Global doom and gloom.

[skjl47]

Good good I didn’t want to sound rude!

agreed. Children = Ferrari lol
Though I do think children are more important than Cars

Hello; No I do not mean to equate children and cars other than the expense. People with children often tell me how much their children mean to them. I have no reason to doubt this.

In a more perfect or idealized world there would be no limits in terms of resources and the human population could expand forever. My stance is people should continue to have children, only have fewer. There is a population number which is sustainable long term. I figure we went past that number some time back. (points of discussion here concerning old style farming versus modern industrial/chemical farming. We were well past the old farming methods long ago. While modern industrial/chemical farming may almost keep up with the need currently, there are limits to how long such farming can be sustained.)

So my decision to be childless was not due to not liking children, but more for other reasons. I was a public school teacher after all. I reasoned things out based on the evidence available in the mid 1970's. I decided things were likely to become bad and took steps to prevent bringing additional children into the world. I figured any children of mine would face the coming hardships.
I also figured if I did not reproduce that would reduce the stress on the environment for others. (NOTE - I had a very diminishing hope a significant number of others might also make what I considered wise decisions about population. I did not in fact think many would and so few did. I had taken a good look at the attitudes of people at the time and figured there was little chance the exponential human population growth would slow down. It of course did not.)

While I do think people ought to consider a lot of things before bringing more children into the world. I do not think it is at this late point to affect the world population issues. The population issues are pretty much baked in already. I guess it is for consideration of the potential quality of life for a child at this point.
I digress again.

 

[Niki_up]

Again my apologies I was trying to stay on the lighter side of discussion and in no way was equating children to cars. And was agreeing with your point about cost of raising children.

I actually remember in school I learned about the carrying capacity of the Earth and how many humans it can sustain and carry. I cannot remember the number but we Did surpassed that number I was taught in school.

I also agree with the fact people need to consider and weigh their options before bringing more children into this world.

I’m not quite sure why I don’t want children as I have said since I’ve been 12 that I don’t want children. I do have my reasons why now as an adult about why I do not want children, but not sure why it’s been ingrained in me since I’ve been 12. I do feel like I might regret it in the future but not enough to make me have children.

you seem to have very selfless reasons for not having children and I commend that.

 

[esoxlucius]

There are lots of reasons why people choose not to have kids, though I can't help thinking that if they are playing the "prevention of strain on global resources" card as their sole reason, they must look at the spiralling global population and think, well that was a waste of time.

Everybody on the planet has to be singing from the same hymn sheet for these small collective changes for individuals to add up to huge beneficial changes for the planet. And when do you reckon that 7 billion people, and rising, are all going to be singing "all things bright and beautiful" from the same page in that hymn book?

Fast forward several hundred years maybe when the world really is in a shocking state then the choices that we currently have will no longer be available because future generations could well be governed by what you'd probably call a vast array of very strict "green" laws.

It's a sobering thought.

 

[Ulu]

My view about population control is that we don’t know enough, And we never did.

For a long time, since I was a child in the 1950s, educated people have been telling each other that we should have fewer children; and we did.

But the uneducated people of the world just keep breeding as fast as they could. I am now 65 years old. Without The past 65 years of disease war and starvation, the world would be twice as populated as it is now.

Even so, the result is a world with an overburden of uneducated people, and the educated peoples have only themselves to blame. Their burden to educate the world is now larger. Much larger.

We just didn’t know enough to make the judgments we thought were so common sense.

it is interesting to me that there are still a few primitive civilizations on this earth that are yet untouched by basic Bronze Age metal working technology, industrialization or even a written language. In fact it is generally illegal to interact with these peoples.

Do we know enough to keep these people so isolated, like some science project in a terrarium? Will they eventually thank us or hate us for this? What would I want if I were a barefoot savage with a club and a stone tipped spear, as the pinnacle of my technology?

It’s very difficult to imagine any reaction above fear or aggression.

