Think Before You Breed

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I don’t understand pronatalism. Why is procreation encouraged when there is already overcrowding issues? There’s lots of kids up for adoption or in sad home situations that could probably have a better life with another family. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were the appropriate number of students per teacher per classroom? Don’t have kids then. Wouldn’t it be nice if in every corner of the world, there was enough food to go around? Adopt a kid from one of those places where there is a shortage of food.

I know economies require growth to thrive but in an ideal world we would create a balance that allows us to sustain earth, and sustain economies. Exponential growth cannot be the solution and I think if people thought about supply and demand, thought about Earth, thought about the distribution of resources, thought about the children currently in existence and their future, and stopped the narcissistic mentality of wanting to make little mini-me’s, current and future generations would be much better off.

I think encouraging procreation is wrong wrong wrong and that the goal should be balancing the population growth with resources and space. This means, for now, dont reproduce. Ignore your animal drive to procreate, it is not the sensible solution. Adopting is the way to go, to balance things out a bit.

I welcome an explanation why procreation is better than adoption, in terms of the economy, society, etc. People create a false dilemma between having kids vs. not having kids but there’s a third option.
 
samiam1611 said:
I don’t understand pronatalism. Why is procreation encouraged when there is already overcrowding issues? There’s lots of kids up for adoption or in sad home situations that could probably have a better life with another family. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were the appropriate number of students per teacher per classroom? Don’t have kids then. Wouldn’t it be nice if in every corner of the world, there was enough food to go around? Adopt a kid from one of those places where there is a shortage of food.

I know economies require growth to thrive but in an ideal world we would create a balance that allows us to sustain earth, and sustain economies. Exponential growth cannot be the solution and I think if people thought about supply and demand, thought about Earth, thought about the distribution of resources, thought about the children currently in existence and their future, and stopped the narcissistic mentality of wanting to make little mini-me’s, current and future generations would be much better off.

I think encouraging procreation is wrong wrong wrong and that the goal should be balancing the population growth with resources and space. This means, for now, dont reproduce. Ignore your animal drive to procreate, it is not the sensible solution. Adopting is the way to go, to balance things out a bit.
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The replacement level for population requires a total fertility rate of 2.2. In most developed countries, the TFR is below replacement level and dropping. That means a dwindling nation, a dwindling economy, an aging population. Global fertility rates are dropping fast. If the idea is for humans to eventually die off, dropping TFR below replacement level is the way to do it.

We have only one truly productive, replaceable resource–and that is human beings.

You might want to read the book, as this will be the next big global crisis.

Also see this Jonathan Last segment.
 
JimG said:
The replacement level for population requires a total fertility rate of 2.2. In most developed countries, the TFR is below replacement level and dropping. That means a dwindling nation, a dwindling economy, an aging population.
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Well if that’s true, we need to work on finding a new economic model that doesn’t run like a giant Ponzi scheme. Perpetual population growth is not a realistic possibility unless we start shipping people off to space colonies or something. Eventually we will run out of space.
 
QuasiCatholic said:
Well if that’s true, we need to work on finding a new economic model that doesn’t run like a giant Ponzi scheme. Perpetual population growth is not a realistic possibility unless we start shipping people off to space colonies or something. Eventually we will run out of space.
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We’re a long way from running out of space on earth. I suppose one might try for a simple replacement model, attaining a TFR of exactly 2.2. Seems to me that just two kids per family is kind of boring but that’s just me.

The problem though, is that we are overshooting it by quite a lot on the downside. Several nations have tried encouraging more children with government policy, but without much success. Mr. Last, who wrote the book, is not even particularly optimistic that the problem of depopulation can be solved.
 
JimG said:
We’re a long way from running out of space on earth. I suppose one might try for a simple replacement model, attaining a TFR of exactly 2.2. Seems to me that just two kids per family is kind of boring but that’s just me.
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Depends how one looks at it. Each person (more or less) requires a certain amount of farm land, water diverted from rivers/wells, usage of forest, etc etc. Plus we also need to leave room and resources for the other creatures (and we’ve done a poor job over the past century or 2).
The problem though, is that we are overshooting it by quite a lot on the downside. Several nations have tried encouraging more children with government policy, but without much success. Mr. Last, who wrote the book, is not even particularly optimistic that the problem of depopulation can be solved.
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I’d counter with the idea that this could be a previously unknown quirk in humans. In the 1st world there are sizeable differences in TFR for denser urban areas vs more rural areas. It seems the depopulation problem is an economic one. Perhaps one we will suffer through then design economic and social systems that don’t perpetually need more people.
 
