4 ms·

Family planning how? Who will decide who can have children and who can't? Governments? A global one child policy? That's insane

jejei93ndmd 7y ago
Is it insane to alter social norms to save the species as a whole or let people drive it off the cliff by treating a uterus like a clown car? We’re so far away from having to debate this as realistic thing politically right now, the discourse is an exercise in fear mongering. Plenty to be freaked out about before next month is passed.
- cyrksoft 7y ago
  Having kids is not a social norm (at least not in every case). Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have? Even if it only is fear mongering, I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years.
  - flukus 7y ago
    > Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have? I'm someone who subsidizes families having children, my taxes are paying for their healthcare, their schools, their childcare, etc. And while I'm happy to do that because maintaining society is important I'm not happy to do it for someone pumping out 15 kids. > I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years. I bet you it won't, reproduction rates have plummeted in developed nations.
    - cyrksoft 7y ago
      How many 15 kids family are there out there? Besides, they also pay their tax share...
      - jejei93ndmd 7y ago
        Yes, you’ve made your point. Take stock in the fact you’ve reiterated the whole debate is an incalculable, formless hypothetical in the first place without saying so explicitly.
  - jejei93ndmd 7y ago
    That’s the wrong question: who are you to be able to stop it? Is it ok to let people crank out as many babies as they want, destabilizing things further for the species? Can you more concretely define “in some years”? Before or after I am dead? This is the ultimate point I am trying to make: how much plastic and how many phones we make today impact the necessity of that future dialog. Do something about the activity today to avoid the conversation from having value rather than emotionally spinning in circles over a hypothetical. Who is this blogger to think we owe their position much thought? Cleanup the planet to keep it from being a problem then.
usrusr 7y ago
But is cancer-like growth until host EOL less insane? A starting point would be to just stop treating big-family parents like heros. "You're not exactly doing me a favor by spreading your genes like that"
- journalctl 7y ago
  People hate to admit it, but having a child is the most carbon-intensive thing you can do. Unfortunately, it’s a tragedy of the commons. Enough people act in their own self-interest to the detriment of everyone. This is uncharted territory for humanity, and I’m afraid we’re not yet up to the task of tackling it. I mean, in a world with scarce food, water, and arable land, yeah, bringing another resource-intensive human being into it starts to have more immediate consequences. I don’t care if it makes people uncomfortable. It’s going to be an issue whether we like it or not.
  - cyrksoft 7y ago
    How do you propose to fight it? Everybody acts in their self interest all the time.
    - richk449 7y ago
      The fact that everyone acts in their own self interest is well known. Typically this is countered by some combination of societal mores and laws. Think Moses and “thou shall not steal”. If you want to solve tradgedy of the commons type problems, the two known solutions are privatization and regulation. Nobody has yet thought of a way to privatize the earths climate, so we are pretty much stuck with regulation. That sucks. But the alternative sucks worse.
journalctl 7y ago
Education and birth control go a long way. Millions of people still don’t have access to either of those things. Some people don’t even realize you don’t have to have kids if you don’t want to. Some people are forced into it over and over again. If it ever gets to a point where perhaps more coercive measures are needed, it’s probably too late. But it will be interesting to see how the Overton window moves when there’s suddenly no food left...
cmdshiftf4 7y ago
>Family planning how? Who will decide who can have children and who can't? Governments? A global one child policy? That's insane Without a steady flow of migration from the undeveloped world to the developed world, the population of the native developed world would greatly decline in the coming decades. There are none amongst the countries breeding at the rate of replacement [0]. We've seen that when a populace has better access to medicine, improving life expectancy and especially reducing child mortality rates, gains access to contraception & abortion, becomes better educated and less religious leading to becoming more well off and having their basic needs met as defined by Maslow, that they trend towards having less and less children. Even migrants from the undeveloped world to the developed world have shown to have gradually less children as generations go by. So the theory would be that we could bring down the world's population over time by simply making the above abundantly more accessible to those who are currently fueling the population explosion. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate#Country_ranking_by_most_recent_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...
abathur 7y ago
It seems like you may be misinterpreting what "family planning" means. "Family planning", as it's commonly understood, is an umbrella term for how normal, everyday people avoid having children when they don't want to have them. When toxik responded to your question "Who will decide who lives? Or who has kids and a family?" with "Probably just family planning. Nobody needs to die to save the earth", they are suggesting that humans will continue to practice (as we have for millennia) techniques that reduce the number of unplanned children we have.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

jejei93ndmd 7y ago

Is it insane to alter social norms to save the species as a whole or let people drive it off the cliff by treating a uterus like a clown car? We’re so far away from having to debate this as realistic thing politically right now, the discourse is an exercise in fear mongering. Plenty to be freaked out about before next month is passed.

