PatientGrasshopper: Is it morally correct to create a limit on how many children someone can have? Like they do in China? Yes I understand that a lot of people do not have the means to take care of Children and then they could give them up for adoption but the government should not force decisions onto people. That being said people should ony have kids when they are financially stable enough to provide for them
electric discordian: Technically I shouldn't have used the word moral as morality is a construct created by the state, anyhue thats beside the point.
So you are a moral relativist then. If that is the case than if someone's morality told them to kill you if you objected you would be going against their set of morals but if they killed you they would be going against your set of morals both of you cannot be right only one person can be right.
If the person you quoted meant state as "the group of people within an area" then yes, he could be classified as a moral relativist. If he meant state as "government" then he's just wrong.
As for your idea, there is no objective "right" in such a scenario so your idea is completely invalid. Moral relativism simply recognizes morality as a construct of humans and not of universal truths.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doingthe right thing he was because he had a different moral standard.
PatientGrasshopper: Is it morally correct to create a limit on how many children someone can have? Like they do in China? Yes I understand that a lot of people do not have the means to take care of Children and then they could give them up for adoption but the government should not force decisions onto people. That being said people should ony have kids when they are financially stable enough to provide for them
electric discordian: Technically I shouldn't have used the word moral as morality is a construct created by the state, anyhue thats beside the point.
So you are a moral relativist then. If that is the case than if someone's morality told them to kill you if you objected you would be going against their set of morals but if they killed you they would be going against your set of morals both of you cannot be right only one person can be right.
If the person you quoted meant state as "the group of people within an area" then yes, he could be classified as a moral relativist. If he meant state as "government" then he's just wrong.
As for your idea, there is no objective "right" in such a scenario so your idea is completely invalid. Moral relativism simply recognizes morality as a construct of humans and not of universal truths.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doing the right thing he was because he had a different moral standard. Edit: Oops I didn't mean to post this twice.
I'll float this: Rather than do the Chinese thing, where they force abortions on people who have multiple children, after a couples first pregnancy, we irradiate their reproductive organs to kill all of their mating capabilities.
Or, we put birth control medication in the drinking water, like we do with floride. Or, Stop child production, until the surplus of children in orphanages is gone.
PatientGrasshopper: Is it morally correct to create a limit on how many children someone can have? Like they do in China? Yes I understand that a lot of people do not have the means to take care of Children and then they could give them up for adoption but the government should not force decisions onto people. That being said people should ony have kids when they are financially stable enough to provide for them
electric discordian: Technically I shouldn't have used the word moral as morality is a construct created by the state, anyhue thats beside the point.
So you are a moral relativist then. If that is the case than if someone's morality told them to kill you if you objected you would be going against their set of morals but if they killed you they would be going against your set of morals both of you cannot be right only one person can be right.
If the person you quoted meant state as "the group of people within an area" then yes, he could be classified as a moral relativist. If he meant state as "government" then he's just wrong.
As for your idea, there is no objective "right" in such a scenario so your idea is completely invalid. Moral relativism simply recognizes morality as a construct of humans and not of universal truths.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doing the right thing he was because he had a different moral standard. Edit: Oops I didn't mean to post this twice.
Theirs a good point there. Everyone thinks they are right. Don't you think what the US is doing in the middle east can be considered evil? They are imposing their ideas on other people, and invading countries to spread their system of government!
Mathew952: I'll float this: Rather than do the Chinese thing, where they force abortions on people who have multiple children, after a couples first pregnancy, we irradiate their reproductive organs to kill all of their mating capabilities.
Or, we put birth control medication in the drinking water, like we do with floride. Or, Stop child production, until the surplus of children in orphanages is gone.
I sincerely hope you are joking otherwise we will end up like that movie Children of Men. See if you put it in drinking water there will be no future generations.
You understand that if this problem is not addressed it may lead to the exhaustion of all or most of the resources necassary for human life?
Um, no, because of the LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. Besides, the resource most needed for human survival is human intelligence, and you just get MORE of that when the population increases.
There is a theoretical limit to the number of human beings the Earth could support, but long before that time having children will become so prohibitively difficult that it won't be an issue. There have been big jumps in the sustainable apex population since the industrial revolution due to advances in food production, sanitation, and medicine, but this isn't an unlimited trend and it's not anything to worry about. In places where those advances have been removed (Zimbabwe!!) the population has crashed and is actually decreasing. IIRC some of the Scandinavian countries have negative population growth, too, because people there don't have many children, they have strict immigration controls, and people frequently move away.