Certainly depopulation is an economic problem, but the conomic problems arise from the depopulation itself. Also, as nations go from less developed to more developed, fertility rates decrease.

Everyone seems to view people as a liability. I view them as an asset. In growing populations there is more innovation, more invention, more capital formation, more productivity. Would New York City be a better city if it were to lose two or three million in population? Would Chicago? Should millions of people move from dense population centers to say, Hugoton, Kansas? It would be an economic boon for Hugoton, but not for the losing city.

One might argue about optimum populations. In a region of hunters and gatherers, people might decide that there is only enough hunting and gathering to support a very small population. In an era of wood burning stoves, people might worry that we will run out of wood–(though it is renewable). But things change. New resources of found and used. Populations grow and prosper. It is the ingenuity of human beings that makes that happen. Without humans, nothing happens, but I fear that is part of the new theology. Earth good. Humans bad.
 
"This new dynamic changes the age at which we have kids, whom we have them with, and our relationships with them. It changes the calculus of the long-term monogamous relationships that we call marriage; it means that ever greater percentages of children will grow up without one or more of their biological parents in the house; it isolates more and more people in one-person households; and it leads to more and more divorce.
We have not just lowered our birth rate or changed the way we view sex, we have, in a very real sense, dissolved the glue that holds society together.”

Source: ruthblog.org/2014/06/12/why-normal-people-should-care-about-baby-busts/
 
An economic system is mainly a method of using and developing resources plus innovation. With the trends in automation the resources may exist (ignoring ecological issues) but there will not be jobs for enough people to afford them. So one way or another we ate headed to a bust.

The trend to higher density is filled with social and economic issues. Raising a family in an apartment vs a house in the suburbs is quite different. Additionally, the abnormally high cost of living in large cities is part of the reason for lower TFR in urban areas. Finding a larger place plus the transit situation and perceived suitability of your surroundings for children is something of a deterrent.

I think our difference on resources is that in not optimistic that new resources will always be there. And even if they exist, what is the cost (economic & eco) to extract them. For instance, fracking done improperly poisons the water over huge areas. Solar, wind, and hydro power kills birds, bats, and fish. And these issues are related to population and do come back to get us over time. Just consider the fact that pregnant women are to limit fish sure to mercury dumped decades ago, of issues faced by those living on top of old oil wells or landfills.

Basically I believe that if we don’t limit our growth other processes will, and it won’t be pretty.
 
Well, if Jonathan Last is correct, we are in fact limiting our growth. But the data shows that won’t be pretty either. I’m too old to worry about it, but within a few generations our grandchildren will be inhabiting a dying, aging, stagnant civilization. Immigrants will be eagerly sought to make up for the lack of reproduction.
 
JimG said:
Well, if Jonathan Last is correct, we are in fact limiting our growth. But the data shows that won’t be pretty either. I’m too old to worry about it, but within a few generations our grandchildren will be inhabiting a dying, aging, stagnant civilization. Immigrants will be eagerly sought to make up for the lack of reproduction.
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This is no longer just a first world problem, though.

Instead, look to subcultures that are pronatal and which resist the corruption of antinatal indoctrination. Catholicism has the potential to be such but it has not been immune to this trend.

I have no doubt whatsoever that people are an asset and not a liability. However, it’s not clear to me how that translates into personal choices. The current antinatal social regime seems almost designed to extinguish procreation.
 
Sarcelle said:
An article on how men are becoming increasingly marginalized in Western society.

I wonder if there is a parallel article on young men in China and India and how they cope with a lack of women due to sex selective abortion.
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I would hesitate to rely on one explanation, it seems like there are a whole bunch of things going on that have the net result of depressing fertility.