 

[celebrist]

Think about how many ways we incentivize irresponsible reproduction and there is little wonder as to why the planet is overpopulated and hurtling towards possibly (probably) irreversible global calamity

 

[skjl47]

you seem to have very selfless reasons for not having children and I commend that.

Hello; Thanks for the comment. Two points ought to be made I guess. One is the decision was not totally selfless. While my thinking was more about quality of life for any children I might have fathered, the tough job of raising children was something I did not have to do. Which brings me to the second point.

As with pretty much everything the choice to remain childless can be controversial. As I have noticed and presume you will also notice there are still to this day lots of people who think having lots of children is the thing to do. Such was true fifty plus years ago and remains the case now. Arguments to the contrary even with plenty of facts to back up said arguments did not make a difference back in the mid 1970's, over the decades and still do not now.
I have been attacked verbally a number of times and accused of being selfish among other things. After paying attention for a few years I came to the conclusion there was little chance enough people would get on board with such notions as ZPG ( zero population growth). That there was a vanishingly small chance the exponential explosion of human population was going to be checked. I made the decision to guarantee I would have no accidents and had a vasectomy. For a few decades I kept this decision to myself as it was clear enough too few shared my views. Now when, as I see things, the predicted outcomes are coming to pass and I am too old to much care what others think, I tell about my decision.

"prevention of strain on global resources" card as their sole reason, they must look at the spiralling global population and think, well that was a waste of time.

Hello; Yes to this in the sense that if as an individual and thinking being childless would somehow help save the world of human beings from itself. No I came to understand by 1975 or so such a notion was indeed pointless and as you put it "a waste of time." Unfortunately things have pretty much played out as I and some others expected. The single biggest unexpected part being that it took some decades longer for some portions to come to a head than expected.
So no I did not see being childless as a world saving event. However I do contend that the children and possible grandchildren I did not have are indeed not using a share of natural resources. A very small positive for the environment overall perhaps, but likely the biggest thing I could do as an individual in the effort to have a smaller personal footprint.

view about population control is that we don’t know enough, And we never did.

Hello; I must take exception to this statement. I will explain with the understanding I may be misunderstanding your statement. The population dynamics of species has been studied extensively for a very long time. Much is known and understood. I may still have one of my college texts on ecology from the 1960's and feel confident population dynamics was already well understood even back then. As time has passed the study of populations, including human populations, has advanced. In fact it was that very undergraduate text which started me on the path I eventually decided to follow. My references about this issue happen to start in the 1970's simply because that was the time period around when I became aware. The study of populations had been going on well before my time.

If you happen to be making a different point I did not get it.

 

[skjl47]

Think about how many ways we incentivize irresponsible reproduction and there is little wonder as to why the planet is overpopulated and hurtling towards possibly (probably) irreversible global calamity

Hello; Yes to this. I will describe only one among the many. All my life in my country I have paid higher income taxes because of being childless while folks with children get tax breaks for having those children.

 

[Jexnell]

All of you that didn't have kids was more than made up for by the rest of us.

My father as an example, fathered 23 children with 21 different women. From Vietnam to Germany he spread his love around world. So far I have meet seven of them. We could populate a small Island nation if we wanted to.

 

[Niki_up]

All of you that didn't have kids was more than made up for by the rest of us.

My father as an example, fathered 23 children with 21 different women. From Vietnam to Germany he spread his love around world. So far I have meet seven of them. We could populate a small Island nation if we wanted to.

Wow, that is a lot of brothers and sister!!

 

[esoxlucius]

All of you that didn't have kids was more than made up for by the rest of us.

My father as an example, fathered 23 children with 21 different women. From Vietnam to Germany he spread his love around world. So far I have meet seven of them. We could populate a small Island nation if we wanted to.

That's amazing. My children range from 8 years old to 33 years old but thankfully there's none in between! Just the two of them. My grandkids are older than my youngest son, and that's just sooooo weird. Lol.

There's a guy down the bottom of our street looks just like you Jexnell . You never know with the way your father sprinkled his love seed about. Lol.