You fail to understand the law of conservation of energy. It states that there is a fixed amount of energy/matter, what you fail to realize is that as energy is used it is converted to matter. all matter basically contains energy, but more energy is required to release it. there eventually becomes less and less energy and more and more matter. without the added energy input of the sun and geothermal power, all life on Earth would have ceased to exist long ago. it takes more than the waste of higher animals to allow lower animals to continue to reproduce. If lower lifeforms subsisted on only the waste of higher animals, then populations of life would decrease until no more life existed. also more human life doesn't equal more intelligence, it only equals the potential for more inteeligence(this is from a separate post). If humanity causes the extinction of too many of the lower organisms, then the higher organisms that depend on them also go extinct (some may adapt, but most can't due to the rapid growth and change that humanity causes) thus leading to the POTENTIAL for humanity's extinction. What we are describing is hypothetical, it may happen, it may not. But if it does there are reasons for it that may have ties to now, meaning that if it happens, it may have been avoidable. On the whole, the human population is increasing, and if it continues to do so, we will run out of agricultural land on which to grow the food necassary to feed everyone. If that happens it will lead to famine beyond the biblical scale, unimagineable suffering. Avoidable suffering. Maybe the population will cap out like a normal system, or maybe it won't, like with an unbalanced system.
PatientGrasshopper: Is it morally correct to create a limit on how many children someone can have? Like they do in China? Yes I understand that a lot of people do not have the means to take care of Children and then they could give them up for adoption but the government should not force decisions onto people. That being said people should ony have kids when they are financially stable enough to provide for them
electric discordian: Technically I shouldn't have used the word moral as morality is a construct created by the state, anyhue thats beside the point.
So you are a moral relativist then. If that is the case than if someone's morality told them to kill you if you objected you would be going against their set of morals but if they killed you they would be going against your set of morals both of you cannot be right only one person can be right.
If the person you quoted meant state as "the group of people within an area" then yes, he could be classified as a moral relativist. If he meant state as "government" then he's just wrong.
As for your idea, there is no objective "right" in such a scenario so your idea is completely invalid. Moral relativism simply recognizes morality as a construct of humans and not of universal truths.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doing the right thing he was because he had a different moral standard. Edit: Oops I didn't mean to post this twice.
Theirs a good point there. Everyone thinks they are right. Don't you think what the US is doing in the middle east can be considered evil? They are imposing their ideas on other people, and invading countries to spread their system of government!
Sure, I mean I do think the war is a little off target because we were supposed to have gone in their as retaliation for 9/11 but were have different motives now.
PatientGrasshopper: Is it morally correct to create a limit on how many children someone can have? Like they do in China? Yes I understand that a lot of people do not have the means to take care of Children and then they could give them up for adoption but the government should not force decisions onto people. That being said people should ony have kids when they are financially stable enough to provide for them
electric discordian: Technically I shouldn't have used the word moral as morality is a construct created by the state, anyhue thats beside the point.
So you are a moral relativist then. If that is the case than if someone's morality told them to kill you if you objected you would be going against their set of morals but if they killed you they would be going against your set of morals both of you cannot be right only one person can be right.
If the person you quoted meant state as "the group of people within an area" then yes, he could be classified as a moral relativist. If he meant state as "government" then he's just wrong.
As for your idea, there is no objective "right" in such a scenario so your idea is completely invalid. Moral relativism simply recognizes morality as a construct of humans and not of universal truths.
Why when i corrected the use of the word moral was I criticised for using it in the first place? The point of the initial post was to in some part correct what I regarded as a poorly chosen word in the Op title. I am not a moral relativist I believe that no one has any morals at all including me!
PatientGrasshopper: Is it morally correct to create a limit on how many children someone can have? Like they do in China? Yes I understand that a lot of people do not have the means to take care of Children and then they could give them up for adoption but the government should not force decisions onto people. That being said people should ony have kids when they are financially stable enough to provide for them
electric discordian: Technically I shouldn't have used the word moral as morality is a construct created by the state, anyhue thats beside the point.
So you are a moral relativist then. If that is the case than if someone's morality told them to kill you if you objected you would be going against their set of morals but if they killed you they would be going against your set of morals both of you cannot be right only one person can be right.
If the person you quoted meant state as "the group of people within an area" then yes, he could be classified as a moral relativist. If he meant state as "government" then he's just wrong.
