this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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Not the best thesis, but people should have kids and more of them. That’s not open for debate.
Why do you say it's not open to debate?
LOL 😂
If you want more kids make a world where raising kids is easier, safer, and more affordable. Just stating "That's not open for debate" is such an idiotic non-answer to the problem of people not wanting to have kids. There are reason people feel this way. Fix those reasons and people might feel differently. Not me, but other people would.
| not me
ok so why raise issues about easier, safer, more afforable if they're not your reasons?
Because I have loved ones that are living in this world and it matters to them, therefore it matters to me.
Have those people committed to not have kids until those issues are resolved? And have they set thresholds of easier, safer, more affordable to trigger their child rearing?
Most people don't measure out futuristic measurements for society to get to before they feel comfortable having kids. Plus they will be at a different place and time, so things may change for them to be more comfortable. Reproducing isn't the top priority for them, surviving is. It's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. After the basic needs are met, they will have more energy to focus on kids.
I'm in my 40s and still don't want kids, so I doubt that will change. The people I know that are young (teens and early 20s) might change their mind, but they aren't lining up to have kids now. Some seem open to changing their minds later, but most of them say probably not.
I feel ya, I've always been a mix of "not ready" and "not wanting". Then my perspective on what fatherhood even is shifted and I was able to unshackle myself from the Christian thing.
That said, if you don't want kids for yourself then what impact are you having on those 20 somethings when you soapbox about how difficult and dangerous the world is?
My impact on them is supportive uncle mostly. I don't try to doom and gloom them with my old jaded take on the world. I know humans will figure this out. It will just be difficult. I tell them to look after each other because no one else will look out for you. Take care of yourself and enjoy your youth, but think for the future. I tell them they might change their mind on kids. I don't want them to just say no to kids cause they see me doing it.
I love being an uncle and older male in their lifes. I enjoyed teaching the younger guys in the military when I was in there for a while. We can accomplish a lot if we can unite and focus on a common goal.
I love to uncle, too. I passed on military entirely and rejected workplace leadership for awhile, but aging into "older male" triggers that itch sometimes. I've always joked that I like to rent not own, now my friends have kids and I got bonus nieces and nephews. It sounds like yours do have someone looking out for them. Good job, man!
Aww 8 billion just isn't enough for you huh?
I'll debate it. The world would be way better off with about 6 billion less people in the world.
Edit: My apologies. I am NOT advocating for eugenics, mass murder, or anything else. My thought of having fewer people is wishful thinking of what a better world would be like if we simply never got to 7 billion people in the first place.
I'm so done with this garbage random eugenics idea that the world should have exactly 1 billion people on it like some pseudoscience perfect number.
Its not a debate if you use feeling and lack any reasoning to get to your starting position.
There world is not some incapable small bubble that can only support some racist perfect population size of your desires.
Whoa, wanting less people via having fewer kids isn't eugenics, it's wishful thinking. I don't subscribe to the idea of forcing people to have fewer kids.
Edit: I can see how it sounds like I am advocating for eugenics in my earlier post. I will update it.
Thanks.
Absolutes with a goal for a future population often appeals to a specific group that I can't stand who appeal to it "being necessary" but often leave themselves out. So I try to push back on it so they know it's not acceptable to take seriously. It's just not an answer.
I know it doesn't go over well in these communities but I don't care. If even it pops up in the back of their head when thinking about "what helps" I want counter words there to say hoping for death of nearly everyone is miserable even if it's an "easy" out for suffering.
Thanks for being able to recognize it as wishful past missed conservation.
I don't think Eugenics or racist is the correct ideas to use here. Less population just means smaller. Not a specific phenotype of human needs to be culled from existance. Just a smaller population.
All biological systems have population limits, and lots of evidence points that humans have passed those limits by quite a bit. Normally, there would be a population collapse due to food scarcity, but humans are capable of pushing those limits with agurcultural science. That doesn't mean that there are not huge determental effects on the world as a whole for there being an never ending exponential growth of people.
Who needs to be the 6 billion to die then?
Edit: Also go ahead and tell me where you get your population size to land use models so that it can be checked to not be still overshoot if you are so worried about how very few people can be supported by apparently this very limited planet.
