Damn! They stole my idea!
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Hardly news. These guys and organizations like them have been around for years.
As long as they don't take the next logical step and start forcibly stopping people from having children that want them, I can tolerate them as eccentric weirdos. I don't want any children myself anyway so they've nothing to worry about from me, though that has less to do with desiring human extinction and more with my own disinterest in the process and the responsibilities that follow.
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Hey, I dunno about voluntary extinction, but years of retail does lend a lot of support to the idea of telling some people to participate...
I for one welcome our raccoon overlords.
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The problem is, ignorant/stupid people tend to breed way faster than higly intelligent/well educated people.
All your going to manage is breeding intelligence out of the human race.
(Among the more highly educated demongraphics the average is already <2 children.)
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The problem is, ignorant/stupid people tend to breed way faster than higly intelligent/well educated people.
All your going to manage is breeding intelligence out of the human race.
(Among the more highly educated demongraphics the average is already <2 children.)
See Idiocracy and The Marching Morons.
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The problem is, ignorant/stupid people tend to breed way faster than higly intelligent/well educated people.
All your going to manage is breeding intelligence out of the human race.
(Among the more highly educated demongraphics the average is already <2 children.)
Last I checked, the research indicates that if you selectively breed for intelligence you wind up with a human average intelligence spectrum within a generation. Translation: intelligence is not a reliably inheritable characteristic. All you have to do is look at the number of royal families that have produced a wide variation in intelligence and effectiveness in a short span of generations to see this in action.
So, in short, feel free to marry the dumb blonde with the 18 charisma! :)
Too bad they are targeting this advertisent to nations or ethnic/racial groups with less than 2% population growth.
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It's a no-win situation. So-called "first world" nations look at countries like India and say "You're overpopulating and that's bad, stop it!" They look back at countries like the U.S. and say "You consume and waste vast amounts of resources, stop it!" Problem is that they're both right. Doesn't stop it from continuing, however.
The movement is an extreme one, but I do believe that we could solve some serious problems by treating child birth as a privilege rather than a right. Aside from the problems it could solve today, Earth is eventually going to run out of room.*
Personally I'd love to find a way to cap the world population before Earth looks like that city-planet from Star Wars.
*Either we'll run out of room, or we'll suffer an endless cycle of mass global warfare just to eliminate excess population. Our leaders will give us other reasons for going to war of course, but that doesn't change the facts...
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I'm less worried about third world countries overpopulating, frankly, because they don't consume the same level of resources as countries like US or Japan.
Even if countries like China and India curbed their population growth, which they aren't, they're still in the process of modernizing, which means the same population will continue to consume more and more resources.
I don't want the human race to go extinct, but it's clear that we need to promote negative population growth NOW.
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I just think you should need a license to have children. You need to be reviewed and tested every year.
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On the one hand, I agree with the concepts of "you need a license to have children" in theory. The problem is no matter who you get to adjudicate it, someone is going to be unhappy with the judgement. I for example would not want to put that kind of authority in the hands of some public servant. I'm certain most religious groups would be unhappy with a board of biologists making the call, and vice versa. Etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
I'd say the two situations aren't even near comparable.
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Heh. No, I haven't. I live in TN, lived in TX and AZ in the past but didn't have a license back then.
It's easy to have children. It's significantly harder to raise them.
How about we selectively neuter the unwanted population. I don't know how we would determine which population is unwanted, but I know a good place to start is the cast of "Jersey Shore" and their viewers.
Heh. No, I haven't. I live in TN, lived in TX and AZ in the past but didn't have a license back then.
It's easy to have children. It's significantly harder to raise them.
Disagree.
It's easy to have children. It's easy to raise children.It's difficult to raise children so that they are well-rounded, fully-functioning, educated critical thinkers and contributing members of society.
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How about we do the things that actually work and aren't coercive?
Educate women. Give them opportunities other than motherhood. Give them access to birth control and family planning services.
Socialist.
Judge: "Sir, you did what? Bailiff, whack his pee-pee."