As for your idea, there is no objective "right" in such a scenario so your idea is completely invalid. Moral relativism simply recognizes morality as a construct of humans and not of universal truths.
Why when i corrected the use of the word moral was I criticised for using it in the first place? The point of the initial post was to in some part correct what I regarded as a poorly chosen word in the Op title. I am not a moral relativist I believe that no one has any morals at all including me!
Then what guides what we do? Do you think killing someone is bad? I mean killing someone for no reason.
On the whole, the human population is increasing, and if it continues to do so, we will run out of agricultural land on which to grow the food necassary to feed everyone.
Not for a long time. Most of the agricultural land on the planet is under-utilized. There's plenty of food now, the distribution is just screwed up because of political malfeasance.
A fixed amount of matter and energy (in the universe) means that it's not possible to "use up" physical resources, only to move them around. It may be currently uneconomical to reuse the byproducts of all processes (and the byproducts of some inefficient processes may never be usable), but since you didn't *specify*, the statement is false.
One of Victor Hugo's interesting little essays in Les Miserables is about how stupid it is to dump sewage into the ocean instead of saving it and distributing it to farms--the country's fertility was being washed out to sea. Kind of interesting. A lot of modern farms use chemical fertilizers and so forth which are processed from inorganic sources.
So, no, it's not a closed cycle and we're not looking at a zero-sum game here. The balancing of food and population is inevitable and automatic.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doing the right thing he was because he had a different moral standard. Edit: Oops I didn't mean to post this twice.
You're still not getting this; he wasn't "right" according to moral relativism. All moral relativism says is that there is no absolute right or wrong. One thing Hitler was, however, was against most people's subjective morality.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doing the right thing he was because he had a different moral standard. Edit: Oops I didn't mean to post this twice.
You're still not getting this; he wasn't "right" according to moral relativism. All moral relativism says is that there is no absolute right or wrong. One thing Hitler was, however, was against most people's subjective morality.
Well then if it is retaliative you still can't claim he was evil.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doing the right thing he was because he had a different moral standard. Edit: Oops I didn't mean to post this twice.
You're still not getting this; he wasn't "right" according to moral relativism. All moral relativism says is that there is no absolute right or wrong. One thing Hitler was, however, was against most people's subjective morality.
Well then if it is retaliative you still can't claim he was evil.
But you can say that you wouldn't like to live in his society.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doing the right thing he was because he had a different moral standard. Edit: Oops I didn't mean to post this twice.
You're still not getting this; he wasn't "right" according to moral relativism. All moral relativism says is that there is no absolute right or wrong. One thing Hitler was, however, was against most people's subjective morality.
Well then if it is retaliative you still can't claim he was evil.
But you can say that you wouldn't like to live in his society.
Alright but what if you already live in his society and aren't able to escape?
PatientGrasshopper: Well then if it is retaliative you still can't claim he was evil.
The only thing moral relativism prevents is saying he is objectively evil. Why don't we bring this discussion into PMs if you want to continue it? I daresay we have gotten quite of topic.
Oh I have referenced that movie several times yes it does seem the less intelligent have children more. However I still don't think it's the government's place to enforce population control. We need to encourage education courses for parents to be.
The point is, its impossible to enforce. Even if we tried to, it won't work. About all you'd manage to do, is to have a 'program' that tries to tell people 'not to have more kids than they can actually handle', and only the 'smart' people won't be having children, while the rednecks family tree stretched out into a tree that folds in on its self a couple houndred times...
T'Generalissimo: I don't think the point is whether or not people should be allowed to reproduce but whether the State should provide benefits to those that do.
well now that argument is a horse of a different feather so to speak. and as it happenes i agree with the idea that the 'state' shouldnt be responsable for children. well thats not totaly true. i agree with tax deductions for children, if the parents have enough income to be paying taxes than they are obviously providing for their children they diserve a break on their taxes especialy since the alternative is to dump the care and feeding of those children totaly on the 'state' should their parents become unable to support them.
truth is really im of two minds about this whole thing. i hold children innocent in this situation , none of us asked to be born. and while i think that its clueless of people too continue to have children they cant support, not because I say so but because its bad for THEM can you really punish those children for their parents choices?
