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On February 16 2009 17:14 BlackJack wrote:
I guess the underlying question I was getting at, that I didn't want to write in the OP so people wouldn't think I was trolling is this: Isn't not having children that you can't afford to feed the most effective way of ending world hunger? The consequences of course are societies / cultures being completely extinct. What's the greater tragedy?
I think that in countries such as Africa where there is nothing like a pension, a hard working couple will not have a chance when they are over 60. For this reason they get as many kids as possible, so that some will find jobs and will be able to support their parents. It used to be like that in the western world too, they're just a little behind.
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Poor people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce !
There would be only rich people on earth >_<
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On February 16 2009 20:09 Boblion wrote:
Poor people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce !
There would be only rich people on earth >_<
You know that rich people needs poor people for them to be rich?
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basically every living thing has two instinctive urges:
1. survive
2. reproduce
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On February 16 2009 17:47 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2009 17:27 fight_or_flight wrote:
Well I'll ask you this. Is it right for others to decide whether someone else's life is worth their suffering? From your point of view perhaps a life in a poor nation is not worth living, but obviously those people keep preserving.
edit: btw, I don't think there are easy answers to these questions. but we should definitely be careful whenever we try to decide what is best for someone else. I think life is always worth living, I'm strictly talking about offspring. I think I do have a right to judge if I'm partially footing that bill. Look at octo-mom. Do you think she should be allowed to have as many babies as she wants while the taxpayers are the ones paying to raise them? I think octomom loses her right to say 'its my decision, im a mother and I choose to have this many kids' when she's not the one paying to raise them.
would you support a law capping the # of children people can have?
keep in mind it would apply to even families that could afford to raise their children.
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On February 16 2009 20:07 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2009 17:14 BlackJack wrote:
I guess the underlying question I was getting at, that I didn't want to write in the OP so people wouldn't think I was trolling is this: Isn't not having children that you can't afford to feed the most effective way of ending world hunger? The consequences of course are societies / cultures being completely extinct. What's the greater tragedy? I think that in countries such as Africa where there is nothing like a pension, a hard working couple will not have a chance when they are over 60. For this reason they get as many kids as possible, so that some will find jobs and will be able to support their parents. It used to be like that in the western world too, they're just a little behind.
That is assuming, of course, that a considerable percentage of the populace reaches the age of 60. A life of malnourishment can't be too healthy, I doubt the average life expectancy in Africa is much above 50 or 55. Apart from that, there's still AIDS and other epidemics thinning the population.
Taking all this into consideration, I actually agree with Blackjack here.
@ OP: Brood said it best. Unless humankind somehow figures out how to overcome their instincts, we're bound to try and maintain the human race. If people were to jump to the "ah, fuck that" attitude so fast, we'd have a lot more suicides all over the place.
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Life expectancy might be 55 but plenty of people get a lot older and you gotta have your kids in place just in case. You can't just go like "oh I'll be max 55 anyways I will just stop at 2 kids" and be fucked when you become 60-80.
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On February 16 2009 20:22 NotSupporting wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2009 20:09 Boblion wrote:
Poor people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce !
There would be only rich people on earth >_< You know that rich people needs poor people for them to be rich?
Robots will do, too.
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Check out the world bank statistics. You'll find that even incredibly poor countries such as Bangladesh have very successful family planning programs in place and have currently a population growth rate of just 2.9%.
What you guys are discussing is old news.
As the economies of these poor countries grow, education levels improve and people make better decisions about how to go about living their lives.
It used to be that in these poor countries where people used subsistence farming to survive had many children because they thought that having more children would allow them to become more productive, more efficient and richer. This wasn't the correct way of thinking since even though more children meant more money, the money per child decreases. Having said that, it has changed a lot since then as people have become a lot smarter as education has improved over time.
If you really want to help these poor people, don't make such harsh judgments about how they dug their own grave. The old saying teach a man to fish and he'll feed him and his family for a lifetime holds true. Agencies like Grameen Bank (inventors of microcredit) have revolutionised the way we think and look at the poor. They have devised a system where they give these poor people the skills they need to start a small business and give them a small loan (a microcredit) to achieve it. It has pulled millions out of poverty.
If you want to make poverty history donate to agencies like this and perhaps our children will live to see the day without poverty.
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What's most important to understand is that our lives are always the most important. Our families, our future, our countries, our race, and finally our species.
For example, if a wizard gave you the arbitrary choice of either having all salamanders killed, or all humans killed, you would pick humans to survive.
If the choice were all the members of your race or those of another, you would choose yours to survive.
If the choice were your country or another, yours.
Your family, another family, yours.
