.
I think what would work is creating a international organization that is capable of handing out a 'climate death' charge. If your company is contributing to more than 5% of CO2 production, you get a single warning, 6 months, and otherwise you're thrown in jail forever.
At this point, economic sanctions will do nothing. Any other political measure short of long, long, jail time, will do nothing. Any person with over 1 billion dollars should be forced to liquidate half and subsidize the council, which will redirect the money directly into alternate energy projects.
Before people whine about me being too harsh, it's important to remember that we are looking at either: A) murdering or throwing around 90 people in jail, using their money to save ourselves. or B) very possibly the death of our entire species, and countless others.
Precisely the same point argued beautifully in this Jacobin article. Well said!
This is basically the final word on the subject. We can't wait for those whose paychecks depend on them not understanding this issue.
Imo, not having kids leaves you with zero responsibility for the future of humanity. You can be as shitty as you want because you're not playing the game we're all stuck in. Having kids gives you a stake in the future, well at least it should. Maybe if more people had kids, especially the type of person who considers not having kids for ethical reasons, then the world may progress in a better direction. Right now it's playing out like the opening of Idiocracy.
I don't see it this way at all. I'm a human, sharing a planet with a bunch of other humans. I will never have children, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to be shitty for personal gain even though I don't have any children that may be effected by it. I will be effected by that shitty behavior, as will my friends, and family, and their children.
I've got empathy for the other life on this planet, and I want to see life, including humanity, be able to thrive and continue to exist. Ideally it would be in a sustainable way, where people voluntarily limit the population to a number that the world can support indefinitely. This can be accomplished by educating more people on the costs of having children, and working to make sure that the children that are born are taught what is needed to keep the world sustainable to life.
As a fellow human living on this planet, I am as responsible for the future of this planet as anyone with children of their own, and having been educated myself I know that even if I am not personally effected, my actions effect the future of the world for everyone I care about, and all those that will come after them. We need to work towards a society where people who think it's okay to be shitty because it doesn't effect them personally can be taught empathy for their fellow humans. Everyone has a stake in the future of this planet, whether they have kids or not, and that responsibility has to be impressed upon us all if we're going to be able to continue to live on this planet.
Yeah, true, but those with kids have a bigger stake.
But you also have to ignore the impending doom of the environment, assuming you believe in that.. otherwise it raises issues.
I have no children, and I no longer feel the pull to have them. But I feel like I cannot speak of the coming climatological/political issues with my friends and family who do have young children. I feel terrible for my nephews.
Honestly, to me it feels like people with young children have to have some faith that the world will get better, as it has for eons. Given some emperical indicators, it does not seem like that at this time in history.[1] I feel like we have passed peak humanism, and peak pro-human natural environment at this point.
[1] I could be wrong. I do realize that the world has seemed to have been ending throughout human history. But the political and environmental climates are moving in absolutely the wrong direction.
I don't believe in unavoidable, impending doom. It's not like there's a massive planetoid heading on a collision course with earth. It really seems like you, and a lot of other people in this thread, have thrown in the towel. Everyone is treating the political weather like its the political climate. "It's cold outside so global warming must be a hoax" is similar to "Trump is president so the world is doomed."
That's a fair argument. My point as far as climatology can be summed up here: https://xkcd.com/1732/
My point in politics is very related.
TrumpismRepublicansim is just a symptom. The future that I see is the one foretold by the US Department of Defense: https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/02/16/update-chronology-of-u-s-military-statements-and-actions-on-climate-change-and-security-2017-2019/There are plenty of other ways to foster a stake in the future. You can adopt, foster, or mentor already existing children without adding another human to the world.
Go for it, but I'll add one
I think at this point it's basically over, so it won't really hurt anything. Do what makes you happy.
To me, I would like to have kids in an ideal world. I think it would be awesome to raise a strong woman or man. I would love them dearly. It's because of this love I can't condemn them to the grim future in store. I at least will be in my 50s or 60s before it gets really, really bad. Relatively young, but still time to live a good long life. Kids born now are going to be at their peak of their potential when it gets baked away.