be clear in my meaning i look on so called 'welfair moms' with the same contempt that the OP shows, but i move beyond it, i wonder what possable situation could make a person CHOSE to go down such an obvious dead end road. ive had some first hand experiance with this kind of thing and often one mistake in youth, a pregnancy unexpected by people little more than children themselves can lead into this dead end. one child can create a pit you just cant rise out of both in terms of money and in time. i can only speak about here in the States but when the OP can explane to me how a person working a minimum wage job can afford to pay for a babysitter who gets more for their services than the mother makes than i might change my mind.
there are hundreds of senarios that can be tossed about here 'what if' kinds of statments but real life isnt based on theory. you ant make blanket statments and general observations about something like this notion that people shouldnt be allowed to breed because you say a poor woman with 4 kids someplace. unless you can tell me that womans details, how she actualy got into that situation in the first place, what choices she had and what mistakes you think she made your argument is meaningless for me atleast. and even if you can provide the details of that one womans life thats not reason enough to adopt a blanket policy of limiting births for everyone on the planet.
and finaly, in general i take extream exception to the notion that anyone has any more 'right' to the resources of this planet than anyone else. now ill admit thats a bit of an extream view on my part. the evoultion of human societys has almost hard wired into us this notion of people actualy owning bits of the planet but i think that is a sham and will be exposed as such if the time ever does come when we start to run out of resources and places to live. then we will fight. and the strong will survive and the problem will solve itself at that time. and in that time little things like nationel borders or who has 'title' to what resources wont mean shit. it will all come down to who has the power to TAKE whats left. and who knows maybe on that day if the OP and other who think that limiting births is a good idea are still around they may be happy that they DIDNT and their society will have the ability to fight and hold whats left.
nature doesnt give a shit about where our maps say people belong. people make those decision by force of arms if needed now i dont know about you but KNOWING this as an ultimate truth do you really WANT to put yourself and your nation in a position where simple numbers will overrun and destroy you? America isnt just a 'super power' because we have the most kick ass weapons you kow (though thats part of it) most of our allies have weapons every bit as good, but what makes America a SUPER power is our size as well as our tech. same with Russia and especialy true of China and even india to a certian extent.
think about it. once you move beyond the idiotic notion that we are all somehow going to turn into one big happy planet earth someday, building starships and forming the UFP with the vulcans and relize that we are not even capable of going so much as one day without a war someplace on this planet it might be a wake up call to shake you out of this fantasy you have about humans ever evolving beyond the 'i want i take' mentality that forms our very core and relize that if WE dont claim our place than we WILL lose it to others that are willing to then it isnt the child birth that should be limited but its the whole society that thinks thats a good idea that should be.
you want to limit the births in your/our society, ill agree with that idea as soon as you explane how we, with our limited societys, deal with a billion screaming chinamen.
How to deal with a billion screaming Chinamen? Given that Chinas population controls have actually been working to an extent admittedly in a brutal way, as a previous poster stated there is now a disparity with male and female. Basing the whole of your reproduction policy on the idea of the Red Menace does seem a wee bit short sighted. We need to f**k more or those goddam commies will win.... Been playing Fallout3 alot perchance?
In the UK we wouldnt stand a fighting chance against these billion screaming chinese anyway unless there boats sank on the way, as I believe firmly we cant sustain a Billion people. I do understand the individual stories of single mums, I have two friends who are and they are completely screwed because they don't play the system. One lives at her mums at thirty and works a part time job because the family tax credit scheme is so derisory her kids would starve without her meager earnings. The other is too middle class to claim anything and she survives on the money paid her by her ex.
Is it a basic human right to live with a roof over your head? If so then we are setting ourselves up for a fall, for every family that has between four and six children they will reach adulthood and there is a high persentage chance they will need housing, as will the refuges from the next big ethnic cleansing in where ever no doubt being in some part sponsored by the CIA as Americas oil reserves run out. New build housing will need to be built green belt land will be destroyed more roads will have to be built and we will have to seek more food from abroad.
So unless we propose returning to Dickensian Garrets for the poor and the workhouse we will have issues.
I do despite having pretty much no faith in humanity am convinced that we will reach a point where war is no longer financially viable, whilst we are still dropping out cannon fodder this may never happen. Dont forget it took a nuclear war for the UFP to exist in the series that would bring down population growth nicely.
Also are you not impressed that I have been able to go through this entire debate without once using Bill Hicks Quotes!
Mathew952: I'll float this: Rather than do the Chinese thing, where they force abortions on people who have multiple children, after a couples first pregnancy, we irradiate their reproductive organs to kill all of their mating capabilities.
Or, we put birth control medication in the drinking water, like we do with floride. Or, Stop child production, until the surplus of children in orphanages is gone.