And show me this exponential growth that hasn't apparently slowed at all with decreasing births
Dude, you will die, everyone will die... Not because I will go and kill you because I decided so but because AGING EXISTS. Simply by having fewer kids the population will decrease fully naturally which was the point of the person you're arguing against. Also you're incredibly ignorant on what the fuck humans do to this planet which is the only one we have, so many ecosystems destroyed, so many species extint, so much of nature gone...
"@[email protected] was so preocupied with the question if we could that he didn't stop and ask himself if we should."
It's not about if it's possible to fit so many and more humans on there but about it being a bad idea on so many levels. But again though... How the hell did you manage to forget that aging exists? I can't wrap my head around this one. Bruh.
Waiting for a population to age out as a fix for anything isn't a fix. I'm not unaware I just don't sit around waiting for hopes and prayers of the slow death of billions of people as an answer.
We have now and current reality. Playing make believe doesn't help. And who doesn't have kids? Cause plenty of people will have them anyways despite the obvious issues the planet is facing so how do you stop them?
This entire line of thought of just a decreasing population to a size you think is right is wishful "merciful" eugenics.
Saying you wish we hadn't got here is one thing and not helpful but one can forgive that as we all get mournful of the past. Hoping for it as a future is wrong and out of our control without some awful steps. I won't back down on that.
Edit: and you ignored that you said we are still in exponential increase of population which we are not. Its just an easy excuse for the mentality.
Well for one... you start with a society that doesnt shame people for not having kids. And two encourage people to foster children instead of adding more of their own. And three, improve society by pulling people out of poverty which has statistically reduced people having children.
bro its literally just anti-natalism
Having a specific population goal is not that.
im pretty sure our current meta of expansionism is a specific population goal as well? Does that not count as eugenics?
Does eugenics include using medical technology to save children and people that would've otherwise died to natural causes? How far must we go to prevent the perils of eugenics from coming upon us?
Go ahead buddy, nobody stopping you.
to be clear, this only really changes the amount of food produced from a specific harvest, GMO foods are what you are closest to here, but those have very few downsides.
The primary issue here is centralized farming, if we were to decentralize it more, it would be vastly more economical.
In addition to the financial implications, that's why we're stopping at 2. We get kids, the kids get a sibling, and it's a little below replacement level.
you know whats not open for debate? Freedom, and liberty.
No one needs to have kids ever, the world will be fine. That's not open for debate. Also, I deserve all the money, chocolate, and sex in the world, that's not open for debate. I like this game!
I mean, it clearly is. That's a big reason we're seeing conservative leap on the "No Abortions!" bandwagon. They're genuinely convinced of White Replacement Theory and have bought into this argument compelling women to have more children.
The orthodox pro-lifers are winning this fight by leveraging the military power of the state to compel pregnancy.
I was being sarcastic. There's nothing that's not open for debate, just look at flat-earthers.
Fascinating how not having kids leaves me with all my money to buy as much chocolate and sex as I want!
We need to learn to take care of the ones who are already here before we start making more. That's not open for debate.
Personally, I think the solution of "not enough kids" mirrors that of a law proposed decades ago: if a citizen votes in favor of going to war, they're automatically drafted should war be declared.
Republicans/Conservatives the world over want abortion banned, right? Cool, you vote to ban it, you're automatically added to a list to adopt children who cannot be aborted. The individual gets no say in when the adoption happens, they have no say in gender/ethnicity/etc, the government shows up, hands them a baby, and that's now their child. Government can do weekly/regular checks to ensure the child is being raised well enough and that the parent is home enough to watch them. And no limit on how many kids end up in your lap, either.
Oh, that doesn't work with your work schedule/life schedule/etc? Too bad, you wanted to save the unborn babies, now save them. You can't afford 13 newborns all at once? Sure sounds like a you problem, since you didn't support any of the things to make the lives of children better, like abortion/contraception/sex ed, childcare subsidies, school lunch programs, etc.
Problem solved: Conservative Christians get to save all the babies, people can still keep making them without fear of it hindering their lives, and the population continues to grow so the capitalist machine can be fed.
Why?
Go troll harder somewhere else. This is a pretty lame attempt to distract the thread.
Seems like a personal choice. I can name plenty of people who are trying to have kids and can't. And more than a few who didn't try to have kids but got them anyway. I also see a lot of kids showing up in foster programs, homeless shelters, and prisons.
Perhaps the problem isn't that we don't have enough kids. Perhaps we're just doing a shit job of caring for the kids who already exist.
Read the room. Ya lost
Ok ~~boomer~~breeder.