We have over 7 billion people on this globe. Far too many, resource-wise and ecology-wise.

Problem is that we have billions too many people in underdeveloped countries, and millions too few in industrialised first world countries. So there are structural problems basing on regional differences. the industrial world is feeding the underdeveloped world. If the industrial world suffers due to demographic chnage and overaging, this decline by some million people has effects for all billions of global population.

That is why it is no contradiction to hope for more babies in the first world, and a very huge decline in babies in the third world.

In total, I estimate we are 5,5 - 6 billion too many, globally. If sustainability of resources and comparable minimums of material living conditions should lead the way, I think that globally this plan et cannot hold more than 1 - 1,5 billion people in the long run.

Big jackpot-question is how to get there without wars, pandemics, starvations and natural disasters.

We could start with rooting out those who for religious reasons campaign against condoms (and injections), like recently in Kenya as just the latest of so discouragingly many example of human stupids hating other humans and telling them ways to multiply human suffering and agony in this world.

ain't gonna happen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78

I sense a lot of hostility in you over this... why? I know many people who are making this choice, people who do not as you put it care for themselves or their own satisfaction. People who are doing much more for this world and society as a whole, than plenty of people with kids. Don't even get me started on the huge number of people who I really think probably should not be parents.

You make it sound like this is an easy choice for many of us... It isn't. I am one of those people who feels it is probably best that I do not bring children in this world. It is not an easy choice, but in many ways I feel it is the least selfish. There are too many people on this planet as it is, and I suspect even with current numbers we are at serious risk for extinction in the next couple of millennia.

If we do not stop being so arrogant, so full of hubris, so self centered, and so blindly stupid, we will sign our own death certificate.

As for your co-worker, I know lots of people like that who have kids too, and think they are the center of the universe as well. Honestly sometimes I think they act even more entitled.


So you think there isn't a population problem across the globe? Most of the land in the world is not arable, or requires a lot of technology and vast amounts of water to work (and is highly destructive long term), or is forest (something we cannot afford to sacrifice). Ironicly in the US and Canada (and I would say Europe too), we have destroyed crazy amounts of farmland for housing. What were some of the most naturally fertile areas got plowed under by cities (which tended to be founded near good local food sources).

Energy is going to be the least of our problems. Sources of useable water will be the big one. The US (and many other countries) are rapidly heading towards major water shortages. First off huge swaths of farmland in the US are dependent on aquifers for most of their water, aquifers that will soon run dry and will take millions of years to refill. Second, river water levels are much lower, in many areas they are lower than ever recorded. Scientists think this has to do with global warming reducing the amount of runoff each year (the major source of water for many rivers). Limited water = very limited food supply & limited industry.

Another major concern is GMO plants. These products have the potential to wipe out major crops. For one thing, companies like Monsanto are trying very hard to develop sterile crops. Crops that you can't replant, that force you to buy new seed every year from Monsanto. Aside from being extremely unethical, this is incredibly reckless and dangerous. The problem is (and I am sure they are trying to make this happen) is that these GMO crops will contaminate non gmo crops around them, due to cross pollination. Theoretically this could sterilize all variants of the plant (including the seed crops grown by the company) and wipe them out as a species. Imagine if this happened to wheat, or corn, and/or rice...

Lastly do you really think us purposely trying to control the greater environment is at all a good idea? Every single attempt at us controlling nature has tended to be pretty disastrous in the long run.

Not to mention the problems that we're having with the world's oceans. Like it or not, the undeniable truth is that a lot of our oceans are just being plain fished out.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/world/...rticle_sidebar

Stories like this make me sad and pessimistic, and I don't blame folks who choose to remain childless one bit.

I don't have kids, and I don't plan on it anytime soon, if at all. I've been saying since I was 16 years old that I didn't want kids. Everyone told me I'd change. I'm 33 now and I still don't.

Good thing there is a supply of water greater than Earth's and its only 900 million km away: Europa.