1. If the kid dies, the couple will be unable to have additional children to continue their own blood. I'm not even mentioning the side effects of fucking with radiation. Cancer, radiation poisoning, etc. 2. I'm not drinking bitch pills. Hell, I filter my water before I drink it, so I don't get the floride either. 3. Once again, I'll raise a child of my own blood to continue my line. I refuse to raise a child thats not either mine or my significant other's.
not everyone should have kids. im sorry but its the truth. there should be standards and especially the banning (or at the absolute least recall of tax exempt status, which is probably more sound human rights wise) of religions that encourage 15 billion kids per couple, massive expansion of free birth control and licenses issued to legally hunt people who protest outside of abortion clinics.
make birth control (normal birth control pills morning after pills and condoms) a fundamental right, something where the basics are supplied by the government, and make refusing to sell/distribute it or cutting off someones access to it for anything other than health reasons a criminal offense. make abortions easy to get (maybe only the first three months if thats your thing, its a complex issue) educate people and have a culture open to (and possibly even encouraging) homosexuality (how many gay couples have you ever heard of accidentally having a kid?)
thats the humane solution. in a non sexist soceity i suppose something like 1 child could work, but it would still be a bit excessive...
I know it's morally wrong to suggest this (-_-), but all this talk of money and kids makes think of only one solution. Obviously, we should follow Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" down to the letter.
As for my viewpoint on this matter: morals don't really have anything to do with this at all. "morals" can be used to support both sides of a complicated issue like this, so you have to look at this in a different light. What I'd say would be my ideal solution would be to create a system where the government supports the less fortunate/screw ups/etc., but not for free.
Those that apply and get accepted will get support, but not cash. They get government housing, a menial job at first, clothing, food, instead. In return, they sign a contract with the government, pledging not only their support but their children's as well. They mess up at work, they lose most everything they have (except for whatever cash they've saved up from working). When their children are old enough, they're sent to school, given a basic education, but not without chances for advancement. You can take tests to be admitted to colleges, get a higher paying job, etc.
The great thing about this is that it almost supports itself. For the rest of the people that don't break out, they get decent jobs working for the system: building houses for new applicants, teaching them in schools, farming, making clothes, they're "paid" for their work. They wouldn't have much money, necessarily, but they'd have a decent environment to live and grow up in.
742: not everyone should have kids. im sorry but its the truth. there should be standards and especially the banning (or at the absolute least recall of tax exempt status, which is probably more sound human rights wise) of religions that encourage 15 billion kids per couple, massive expansion of free birth control and licenses issued to legally hunt people who protest outside of abortion clinics.
make birth control (normal birth control pills morning after pills and condoms) a fundamental right, something where the basics are supplied by the government, and make refusing to sell/distribute it or cutting off someones access to it for anything other than health reasons a criminal offense. make abortions easy to get (maybe only the first three months if thats your thing, its a complex issue) educate people and have a culture open to (and possibly even encouraging) homosexuality (how many gay couples have you ever heard of accidentally having a kid?)
thats the humane solution. in a non sexist soceity i suppose something like 1 child could work, but it would still be a bit excessive...
At least here in the US that would be unconstitutional on so many levels. Banning churches goes against freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Requiring someone to give abortions even if they don't believe in it also falls under this category. Not only that but there are several other problems with your idea. You say encourage homosexuality, but I thought it wasn't a choice, so how does that work. I also don't get what people's aversion to abstinence education is it is the only 100% accurate form of birth control period.
Abstinence education does not work amonst the social groups we are talking about as they rarely go to school or anywhere else where White Lightening isnt sold. There is an terribly inhumane solution to this problem. if you have more than two children you have to feed the two children the other remainder! State sponsored cannibalism seems quite a reasonable notion after you have been awake some 25 hours as I have!
dont read to much into my whole chinaman point, i use it mearly to try and point out taht all the theorys in the world dont overcome reality. the reality is that those that breed and do it well dominate. its the basics of darwins theory and logic would suggest that any system that seeks to limit breeding is bad for mankind.
my actual thoughts are this way. either 1) God is real and ill leave the problem of too many people up to him to deal with, or 2) we are all just random strings of atoms that somehow sprang to life and evolved into this apex of life we call human. if this second one is the case than by limiting our offspring we are limiting our potential to evolve. since darwins theory needs about a hundred billon monkys to toss enough typewriters at a chalk bord to kill Shakespeare it would seem to me that by limting those monkeys to 100k instead of 100 billion, Shakespeare will live forever.
your prolly scratching your head about now wonder what the hell im talking about but if you take the time to think through what i just wrote im certian you will understand my point.
since you didnt like my chinamen argument maybe this one will be better for you.
