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My question is why do we need more people or want to encourage or allow it to occur? My immodest proposal is to introduce a natural decline in human population
by wavefunction 11y ago
My question is why do we need more people or want to encourage or allow it to occur?
My immodest proposal is to introduce a natural decline in human populations to more easily sustainable levels via the introduction of a reproductive "right": every individual when born is entitled to one child.
A couple, then, could have a family with two children. Those who aren't interested in having children could sell their "right" off on a market to people who want to have more than their one child individually, so a couple could buy the rights to more children and a larger family from those who don't want to have children. The market could even fractionalize/derivatize those rights so that individuals could sell "half" a childbirth right and two of those individuals could have a family with one child.
The best part is, at two children per two parents, it's lower than the replacement rate of "2.1" which means population levels would humanely decrease with no need for wars or murder.
Our current societies are predicated on larger youth populations than parent populations to support us in our old ages, but this strategy combined with robotic technology for the elderly and post-scarcity economics would free us from that pyramid scheme. This helps support a basic-income type scenario for those people who assume that everyone (or 'THOSE PEOPLE') living in our society will just have tons of kids due to boredom. Like the fears trotted out about "welfare queens" having tons of kids because they supposedly get "free stuff."
- biztos 11y agoSo the rich have large families, and the poor have forced sterilization?
- wavefunction 11y agoIt's voluntary. Perhaps you missed the part about the basic-income and right to a child.
- qrendel 11y agoWhy is lower or stable population of such an imperative that such a totalitarian invasion of natural rights needs be imposed? There are plenty of advantages to larger populations - more people to take part in the creative processes of production, for one. The disadvantage is the dubious assumption of inevitable resource scarcity. If resource scarcity has yet to become a major problem, and may not in the foreseeable future, why impose population limits?
- thomaslkjeldsen 11y agoCiting "WORLD POPULATION PROSPECTS: THE 2015 REVISION" page 10: "Globally, total fertility is expected to fall from 2.5 children per woman in 2010-2015 to 2.25 in 2045-2050 and to 2.0 in 2095-2100 according to the medium-variant projection. However, in Europe and Northern America, total fertility is projected to increase between 2010-2015 and 2045-5050 from 1.6 to 1.8 children per woman in Europe and from 1.86 to 1.9 children per woman in Northern America. In Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania, fertility is expected to fall between 2010-2015 and 2045-2050, with the largest reductions projected to occur in Africa. Thus, in all major areas of the world, fertility levels are projected to converge to a level at or just below the replacement level by 2095-2100" http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/Key_Findings_WPP_2015.pdf http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/Key_Findings_W...