Except for the life that you're bringing into a world that is, at this point, only capable of making them suffer.
Kind of the gist of the majority of my post.
It's an interesting thought. But to me having kids seems like opting into a guillotine held against your neck for years. If you have children you can essentially die multiple times over. And as long as your children aren't self-sufficient you're entirely responsible for their well-being. I don't want that kind of absolute responsibility.
This is mostly just because the Western world makes it heinously expensive to have kids and really difficult to actually accommodate parenting. If you have even a basic bit of help, like grandparents who live nearby to babysit, it becomes dramatically easier. Many cultures that prioritize family life do a lot more to value the institutions and norms that make family life possible.
What's more is, right now your kids are just hypothetical so all you think of is the costs involved with having them but you don't have any emotional attachments that would make you want to do the work.
This is no different from having a significant other. In theory you're just getting companionship in exchange for having to dedicate a bunch of time, money, and emotional investment in another person. In practice, you don't think of it that way. You just have a relationship with a person who you care about and you oblige yourself to them because you care about them. When you have kids it's the same way. You look out for them because you love them, not because there is a guillotine hanging over you. And taking care of them feels more like making sure you're brushing your own teeth than someone putting a gun to your head and forcing you to do it.
You may change your mind someday
I've been told that many times. It might be true. There's a reason I haven't opted for an early vasectomy.
If you have zero empathy, sure you can live that way. My wife and I don't plan on having kids, but we're still living as eco-friendly as we can so we can sleep a little better at night knowing we're not being complete dicks to the planet, and we're doing our part.
Aside from that, this feels like the same reasoning people give for believing in god, "What, if there's no god then why be good at all!?" Um, because I don't want to be an asshole?
Don't you think that you'd be a lot more serious about this if you had a kid? You do just enough to sleep at night, but your personal impacts are negligible.
i don't really buy that the states of having a child, wanting a child, or not having one correlate very well with how much people campaign on addressing climate change or personally do in their lives to address climate change, personally.
Honestly I'm not sure what "more serious" would mean for us aside from going full-blown vegan.
We're vegetarians who succumb to cheese on occasion but don't keep any in the house, neither of us drive/I walk to and from work, we recycle, compost (even though our apartment doesn't have composting, I have to ask a neighbor if it'd be OK that we use theirs), opted into green energy, grow our own herbs, shop at the farmer's market and co-ops, and volunteer for our local environmental nonprofits when they need us.
So no, I don't think I'd be any more serious than I already am if we had kids.
Again, we're not having kids because we feel the planet is doomed. Making that choice doesn't then somehow slide into "Planet's fucked! Let's fuck it more!" I can still care about other people's kids and the generations to come-- we're in fact talking about being foster parents when we can afford to be. When I have the ability to make accessible, personal decisions that can benefit others without overly taxing myself in the process, I'm going to make those choices when I can.
So wholesome! Keep up the good work.
I doubt more people having kids will really help. I could easily people using their children to justify their shitty behavior as well - it's the "I'll do anything for my child" mentality. Let's say the climate situation got much worse, wouldn't we see more riots and looting as people fight to survive? Wouldn't parents have even more reason to act violently, since they love their children so much?
Even without this extreme scenario, having children doesn't really prevent from focusing on the short term to the detriment of the long term wellness of humanity. All the oil tycoons had children too, and that didn't stop them from building their legacy by destroying the planet.
It's only recently that people have stopped having children, so the point we are now was due to people who had children (at least in part). A stake in the future didn't stop them from behaving horribly.
I don't think the people you described were aware of the pressing environmental catastrophe. That's kind of a new thing, so parents alive today may think a bit differently.
The people were just one example - and it seems not a good one. My ultimate point was that incentives are not enough to encourage good actions.
This implies people can only make ethical decisions when they have a personal stake in doing so, which I think is patently untrue. This is as asinine as religious arguments claiming atheists have no reason not to be murderers and rapists because they don't believe they will be punished in an afterlife.