742: not everyone should have kids. im sorry but its the truth. there should be standards and especially the banning (or at the absolute least recall of tax exempt status, which is probably more sound human rights wise) of religions that encourage 15 billion kids per couple, massive expansion of free birth control and licenses issued to legally hunt people who protest outside of abortion clinics.
make birth control (normal birth control pills morning after pills and condoms) a fundamental right, something where the basics are supplied by the government, and make refusing to sell/distribute it or cutting off someones access to it for anything other than health reasons a criminal offense. make abortions easy to get (maybe only the first three months if thats your thing, its a complex issue) educate people and have a culture open to (and possibly even encouraging) homosexuality (how many gay couples have you ever heard of accidentally having a kid?)
thats the humane solution. in a non sexist soceity i suppose something like 1 child could work, but it would still be a bit excessive...
At least here in the US that would be unconstitutional on so many levels. Banning churches goes against freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Requiring someone to give abortions even if they don't believe in it also falls under this category. Not only that but there are several other problems with your idea. You say encourage homosexuality, but I thought it wasn't a choice, so how does that work. I also don't get what people's aversion to abstinence education is it is the only 100% accurate form of birth control period.
constitution... people care about that since when? i agree. thats why i proposed revoking tax exempt status instead. banning something never completely stops it, just makes it go underground. if you dont beleive in abortion, dont get a job preforming abortions? im not proposing making it mandatory to give them, im proposing making keeping someone from getting one (by say, grounding your daughter) a crime. your right its not a choice, but openly admitting it is. and i for one am less likely to admit something if it will provoke violence against me, i suspect i am not alone in this. if a culture is accepting and even encourages it(and i mean passively through the media and the like) then perhaps people will be more honest, and we wont have so many god damn republicans getting married and having kids while they have random anonymous unprotected sex in airport bathrooms. um... abstinence education... 100% effective... yeah... you havent hit puberty yet have you? but notice i DID include education there. and we could live in a society where everyone was educated about everything and acted with logic and kindness, caring for their fellow living beings and riding clean power flying cyborg hoverpigs to work.
idiots are not swayed by education. it just doesnt happen, they are far too often too set in their ways.
dont read to much into my whole chinaman point, i use it mearly to try and point out taht all the theorys in the world dont overcome reality. the reality is that those that breed and do it well dominate. its the basics of darwins theory and logic would suggest that any system that seeks to limit breeding is bad for mankind.
my actual thoughts are this way. either 1) God is real and ill leave the problem of too many people up to him to deal with, or 2) we are all just random strings of atoms that somehow sprang to life and evolved into this apex of life we call human. if this second one is the case than by limiting our offspring we are limiting our potential to evolve. since darwins theory needs about a hundred billon monkys to toss enough typewriters at a chalk bord to kill Shakespeare it would seem to me that by limting those monkeys to 100k instead of 100 billion, Shakespeare will live forever.
your prolly scratching your head about now wonder what the hell im talking about but if you take the time to think through what i just wrote im certian you will understand my point.
since you didnt like my chinamen argument maybe this one will be better for you.
You see I see your darwinian point, but surely you would want decent stock to evolve from, Darwin also states survival of the fittest, if our children are uneducated and as fit as I am then we are rather screwed.
Also I wrote this from a purely secular point of view as I don't believe in a loving god or indeed one of any kind. Not that it's wrong it's just not for me. So to me the God arguement is not a valid one.
I am now going to duck as I feel I may have offended someone... I am basically a nice guy for a heathen
Better birth control is the first step for sure. When accidental pregnancy is taken out of the equation, we will be a lot better off. Penalize people for having accidental children and straight don't let uneducated people have kids.
Want a baby? You gotta get a permit for that shit or you be looking at a 5,000 dollar fine.
Morals and Morality is a sliding scale and while I agree that shit will solve it's self automatically to a certain extent, it's much better to control it and know how it's going to happen.
If you, as a person, want to continue your blood line then you should have to work for it. Sorry but owning an RV and a 200 pound wife doesn't and shouldn't entitle you to seven children. It shouldn't entitle you to one. If you want a kid, you gotta pay upfront for that shit or suffer the penalties.