cyrksoft 7y ago
Having kids is not a social norm (at least not in every case). Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have? Even if it only is fear mongering, I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years.
- flukus 7y ago
  > Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have? I'm someone who subsidizes families having children, my taxes are paying for their healthcare, their schools, their childcare, etc. And while I'm happy to do that because maintaining society is important I'm not happy to do it for someone pumping out 15 kids. > I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years. I bet you it won't, reproduction rates have plummeted in developed nations.
  - cyrksoft 7y ago
    How many 15 kids family are there out there? Besides, they also pay their tax share...
    - jejei93ndmd 7y ago
      Yes, you’ve made your point. Take stock in the fact you’ve reiterated the whole debate is an incalculable, formless hypothetical in the first place without saying so explicitly.
- jejei93ndmd 7y ago
  That’s the wrong question: who are you to be able to stop it? Is it ok to let people crank out as many babies as they want, destabilizing things further for the species? Can you more concretely define “in some years”? Before or after I am dead? This is the ultimate point I am trying to make: how much plastic and how many phones we make today impact the necessity of that future dialog. Do something about the activity today to avoid the conversation from having value rather than emotionally spinning in circles over a hypothetical. Who is this blogger to think we owe their position much thought? Cleanup the planet to keep it from being a problem then.

usrusr 7y ago

But is cancer-like growth until host EOL less insane? A starting point would be to just stop treating big-family parents like heros. "You're not exactly doing me a favor by spreading your genes like that"

journalctl 7y ago
People hate to admit it, but having a child is the most carbon-intensive thing you can do. Unfortunately, it’s a tragedy of the commons. Enough people act in their own self-interest to the detriment of everyone. This is uncharted territory for humanity, and I’m afraid we’re not yet up to the task of tackling it. I mean, in a world with scarce food, water, and arable land, yeah, bringing another resource-intensive human being into it starts to have more immediate consequences. I don’t care if it makes people uncomfortable. It’s going to be an issue whether we like it or not.
- cyrksoft 7y ago
  How do you propose to fight it? Everybody acts in their self interest all the time.
  - richk449 7y ago
    The fact that everyone acts in their own self interest is well known. Typically this is countered by some combination of societal mores and laws. Think Moses and “thou shall not steal”. If you want to solve tradgedy of the commons type problems, the two known solutions are privatization and regulation. Nobody has yet thought of a way to privatize the earths climate, so we are pretty much stuck with regulation. That sucks. But the alternative sucks worse.

journalctl 7y ago

Education and birth control go a long way. Millions of people still don’t have access to either of those things. Some people don’t even realize you don’t have to have kids if you don’t want to. Some people are forced into it over and over again. If it ever gets to a point where perhaps more coercive measures are needed, it’s probably too late. But it will be interesting to see how the Overton window moves when there’s suddenly no food left...

cmdshiftf4 7y ago

>Family planning how? Who will decide who can have children and who can't? Governments? A global one child policy? That's insane Without a steady flow of migration from the undeveloped world to the developed world, the population of the native developed world would greatly decline in the coming decades. There are none amongst the countries breeding at the rate of replacement [0]. We've seen that when a populace has better access to medicine, improving life expectancy and especially reducing child mortality rates, gains access to contraception & abortion, becomes better educated and less religious leading to becoming more well off and having their basic needs met as defined by Maslow, that they trend towards having less and less children. Even migrants from the undeveloped world to the developed world have shown to have gradually less children as generations go by. So the theory would be that we could bring down the world's population over time by simply making the above abundantly more accessible to those who are currently fueling the population explosion. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate#Country_ranking_by_most_recent_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

abathur 7y ago

It seems like you may be misinterpreting what "family planning" means. "Family planning", as it's commonly understood, is an umbrella term for how normal, everyday people avoid having children when they don't want to have them. When toxik responded to your question "Who will decide who lives? Or who has kids and a family?" with "Probably just family planning. Nobody needs to die to save the earth", they are suggesting that humans will continue to practice (as we have for millennia) techniques that reduce the number of unplanned children we have.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]