I was thinking in more economic terms, not religious. For example, I don't own stock of any companies, so I don't really care if the stock market goes up or down. If I did own stock in a company, then I'd care more and try to do something if poor decisions were made.
This seems like a fallacious argument similar to the one that many religious people use surrounding morality: i.e. you can only have morals if you're guided by a religious compass. It's also an incredibly heteronormative comment. What, LGBT people can be shitty & have zero responsibility because many of us don't want or have kids?
I'm childless, intend to remain that way, and care deeply about the future. The future of the planet. Please don't assume other people's motives.
Rubbish, I'm not assuming anything about anyone. People with kids have a bigger stake, well at least they should feel that way, imo.
Also, check that heteronormative stuff at the door. There are plenty of gay people who have chosen to have children. If you're infertile for whatever reason, well the next best thing is adoption.
Yes, you are. You're assuming that the correct moral worldview is to either have or adopt kids. That's a subjective opinion, nothing more. Trying to project that onto others reeks of conformist ideologies.
To care about the future of humanity is to not have kids. Humanity depends on a symbiotic relationship with the planet to thrive. When we tip that balance, as we currently are doing, it's no longer symbiotic—we've become a virus on our planetary host.
Haha. You're putting a very creative spin on what I said.
This is a simple thing, and your comments cleanly demonstrate how you shape your world view. Caring more for the planet because you have your kids makes your motivations selfish, rather than selfless. You're only going to go through your actions for them, not for everyone.
The heteronormativity is inherent in your chain of comments, demonstrated by the callous ease of which you imply it is to have children. Many LGBT people will never get to have kids, and for most that go through the process, it's like climbing Mt. Everest.
Are you calling me selfish? There are always two selfish sides in that game.
Yeah, and many non-LGBT people have similar problems and many LGBT people don't have a problem. Stop trying to demonize me, we're all horrible in someone's eyes, and I'm okay with that. I'm done with this particular conversation.
Is the future of humanity really that important? Millions of other species have been and gone and the planet continues to be.
After we inevitably kill ourselves off, there is a fair chance that another iteration of homosapien will come along to replace us.
And after we, individually, have died and our kids have died etc. we'll be oblivious to the demise of humanity anyway. What stake in all this do any of us have beyond our children and their children (and possibly their children, if you parent young or die old)?
And I'm not suggesting this as an excuse to behave shittily.
Perhaps it doesn't really matter.
But we should at least take care enough of the planet so that we don't take out the rest of Earth's life with us.
Absolutely. And make the world as good as we can "on our watch".
To be fair, these things are only valuable because we value them. If we didn't exist they'd carry no more value than a mountain vista, (which itself is only valuable because we value it).
I'm just saying the argument you're making is a bit circular. You're using humanity's accomplishments as a justification for humanity's value. But humanity's accomplishments only have value insofar as there are humans to value them. So in the end you just wind up saying that humanity is valuable and worth preserving, which is a destination you could have arrived at without having to bring the imperative of preserving all art and culture and stuff into it.
Put another way, the day might come where our descendants are no longer recognizably "human" and don't even have value systems that would value the things we do. I'm not sure we'd need them to desperately hold onto atavistic reminders of the stuff their ancestors used to like in order to consider them worthy of dignity.
Important to what? Humans are the only thing that can decide what is important, right? I'd wager that the majority of humans think the future of humanity is important.
Depends. If you zoom out to a cosmic timescale, then what's the point of anything?
Last time CO2 levels were this high for a long time it killed off 99.999% of all life on the planet.
Interesting. Source?
The event occured about 250 million years ago and is known as The Great Dying, here's a NatGeo story about it - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/permian-extinction/
I was a little off on the percentage, it was 90% of land-based life and 96% of sea- based life.
That logic is entirely wrong. There are many reasons to care about the future of humankind that don’t depend on having children. I have a younger sister, a nephew for whom I’m the godfather and young cousins that I love very much.
I also have a general concern for all humankind, including those I have no knowledge of.