Make a kid cost 1000 bucks with that money going to a savings account for the kid and bam you just snared births in your country. Wait ten years and see the effects of that policy and go from there. If we, as a race of humans, stopped letting stupid people have children, we would be living on mars by now. Shit man, I could be in my fucking moon condo if the world required a minimum IQ to live.
Lord Krunk: I like China's approach; one baby per household.
Keeps the population down, and by extension, the world is a better (and cheaper, I might say) place to live in.
One baby per household is an incredibly shortsighted thing to do. China is now having a major problem concerning gender division. I'm not sure on the exact statistic, but the male to female ratio is something like 8-1, because with onyl one baby, most families want a man to continue the family and to work hard at a job in China, rather than being a housewife. It's a narrow view, but it seems to be the one the Chinese are adopting under such laws. Either a limit of two babies, or one with proof that they can support an extra baby would be more prudent.
Some of you need to read up about the real problems instead of spouting crap about birth control.
In Europe (including UK), Russia and Japan birth rates are too low and even falling in some cases, this is made worse because people past retirement age are living too long. This causes a lot of problems for the economy and tax system.
As for China they face the threat of labour shortages due to their system of birth control.
So really you should all be arguing over whether its right to let people live too long.
no, whats wrong there is that there was a boom of people, and now birth rates are declining too fast, and the worlds population, if not kept in check intelligently WILL drop very sharply at some point, whether its an extreme inhumane policy like 1 child or another world war. and yes, we shouldnt kill people because they are living too long, but perhaps an increased retirement age would be nessicary at some point. i mean, people are living longer, aging slower, and getting more productive years... why not raise it slightly?
There is a theoretical limit to the number of human beings the Earth could support, but long before that time having children will become so prohibitively difficult that it won't be an issue. There have been big jumps in the sustainable apex population since the industrial revolution due to advances in food production, sanitation, and medicine, but this isn't an unlimited trend and it's not anything to worry about. In places where those advances have been removed (Zimbabwe!!) the population has crashed and is actually decreasing. IIRC some of the Scandinavian countries have negative population growth, too, because people there don't have many children, they have strict immigration controls, and people frequently move away.
Yeah, more education + healthcare = less kids. If you introduce healthcare and medication without education, you see constantly rising number of population.
There is an easier solution to prevent childbirth or could be with further study. An example would be surgery however testing would be required to solidify an effective means to reverse the procedure. Nevertheless I am one to support even a mild prevention of pregnancy in couples whom have no purpose becoming parents. You say human rights are violated? What of the child born into a life of poverty by foolish teenagers/young adults who have neither the maturity nor the financial capabilities to maintain the responsibilities of parenthood?
Those aforementioned people are essentially the leeches within our society that bleed the system for Governmental payouts such as childcare, which is ridiculously multiplied if a parent is on welfare. Yes I cite childcare as bleeding the system, because it does not support those whom it should. If your salary is a diminutive feature you are offered especially greater compensation then those who work.
My cousin is a prime example of the poor execution that is childcare, when she had four children and opted to stay on welfare. In analyzing her budget, she made a larger amount of income by not working then had should decided to because childcare was the maximum allotted and daycare/babysitting costs would offset any benefit to having a low income job verse taking from the Government; or more accurately put, the populous who is taxed.
My belief does not insinuate people having to be lawyers or doctors in do to reproduce however people should only be allowed to do so if they meet a criteria similar to the following...
- The necessary financial standing to support the cost of a child. - A proper/respectable level of education. This does not insinuate a college degree - college is a waste in my opinion - however if you cannot budget your income for example... no children. - No prior record involving excessive abuse of alcohol, drugs or any other illegal substance. - No prior major criminal record. - Continuing the above, limitations may be granted for minor criminal actions; those that do not result in murder. (Example: Drinking and driving could prevent you from having children for five years; you clearly are not responsible enough to be a parent.) - It is a requirement to have a job, one of which you have been under employment a minimum of twelve months.
I certainly do not believe the above is demanding in excess. We all must function within society and I frankly grow tired of paying for the laziness of others. Time and time again I witness people with children who should not ever possess them. If you intend to be lazy, thus serving no actual purpose to society, do so without bleeding the rest of the world who wants little to do with you.
You understand that if this problem is not addressed it may lead to the exhaustion of all or most of the resources necassary for human life?
Um, no, because of the LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. Besides, the resource most needed for human survival is human intelligence, and you just get MORE of that when the population increases.
