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Cultural. Where I live, parents and grandparents ostricize their grandchildren without a family by 30. And even if you didn't have a cultural reason, incentivi

by zanny 13y ago

Cultural. Where I live, parents and grandparents ostricize their grandchildren without a family by 30. And even if you didn't have a cultural reason, incentivizing reproduction is extremely short sighted in an overpopulated world. Uplift Africa rather than reproduce here. The transition to a sustainable population is another topic, but it is an inveitable problem that must be solved, and we are no where near capable of having 8 billion US (or even the less egregous European nations) level of consumption and pollution without running out of resources, livable space, and breathable air well below that threshold.

guard-of-terra 13y ago
Cultural things change rapidly once cultural meets financial. Do those parents and grandparents really support their grandchildren or they only want them happen and then do nothing about it? Anyway, children living near a large city are more capable than ever of giving them the finger, and that's what they going to do. See in the concurrent thread, "If they decide to have children" - meaning your default is to not have children. World may be overpopulated, but is North America overpopulated? I guess it actually isn't. Most of places outside South Asia aren't overpopulated. Having some population growth and economy growth and no fears that social security would implode is better than having decline and being in panic like Japan does.
- VLM 13y ago
  "is North America overpopulated?" There's an abstract sense of overpopulated (sometimes described as turn all of texas into Manhattan and abandon the rest of the planet and texas would still only be half full) And then there's carrying capacity sense of overpopulated. Both food, and west of the Mississippi, water, is actually the limiting reagent (Los Vegas will be simply out of water in a generation or so...). There's already a cultural impedance bump when westerners talk to easterners WRT water "waste". Mexico is tremendously overpopulated from a carrying capacity standpoint. Canada is in pretty good shape. USA in between.

by zanny 13y ago

guard-of-terra 13y ago

Cultural things change rapidly once cultural meets financial. Do those parents and grandparents really support their grandchildren or they only want them happen and then do nothing about it? Anyway, children living near a large city are more capable than ever of giving them the finger, and that's what they going to do. See in the concurrent thread, "If they decide to have children" - meaning your default is to not have children. World may be overpopulated, but is North America overpopulated? I guess it actually isn't. Most of places outside South Asia aren't overpopulated. Having some population growth and economy growth and no fears that social security would implode is better than having decline and being in panic like Japan does.

VLM 13y ago
"is North America overpopulated?" There's an abstract sense of overpopulated (sometimes described as turn all of texas into Manhattan and abandon the rest of the planet and texas would still only be half full) And then there's carrying capacity sense of overpopulated. Both food, and west of the Mississippi, water, is actually the limiting reagent (Los Vegas will be simply out of water in a generation or so...). There's already a cultural impedance bump when westerners talk to easterners WRT water "waste". Mexico is tremendously overpopulated from a carrying capacity standpoint. Canada is in pretty good shape. USA in between.