Your argument is just a false dilemma, according to which you either have kids or you don’t care about the future of humankind. There are way more options than that.
it's just my opinion
the logic isn't entirely wrong, you're the one making it black/white. It's a spectrum, those with biological children have the biggest stake, those with no children have the smallest/no stake. Those with adopted children, relatives, etc are in the middle. But again, my opinion.
It wasn't intended to be an argument to have kids. You do you, but it'd be nice if some of you came out of your despair pits and dare to be optimistic about humanity's future.
The original argument was fallacious because it was a false dilema. Now you’re just moving the goalposts, which is equally invalid.
Furthermore, saying something is an option is not a reasonable defense against criticism. Opinions can and should be questioned, we do that every time.
There’s a fallacy for that too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_entitled_to_my_opinion
I think I’m the fallacy man now! :P
I disagree, I am not moving the goalposts. You incorrectly assumed their initial position so you could set up and execute an absolutely epic logical takedown. I think you fell short.
Don't continue this bickering. @mrbig
Sorry, I'll be better
That's cool!
Unfortunately, those with the presence of mind to actively abstain from having children for population control, are currently those who should be raising children with such ideals.
As it stands, they will simply be 'bred out' of existence, while those whose belief or lifestyle lends itself to multitudes of children will suffocate the world with ignorance.
I kind of hate this line or reasoning, since it reeks of condescension and falsely assumes children inevitably end up exact ideological clones of their parents, when IME the truth is that they can and often do diverge quite significantly thanks to educational and peer influences, amongst other things, which all play a part in people's development.
p.s. Idiocracy was fictional.
I agree that we are not clones of our parents, and that we are definitely shaped by our environment.
Many cultures or lifestyles which lead to excessive breeding tend to enforce closed communities which inhibits deviation of thought from that of one's parents. Some strong-willed individuals will break free and form their own world-view regardless, but they will always be an extreme minority.
P.S. Even fiction can become realised. The hubris to dismiss a possibility on this basis only makes it more likely.
this claim really does not pass the eye test to me. most cultures or lifestyles with lots of children--with really only the exception of those in the developed, western world specifically--still live in places with abysmal rates of child mortality, predominantly in africa but also to some extent in asia and the pacific islands, and almost certainly aren't doing it because their culture demands it or to satisfy some ideological dogma, but because that child mortality rate more or less necessitates it if you want to have even one adult child.
You're discounting the most important ones right here.
...not really? there are a lot more africans than mormons (or western denominations which go out of their way to have large families period, frankly), and that disparity will only increase as africa explodes in population over the next 80 years. mormons and similar religious types are actually kinda irrelevant, population wise.
Consider the disparity of ecological impact of Africa vs USA / UK. Then also the power of each country to urge worldwide change if so desired.
the disparity of ecological impact between africa and the developed world is far more a product of the developed world being... well... developed and extremely consumerist, and africa largely not being either of those things because of the institution and legacies of colonialism and the many wars which spawned because of colonialism creating arbitrary borders everywhere than it is a product of people having too many children in the west because mormons or something. the same is true of power. it's also very likely that the gap in both of those things will, as africa develops and explodes in population, evaporate mostly or completely.
But is this change likely to occur to any significant degree before we reach a crisis point, in which the current powers would be involved?
...yeah? if anything, if people don't make significant efforts to ease africa into the process, it's actually probably going to be what pushes us over the climate cliff, because of the massive impact the rapid expansion and industrialization of africa will probably have on everything ranging from power dynamics in geopolitics to pollution and climate policy going forward. the entire continent is under current projections going to basically double in population in the next 30 to 40 years and then do that again (and that's with birth rates decreasing), and most of its countries are already struggling to curb pollution and preserve the scarce resources they have while also having to contend with a growing class of people who aren't incredibly poverty-stricken that's likely going to import western habits of consumerism.