Sorry but I had to laugh :) I think youve never heard of Jeremy Rifkin and his books? Go inform yourself ;)
Quote: Famine? Today about one-third of the world's total grain harvest is fed to cattle and other livestock while as many as a billion people suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition.
There is a theoretical limit to the number of human beings the Earth could support, but long before that time having children will become so prohibitively difficult that it won't be an issue. There have been big jumps in the sustainable apex population since the industrial revolution due to advances in food production, sanitation, and medicine, but this isn't an unlimited trend and it's not anything to worry about. In places where those advances have been removed (Zimbabwe!!) the population has crashed and is actually decreasing. IIRC some of the Scandinavian countries have negative population growth, too, because people there don't have many children, they have strict immigration controls, and people frequently move away.
You fail to understand the law of conservation of energy. It states that there is a fixed amount of energy/matter, what you fail to realize is that as energy is used it is converted to matter. all matter basically contains energy, but more energy is required to release it. there eventually becomes less and less energy and more and more matter. without the added energy input of the sun and geothermal power, all life on Earth would have ceased to exist long ago. it takes more than the waste of higher animals to allow lower animals to continue to reproduce. If lower lifeforms subsisted on only the waste of higher animals, then populations of life would decrease until no more life existed. also more human life doesn't equal more intelligence, it only equals the potential for more inteeligence(this is from a separate post). If humanity causes the extinction of too many of the lower organisms, then the higher organisms that depend on them also go extinct (some may adapt, but most can't due to the rapid growth and change that humanity causes) thus leading to the POTENTIAL for humanity's extinction. What we are describing is hypothetical, it may happen, it may not. But if it does there are reasons for it that may have ties to now, meaning that if it happens, it may have been avoidable. On the whole, the human population is increasing, and if it continues to do so, we will run out of agricultural land on which to grow the food necassary to feed everyone. If that happens it will lead to famine beyond the biblical scale, unimagineable suffering. Avoidable suffering. Maybe the population will cap out like a normal system, or maybe it won't, like with an unbalanced system.
Some of you need to read up about the real problems instead of spouting crap about birth control.
In Europe (including UK), Russia and Japan birth rates are too low and even falling in some cases, this is made worse because people past retirement age are living too long. This causes a lot of problems for the economy and tax system.
As for China they face the threat of labour shortages due to their system of birth control.
So really you should all be arguing over whether its right to let people live too long.
Ah all hail the great god statistics! If the birth rates are to believed which they arent your principle is sound, not all births are reported to start with and there is a disparity between the British stats on Births and the amount people are claiming for children on benefit. The birthrate in France is falling that is true and they are taking affirmative action.
personally they may have a more diverse population if they allow some of the asylum seekers into there country instead of pushing them here!
Some of you need to read up about the real problems instead of spouting crap about birth control.
In Europe (including UK), Russia and Japan birth rates are too low and even falling in some cases, this is made worse because people past retirement age are living too long. This causes a lot of problems for the economy and tax system.
As for China they face the threat of labour shortages due to their system of birth control.
So really you should all be arguing over whether its right to let people live too long.
Ah all hail the great god statistics! If the birth rates are to believed which they arent your principle is sound, not all births are reported to start with and there is a disparity between the British stats on Births and the amount people are claiming for children on benefit. The birthrate in France is falling that is true and they are taking affirmative action.
personally they may have a more diverse population if they allow some of the asylum seekers into there country instead of pushing them here!
Statistics may not be exact but when used appropriately they are useful in seeing an overall picture and are better than relying on assumptions alone.
Birth stats can be taken from the general register office, which only record births that people register or the central issuing system that gives NHS numbers to babies born in NHS hospitals. Obviously its harder to account for private home births, people who don't register and people who use private hospitals. Disparity with child benefits can be for a number of reasons, most obvious one is fraud, another is immigrant children and then you have the unreported birth children. But all this information is taken into account when birth rates (really I should call it fertility rate) are worked out.
Now I think you missed where I said "too low" as well as "falling", the UK's birth rate is slowly increasing but is still too low compared to Russia where its just nosediving. A birth rate is too low if its below the replacement birthrate, which happens to be 2.1. The UK's in 2007 was 1.9
I find it strange you don't believe the birth rate of the UK but do believe Frances. I can give you proper links and articles all explaining this, not just a crappy wikipieda entry.
If there is no objective right than I guess since Hitler thought he was doingthe right thing he was because he had a different moral standard.