Really this whole environment thing is a bit of fuzz on a big sphere of nickel and iron. Throughout most of the history of Earth it was inhospitable to its current inhabitants. It's the humans who anthropomorphize that, and assume it is some kind of stable paradise until we messed with it. Entire biospheres have developed and have been destroyed over the history of Earth before humans even evolved, heck it very well might have been plants that wiped out 20% of lifeforms way back in the Devonian period. The current environment will be wiped out by this unstable planet in an unstable universe one way or another.

Humans are the 1st species on this planet that have the intellect to built what the universe has not given us; a stable environment to live in.

I just love it when somebody decides that not having children is a selfish decision. There are plenty of ways to be an unselfish person without taking on a responsibility you don't want and aren't prepared to devote yourself to 100% - which is, or should be, a necessity where a child is involved.

My time and attention and energy are my own, to do with what I wish. It's the same for everybody else. Some people want to devote a good bit of those things to children. I don't... just like I don't want to devote my free time to yard work, which is why I'll buy a condo but never a house, nor do I want to devote my free time to walking a dog on a leash so it can do its business and get some exercise and fresh air, which is why I'd never have a dog without a fenced yard to let him run around in on his own.

If I had some burning, insatiable desire to do yard work or have a dog, those sacrifices would be worth it. If I had a burning, insatiable desire to raise children, the sacrifices required for that would be worth it. But the desire isn't there, so why should I sacrifice anything for something that I don't want and am content to live without? That doesn't make me selfish, it just means I've made the choices - and thank heavens I live in a world where I'm able to make them - that I feel are best for me instead of doing what other people think I'm supposed to do and having what other people think I'm supposed to have.

That's far less selfish IMO than having a kid because I've been pressured or conditioned into thinking that I'll never be "complete" without one, or to please someone else, or for any other reason than a burning insatiable desire to reproduce. Children are srs biznss, raising them is a HUGE responsibility. I'd have to want it really bad to even embark on that adventure. Anything less wouldn't really be fair to the child.

Yet your piece makes no mention at all of that, indeed since it is a western piece by a western person talking about his western life it would appear he directly contradicts you.

Yes, but you are not calling for stripping people of rights are you.
Big difference from your view and that in question.

So many big thinkers who do thinks for grand reasons lol.
I wonder how match of this is just poor reasoning and invalid self explanations.

Not sure that solution to world problems is in having it populated with bitter old men.

And thus I stated this person needs a psychiatric write up. The sound of a crying baby angers him? Sorry, the lengthy nonsense he speaks about saving the world from overcrowding looks to be far fetched. The man does not like kids. I see it no other way than that as a result of his anger management over crying children. This person has more underlying issue other than saving the world.

I grew up with two sisters. I have two daughters of my own. All four have never been told that they will be incomplete if they do not have children. In fact, my one sister is adopted Korean. My other sister adopted a Korean, as well as, had two girls of her own. My soon to be 15 year old has stated she will adopt over having a child of her own birth. As far as pleasing another to have a child, no one has pressured anyone in my family. To further that notions, why not adopt a child already on this mud ball? Anyway, sorry you were pressured. It is not right.

Yes, children are serious business that many take much to lightly (Honey Boo Boo). At any rate, perhaps adopting is two fold for this author. He is not adding another body but is helping one that is already here. But, wait, he gets angered at crying kids. This statement ends it for me and his dissertation on saving the world.

When things get really bad and there appears to be no answers to all the problems a solution will arrive...WAR.

It's the answer to all of man's problems.

War will not be the answer. Another uninvited guest will take care of it. That guest will in the form of virus or bacteria.

:up:

I reread it and found nothing that would hint about a selfish demand for everyone to stop having children or any little crumb about removing rights to have children.

There's this

A plea to consider. A simple humble PLEA. If this is a demand I'm affraid to call my friends to consider taking time for a drink at 8PM not to be mistaken for a brutal dictator.

So he thinks having no children is a good idea. Like I think having a dog is a good idea. Like Frau thinks not having a dog is a good idea. There's no reason for hostilities.
But hey, it's Skybirds post. That's it isn't it. One of his rare not-ranting over EU posts and you still went after him like a football mob :nope:

Not exactly. It looked to me like Sky was turning the man's simple belief into a political statement involving the forfeiture of rights and benefits. Certain benefits involving families I can see, but rights? I therefore questioned that concept and asked for an explanation.