This article was about men being marginalized but China, as you note, has the problem of girls being disproportionately aborted (as a result of, and in addition to, the constraint on child bearing). Is that happening in India too?
 
Bubba_Switzler said:
I would hesitate to rely on one explanation, it seems like there are a whole bunch of things going on that have the net result of depressing fertility.

This article was about men being marginalized but China, as you note, has the problem of girls being disproportionately aborted (as a result of, and in addition to, the constraint on child bearing). Is that happening in India too?
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Last I heard it was happening in India, too, and became illegal.

PNDT Act
The PNDT Act of 1994, later amended in 2002, was enacted with the objective as stated in the preamble ;

…to provide for the prohibition of sex selection, before or after conception, and for regulation of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for the purposes of detecting genetic abnormalities or metabolic disorders or chromosomal abnormalities or certain congenital malformations or sex-linked disorders and for the prevention of their misuse for sex determination leading to female feticide and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

Thus, the PNDT Act prohibits the use of all technologies for the purpose of sex selection, which would also include the new chromosome separation techniques.

With the blanket prohibition contained in sections 3, 4 and 5 of the PNDT Act, there is effectively a ban on sex selection in India. It is not possible to use pre-natal diagnostic techniques to abort fetuses whose sex and family history indicate a high risk for certain sex-linked diseases, or to choose a fetus whose sex is less susceptible to certain sex-linked diseases. This blanket prohibition may appear to be a contradiction to the provisions of the MTP Act, which permits the abortion of a fetus that is at a risk of being born with serious physical or mental disabilities. While it is legally permissible to abort a fetus at risk of serious physical or mental disabilities, it is not permissible to select a fetus of a sex which is less likely to suffer from a sex-linked disease.
 
Hmm … it’s just occurred to me that if a stable childless adult must be persuaded to have kids then maybe they shouldn’t. From what I’ve gathered children take a lot of work and offer intangible rewards (fulfillment, love, etc). And historically “unwanted” children (from state run efforts of oppressive regimes) are problematic.
 
HerCrazierHalf said:
Hmm … it’s just occurred to me that if a stable childless adult must be persuaded to have kids then maybe they shouldn’t. From what I’ve gathered children take a lot of work and offer intangible rewards (fulfillment, love, etc). And historically “unwanted” children (from state run efforts of oppressive regimes) are problematic.
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What I think you are overlooking is that the obsession with discouraging teen pregnancy has morphed into a discouragement of families, generally. It’s not so much a matter of persuading someone to have children as balancing the negative messages out there. It’s easy to point to the hard work, harder to communicate the intangible rewards.

This is closely related to the phenomenon of later marraiges, as we’ve discussed. The spike in divorce, which has been abating, created a great fear of commitment. Feminist dogma also contributed.

You can find many, many articles like this one:

dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2386400/Kate-Spicer-Any-woman-says-shes-happy-childless-liar-fool.html
 
Bubba_Switzler said:
What I think you are overlooking is that the obsession with discouraging teen pregnancy has morphed into a discouragement of families, generally. It’s not so much a matter of persuading someone to have children as balancing the negative messages out there. It’s easy to point to the hard work, harder to communicate the intangible rewards.
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The arguments against teen pregnancy also apply into early adulthood too. It takes quite a while into adulthood before these things are sorted out, hence the rising age of first child birth and increased portion of women having children later in their fertile years. It is an odd cruelty that a woman’s most fertile years occur when she is least able to care of children.
This is closely related to the phenomenon of later marraiges, as we’ve discussed. The spike in divorce, which has been abating, created a great fear of commitment. Feminist dogma also contributed.
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Well, that’s a topic big enough for its own thread. It is a question of risk vs reward.
 
HerCrazierHalf said:
The arguments against teen pregnancy also apply into early adulthood too. It takes quite a while into adulthood before these things are sorted out, hence the rising age of first child birth and increased portion of women having children later in their fertile years. It is an odd cruelty that a woman’s most fertile years occur when she is least able to care of children.
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Your thinking presumes that time sorts things out. But, in fact, experience is what parimarly drives the transition into adulthood. The postponement of marriage and childrearing results in a postponemet of emotional maturity.

The aguments against teen pregnancy do not apply to married adults. But lots of people think they do.
 
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