If you had the choice between 99.9% of the world's population and your close family, I expect you would choose your close family.
Humans always seek security. That's the number one desire in all humans, in most animals. Food, physical, sexual, emotional security.
I think the answer to your question in the broadest sense is that it's a combination of three things:
1 genes, 2 culture and 3 involvement.
1We are programmed to satisfy our desire for security
2. we all add together our own feelings of that desire in public, and in most cultures there is a very strong notion of the importance of human life, which is pieced together by people all throughout history (such things as dignity and human rights are not very strong in our genetic programming, but they are in our cultures)
3. If we have things to care about, that we are attached to, we care a lot more about their survival. I'm sure there are quite a few people out there who are fat, ugly, stupid, socially disgraceful, were beaten as a kid, and have a generally shit outlook on life because no one ever involved them in anything; and they spend their whole lives on a computer being rude to people and listening to death metal- those people probably couldn't care less if humanity dies.
Btw to that guy who said 'harm to ecosystems outweighs the value of human life?!?!?!!?!?' human life has no intrinsic value, and neither does harm to ecosystems. Everything is relative in morality.
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was kinda confused by the OP when he switched from the survival thing to the children thing.
But about the survival of humanity i think the problem is people think the meaning of life is to keep existing in some kind of form ( like reproducing and stuf). The problem with this is that all these people assume that life has meaning. I really think it doesnt. whats the point in doing anything if by some day in the future its all gonna be gone anyway. Just have fun and do as you like.
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Evolution "programmed" us to ensure the survival of our children and if that is not possible our next best relatives (other humans). Also many of us like to think they will be remembered, and how can one be remembered without future generations ?
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I'm also extremely cynical to all the Bono type celebrities asking for money for one thing or another. Sure, they are at least trying to do a great deed, but have they really accomplished much? What's the deal with using the bailout money to try to make $3 billion seem like a small amount of money? That's a pretty sizeable amount of money. Over the last 50 years over $2 trillion has been given in the form of foreign aid to those in poverty, and after 50 years we're laucnhing the "Human Rescue" project? To rescue people from 50 years of poverty by giving them food? That doesn't rescue anyone, that just feeds them for a year. The more children parent's have, the less money they can afford to invest in each of their children's education. Instead of trying to feed 6 children, it will be far more effective if people try to feed AND educate 1 child. If you're going to keep your child out of school so he can help support the family or if he won't be able to concentrate in school because of his empty stomach, DON'T HAVE KIDS.
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Also, when you try to defrost your cat in the microwave, that is a clear sign you are not fit to stay in the gene pool in any way.
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On February 16 2009 20:22 NotSupporting wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2009 20:09 Boblion wrote:
Poor people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce !
There would be only rich people on earth >_< You know that rich people needs poor people for them to be rich?
Domnule-ed
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Ya I think there's a lot of pointless speculation and theorycrafting here.
The reason growth rates are high in developing countries is due to cultural standards that developed before Europeans introduced basic health care services during the imperial era. Because death rates were so high, people needed to have lots of babies just to maintain the population. As health care improved, this ceased to be a problem, but the cultural standards stuck because they were not accompanied by economic development.
The reason the western world has developed low birth rates is because our affluence has increased the opportunity cost of having children. Taking care of a child is whole orders of magnitude more expensive in the west because you could be making much more working for a wage. At one point, birth rates in Western civilization were also high.
The way to control population growth isn't to bitch about it on TL. Family planning programs help, but the most effective way to control population growth and encourage "sustainable development" is simply to encourage economic development.
That's why Sean Penn's video is a little ridiculous. It isn't just a matter of putting food into people's mouths. But how do you get that food there in the first place? Is the controlling regime there ok with what you're doing? How much do I have to pay people to go distribute food in some of the most deadly areas of the world? How do I ensure this food isn't stolen by the government and resold to the west?
Still, he makes a good point. We don't spend nearly as much on foreign aid as we could, and that would certainly speed up development. But the real obstacles to development aren't monetary... they're governments, trade barriers, and social conflict.
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There are whole fields of science devoted to human population research, it's part of environmental science.
It's widely accepted that 5 major factors, on average, affect the # of children women have:
1) cost of raising children
2) education of mother
3) availability of birth control
4) existence of public/private retirement systems
5) religious/cultural beliefs
Also on the idea of the whole bunker with scientists and what not, it goes with what everyone is saying on the fact that humans have survival instincts that we cannot go against.
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Newsflash. People become parents for selfish reasons. In their view being a poor slob with kids is better then being a poor slob period. Feeling empty inside has a biological purpose. It's gets filled up by the only thing they know. Offspring.
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EPT