But how can external powers become involved if they don't first establish internal population guidelines?
population is technically a part of the problem, but the planet can--with strain--probably sustain all of the people that will be on it if people actually do things like support education which is a valuable tool in building futures for people and lowering birthrates, invest in more sustainable modes of agriculture and technology which doesn't necessitate the mass-use of land for food cultivation, promote renewable energy and nuclear power over natural gas and coal, establish and proliferate less consumerist and more sustainable values and encourage people to downsize their lives and carbon footprint, help develop systems of distribution which are more egalitarian, and so on. it's not a zero sum game where we have to reduce population explicitly or else--it's just, if people don't want the planet to be a spectacular hellscape for half the people living on it, there's going to need to be a shift in consumer values and some downsizing on the part of people who currently contribute most to the problem coupled with the cultivation of similar values in developing areas and actual investment in those places in multiple ways rather than just occasional food donations and sums of money which go into the pockets of dictators.
Population greatly magnifies the impact of every one of the issues you have listed, how does this not scream 'top priority' as an underlying root issue?
How long can the planet handle the strain of overpopulation while we wait for every other fix? The human population has exploded in an alarmingly exponential manner over the past 100 years. Relatively speaking on a planetary-resource scale, this is minuscule timeframe. Soil fertility decrease leading to nutrient-poor foods, microplastic buildup affecting the food we eat etc. These issues and more that we may not be aware of will take time to fully present themselves. We can't afford to assume the planet can "probably" take some more strain.
Dismantling consumerism and capitalism in favour of sustainability and egalitarianism is a just and noble cause, but this is even less likely to be achieved than population control. Only those who benefit from it have the power to enact change, and it's obviously not in their best interest to do so.
I would also argue that half the population (at least) is already living in a hellish landscape - they just don't have a voice. All the more reason for us to lead by example.
probably because we literally can feed and shelter and give a pretty good life to everybody who currently lives on the planet and possibly even the next few billion who will come onto it--all of those things are currently possible with the range of existing infrastructure we have on this planet and what will be developed in the future--we just don't because of issues of distribution and wealth consolidation and various other factors of that nature. overpopulation is really not the problem, nor are things miraculously going to get better purely because we make it so that there are less people on the planet--global warming as a trend for example really began when there were half as many people on this planet as there are now, and pollution on industrial scales has been an issue since there were a billion people on this planet.
now, would less people make it more likely that such things don't occur? probably, but we're not about to suddenly revert to having one billion people, the population is not going to start dropping any time soon, and we again currently have the resources--if we are willing--to make everybody live reasonably comfortably on this planet as it is if we work at that. in that respect, maybe we shouldn't waste time entertaining the notion that "population control" of any kind is some sort of solution when it's vastly more likely we'll hit the carrying capacity of earth on our own before any serious population control measure gets off the ground, and instead work to manufacture a world where there is less inequality, less consumerism, more green technology, and more sustainability.
What does a 'pretty good life' consist of?
We're also not about to suddenly denounce capitalism, embrace egalitarianism, and produce silver bullet agricultural technologies.
How are any of the solutions you have proposed different in this regard? We shouldn't 'waste time' with any of it then.
Why can't we do this, while also tackling overpopulation? Especially considering it multiplies the impact of every other issue?
food, shelter, having the necessary conditions of human life met, time for leisure, etc. this is pretty reasonable and--while obviously difficult to attain--is something we can aspire to doing and probably accomplish on a wide scale if people actually try to do it.
who said we were? none of what i've said in here is contingent on any of those things inherently (not to mention the fact that we are actually producing countless "silver bullet" agricultural technologies which will likely bring the strain off of animal agriculture and industrial scale farming and which will almost certainly help curb the endemic pollution and carbon emissions that are a product of current animal agriculture and industrial farming if we invest and build on them). you don't need to suddenly embrace the good gospel of not being a shithead or the immortal science of marxism-leninism to curb your carbon footprint or make corporations accountable to their emissions or help bring about slaughterless meat production or whatever else.
