Free Thinking - The Population Time Bomb

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've been reading this on the Radio 3 website. Interesting and thought-provoking comments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/41nkdZGDbZc7yLQyWtSVgYb/should-we-stop-having-children?intc_type=singletheme&intc_location=radio3&intc_campaign=freethinking&intc_linkname=article_stophavingchildren_contentcard2

Stopping having children altogether would merely be the end of the human race, but stopping at 2 could result in a manageable decline.

[richardfinegold]

I've been reading this on the Radio 3 website. Interesting and thought-provoking comments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/41nkdZGDbZc7yLQyWtSVgYb/should-we-stop-having-children?intc_type=singletheme&intc_location=radio3&intc_campaign=freethinking&intc_linkname=article_stophavingchildren_contentcard2

Stopping having children altogether would merely be the end of the human race, but stopping at 2 could result in a manageable decline.

Birth rates in Western Europe and the US amongst ‘natives’ has been at a standstill for 3 Generations at least. The immigrant populations have provided the babies. Are you going to be the Cultural Imperialist that tells them to stop?
Also, most Social Welfare schemes, such as Government funded retirement plans, requires taxes on younger workers to be sustainable . Low birth rates means unfounded social welfare nets

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Our economy is based on the pyramid selling principle, in that it relies on a steadily increasing population to fund welfare and pensions.

And encouraging people to have fewer children doesn't make one a cultural imperialist.

[oddoneout]

Birth rates in Western Europe and the US amongst ‘natives’ has been at a standstill for 3 Generations at least. The immigrant populations have provided the babies. Are you going to be the Cultural Imperialist that tells them to stop?
Also, most Social Welfare schemes, such as Government funded retirement plans, requires taxes on younger workers to be sustainable . Low birth rates means unfounded social welfare nets

Which is why many cultures have plenty of children - not only to provide labour but also to care for the elderly and infirm.
In my home town it's not the immigrant population that's produced the babies but the indigenous out-of-work population.
Improved standards of living which lead to better health and education tend to to be a driving force in bringing down birth rates in developing countries. It has always been a difficult subject, but I can't help feeling that having so many millions of 'displaced persons' around the world now is an added complication.

[Dave2002]

If we were rats "we"'d be organising culls by now.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If we were rats "we"'d be organising culls by now.

Unfortunately, the rat comparison is quite apt. When there are too many rats in a cage, they fight.

[greenilex]

Gents, one has to remember the education of girls. Immensely desirable in itself, one of its apparently inevitable results is the choice to have fewer children and spend less time raising them when one could be fulfilling one’s dreams, or at least following a career path.

[Serial_Apologist]

Stopping having children altogether would merely be the end of the human race, but stopping at 2 could result in a manageable decline.

Not, to the best of my knowledge, having had any children, I thought I was contributing to a better world. And not just because I'd have made a terrible dad. Surely reducing the size of the earth's human population would not necessarily mean the end of the human race? If anything there need to be less of us so that the ecosystem can be allowed more space to re-generate itself and thereby hopefully allow the Gaia self-balancing principle to re-establish? Hopefully some long-term wisdoms sacrificed to capitalist greed and wastefulness would re-emerge in the healthier restored balance, and people could get together to work out how to plan (for) the production of offspring instead of having to rely on incalculable imponderables, as at present.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Not, to the best of my knowledge, having had any children, I thought I was contributing to a better world. And not just because I'd have made a terrible dad. Surely reducing the size of the earth's human population would not necessarily mean the end of the human race? If anything there need to be less of us so that the ecosystem can be allowed more space to re-generate itself and thereby hopefully allow the Gaia self-balancing principle to re-establish? Hopefully some long-term wisdoms sacrificed to capitalist greed and wastefulness would re-emerge in the healthier restored balance, and people could get together to work out how to plan (for) the production of offspring instead of having to rely on incalculable imponderables, as at present.

I do think you are helping the planet by not having children. I only meant that everyone stopped having children, the human race would cease.

[Serial_Apologist]

I do think you are helping the planet by not having children. I only meant that everyone stopped having children, the human race would cease.

I see. There are some who I think have argued that any reduction of the human population will herald our demise.

[oddoneout]

Gents, one has to remember the education of girls. Immensely desirable in itself, one of its apparently inevitable results is the choice to have fewer children and spend less time raising them when one could be fulfilling one’s dreams, or at least following a career path.

Assuming the men in their life allow it....

[teamsaint]

You'd think that sustainable but comfortable lifestyles, which could easily afforded by the industrialised countries, would be the easy solution, and example for developing nations.

But apparently not.

[Serial_Apologist]

You'd think that sustainable but comfortable lifestyles, which could easily afforded by the industrialised countries, would be the easy solution, and example for developing nations.

But apparently not.

Under the existing system for creating wealth, it wouldn't make enough money for the amount necessary to be sacrificed to enable it to come about, if you get my meaning.

[Dave2002]

Not only has the rate of population growth got to slow down, but it actually needs to go negative. That's assuming that our species wants to exist for a miilion or so years. If we follow stupid short termism, then some of us can have a good time, leaving the rest to have to put up with the resulting mess, and perhaps humans might be extinct within a thousand years.

I suppose it's just possible we might move out into space, though our record in recent times on this planet has not been so great, so that's not necessarily such a good idea, or a solution to possible future problems.

[greenilex]

It might help if the UK prejudice against only children was tackled by some reputable educationist...in France I understand it is seen as a privilege to be an only child.

There is the usual balance of arguments for and against, but nothing overwhelming, imo.