well, mainly on the basis that they're orders of magnitude more likely to do something and orders of magnitude easier than trying to get people to adhere to population control? you're just not about to stop climate change or rampant environmental pollution and degradation by telling people to stop having babies, because the problem is not literally the population itself and those things have been issues with far smaller populations of people as i mentioned. you might be able to curb those things slightly, sure, but even assuming you literally halted all human births right now which won't happen, we still have a population of like, 9 billion people on this planet, the majority of whom likely won't be dying anytime soon.
it thus would be much easier and much more likely to do something if you tackled how those people who do exist live, the distributional problems which cause disparities in accessibility to things necessary to human life, the corporations and industries which contribute most to the problems we face, and the technological grounds to ensure a more comfortable mode of living for the people who are already here and will continue to exist here. frankly, there's a reason that none of those big bold climate reports tell you that the solution is to make people stop having babies--people simply are not going to stop having babies or approach having them at a rate below the replacement rate in most of the world in the next 50 to 100 years, and there is really no way to organize that on the timescale we have in a way that will make a meaningful dent in the growth of the human population.
your best bet, if you genuinely care about births as a whole big thing, is as some folks like @NaraVara have said in this thread to back female education and healthcare, because those correlate with birth rates and will help keep the plateau lower; however, actual population control in any organized way is a pipe dream, even moreso than things like the hopes that we'll keep warming under 1.5C.
One way or another, the population will eventually drop drastically.
that is true, yes, but i can say with certainty as it stands right now that such an event is not going to be from organized population control. the most likely candidate for something like that is a natural disaster, probably followed by the natural decline of population when most or all of the world reaches births below the replacement rate a century or two in the future based on current projections; neither of those, obviously, is organized.
Idiocracy is fiction, but natural selection isn't
No shit... but even though natural selection isn't fictional, Idiocracy's claims about how it works largely are, and the gross oversimplification it presents on the heritability of intelligence is also incredibly misleading.
Idiocracy's appeal is how it's grounded in a kernel of truth: Smarter people are having fewer children.
Like you said though, children are not clones of their parents, and intelligence is not inherited.... But, the environment you are raised in is what will give you your best chances in life and kids raised in poor environments will generally fare worse.
It won't necessarily keep getting worse, but if you talk people into not having kids, it's probably those that can afford them (and thus afford their kids an education and a good and healthy environment to be raised in) that will listen.
This is why to the question "should I have kids in the wake of climate change" I've started saying: yes, and put all the chips you can on those kids being the next politicians and CEOs that will take decisions that are good for our planet. Because that is what we need. Not less people, but more good people.
Which is meaningless info. What is important is how educated kids are getting. If you want a smarter population then campaign for better education systems
This is along the same line of logic of putting all your chips in the lotto expecting it to make you rich rather than putting it in to savings and smart investments. The planet most certainly needs less people. A new child, no matter how environmentally conscious they are has a monumentally higher impact than one less person in the world.
I'm not sure where you got that. Multiple studies have shown that intelligence, and virtually all cognitive abilities are highly heritable. That doesn't mean that if you have stupid parents, you're going to be dumb, but it does mean that if your parents are intelligent, regardless of any other factors, or if you even know your biological parents or not, you are much more likely to be intelligent than someone else in a similar situation.
Now, I don't know if smarter people are truly having fewer children or not, but if they were, average intelligence trending downward over a long enough period of time would be a reasonable hypothesis.
I think you're underestimating how much genes affect behavior.
True, children aren't clones of their parents...
But, largely, childhood outcome is nurture over nature.
A few thoughts:
And who's going to be running the show until then? We will. Are we going to be doing fuck-all during that time? I highly doubt it.
I think you're being hyperbolic. What's wrong with disaster mitigation? Maybe they/we will mitigate this disaster. What kind of world do you want your children to live in? It was never going to be a utopia, even if we never used fossil fuels. There will be conflict of one sort or another. Some will prevail, some won't, just like it's always been and always will be.
You're forgetting their perspective. One must want something one doesn't have in order to be miserable. They won't know how good our grandparents/parents had it. The world they have will be all they truly know. They'll know there's a problem to solve. That will be their life, and they'll enjoy success.
You seem to be a good person. I don't think you should get a vasectomy, but if you do, please adopt and train the kid to be as thoughtful as yourself.
This is both ignorant of demography and absolutely racist.
Basically any data you care to look at shows pretty unambiguously that total fertility correlates with access to birth control and female literacy. The proportion of people who have ideological commitments to having more kids are vanishingly small and even for many of them their total fertility rates tend to track with overall changes in TFR. High birth rates are not an output of culture or self-restraint. It's literally just poverty and access to healthcare.
All you need to do is teach women to read and give them access to healthcare/birth control and fertility will naturally drop to either match of fall short of replacement. This pattern has held almost everywhere in the world, even in countries that treat women like dogshit in every other respect.
The idea that problems of poverty and access to resources are actually problems of "lesser" people just not being as genetically good as rich/advantaged people is rooted in racist, social-darwinist bullshit.
That comment wasn't racist until you made it racist. @PahoojyMan didn't say anything about total fertility, economic status, or race. What is your problem?
I can't "make" things racist. I can just point out the racist assumptions embedded into them.
In what zany reality can someone talk about population, heritability, and demography without making implicit statements about all of the above? This is like saying "He didn't say anything about water or electronics. He just said his phone stopped working ever since he dropped it in the bathtub!"
Whatever. When all you have is a hammer...
These can be both impacted by lifestyle, culture, socioeconomic status etc.
This was a key component of what I was alluding to. The cycle of poverty lends itself to unplanned pregnancies and the perpetuation of poverty through generations.
I have no idea where you read this.
Nope. You're still just implying that poverty is a personal failure of impulse control rather than a simple lack of resources.
In no way have I stated this
Literally for any of your argument to make sense you would have to be implying this. If you don't accept the premise--that the causative factor in excess fertility is heritable through a Darwinian (implied racial) mechanism--then the rest of the argument and discussion with @alyaza and @cfbabbro falls apart.
I was speaking to the cycle of poverty itself, it was not a personal judgement of any individual trapped inside.
The cycle perpetuates itself generationally, with one or more children only exacerbating the issue. I was not referring to genetics at all.
As someone who has spent most of their life under the poverty line, I absolutely understand the traps of this cycle.
You just recently watched "Idiocracy", huh? :P
My comment wasn't regarding stupidity breeding through, but instead a 'fight' for a majority stance on population control.
Ironically those who are for population control will have less (or zero) children, thus ceding any majority stake on the matter, in a negative feedback loop.
this piece is one of a few in the past year or so talking about the idea of population control in the name of climate change (see previous discussions here, here, and here); however, unlike the other pieces, this one weaves in a lot of stuff about life, relationships, and religion, and how those have informed the author's views on the whole idea of birth striking, hence i'm tossing it here instead of ~enviro.
It appears most people have very strongly held and fixed viewpoints on this subject.
I've always loved the way this was put in the Matrix.
It's ironic that our success as a species has been our successful drive towards procreating, but that also might be our downfall.
I wonder sometimes if that isn't what happened to the trilobytes, and if that isn't also why we never see evidence of aliens.
Every species has that same drive to procreate, but most of them are kept in check by predators, limited food, etc. Any one of them would explode if the limiting factors went away. Just look at invasive species like the rabbits in Australia. Our propensity for procreating isn't special, our talent for overcoming the things that keep us in check is.
as an aside, here is an additional piece from CNN last month about the "birthstrike" movement specifically: BirthStrike: The people refusing to have kids, because of 'the ecological crisis'
and here is Spiked's argument against anti-natalism, the birthstrike movement, and similar environmentally motivated ideas: Having kids won’t kill the planet. this piece basically argues among other things that making the birth rate an environmental issue is an awful idea for women's autonomy reasons, that family planning is weirdly racially coded because it's often white well-offs that promote it and of course the recipients of such planning would predominantly be africans and--groan--prioritizes biodiversity over people, and that it's--even more of a groan--an extension of a broader narcissism and entitlement that millennials have.