Heh. No, I haven't. I live in TN, lived in TX and AZ in the past but didn't have a license back then.
It's easy to have children. It's significantly harder to raise them.
Disagree.
It's easy to have children. It's easy to raise children.
It's difficult to raise children so that they are well-rounded, fully-functioning, educated critical thinkers and contributing members of society.
I'll be blunt and probably a little mean. If you aren't raising them to be so, you're essentially not raising them at all.
Thus it was implied.
Of course, depending on who you ask, those requisites often mean very different things. Another hurdle to any sort of solution.
As long as they don't take the next logical step and start forcibly stopping people from having children that want them, I can tolerate them as eccentric weirdos.There's nothing 'logical' about that step unless you delete the word 'Voluntary' from the name of the movement.
Quite aware. But that's really the only further way to go. They're never going to be able to convince the majority of the species to accept its own demise, so either they're going to have to settle for leaving their progress where it's at, or advance to a non-voluntary method. At which point they'll be a danger and need to be addressed as such.
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I have no problem settling for preaching it to others and letting them decide for themselves. I wish more ideologies left it at that.
How about we do the things that actually work and aren't coercive?
Educate women. Give them opportunities other than motherhood. Give them access to birth control and family planning services.
Powerful institutions oppose all of those. It's the right thing to do regardless, but you'd probably have less push back for far more coercive solutions.
Powerful institutions oppose all of those. It's the right thing to do regardless, but you'd probably have less push back for far more coercive solutions.How about we do the things that actually work and aren't coercive?
Educate women. Give them opportunities other than motherhood. Give them access to birth control and family planning services.
Really? I'd think that coercion would cause the greater backlash. A politician trying to introduce any kind of bureaucracy into child bearing would have just about everyone jumping down his throat, I'd imagine: religious groups rebelling against this "attack on our 'go forth and multiply' commandment," liberals fighting against any restriction on "basic human choice," and of course the conservatives who are always screaming for smaller government. And of course nobody with money or power wants to cut down on their pool of cheap labor and desperate enlistees.
I can imagine a tax cut for 1-2 child families, or a cut-off in government child support after the second child...probably in the distant future. That seems somewhat more realistic.
But who knows, maybe you're right.
How about free birth control for all and a tax penalty for having children?
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.
Remember that story line on [b]Stargate SG1[/b\ where the alien race took over
the Earth by making us all infertile. But we humans didn't know about
it until it was too late.
That was scary.
.
I don't want the human race to go extinct, but it's clear that we need to promote negative population growth NOW.
Actually, the planetary rate of population growth is already reaching the non-renewal level (where each generation gives birth to less members than it had, thus eventually causing the total to go down). Here's a graph showing the trend since the 60's and the expected behaviour: Source
As for myself, I want three kids, so I'm not signing up. I'm open to adoption, though.
Really? I'd think that coercion would cause the greater backlash. A politician trying to introduce any kind of bureaucracy into child bearing would have just about everyone jumping down his throat
Experience says the opposite. Introducing bureaucracy into child bearing is, in fact, precisely what the powerful institutions I'm referring to absolutely insist upon. By contrast, we know they don't much mind outcomes that result in dead women.
A decent person would invariably, of course, prefer a condom to a corpse. Decency is not distributed evenly across the population.
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I don't want the human race to go extinct, but it's clear that we need to promote negative population growth NOW.Actually, the planetary rate of population growth is already reaching the non-renewal level (where each generation gives birth to less members than it had, thus eventually causing the total to go down). Here's a graph showing the trend since the 60's and the expected behaviour: Source
As for myself, I want three kids, so I'm not signing up. I'm open to adoption, though.
That source shows a reduction in growth, not a reduction in population. If the projection went to a negative growth value, then it would suggest a contraction. That graph just shows it is not growing as quickly as it was before.
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How about free birth control for all and a tax penalty for having children?
Godless liberal.
How about free birth control for all and a tax penalty for having children?Godless liberal.
Damn skippy!
Actually, the planetary rate of population growth is already reaching the non-renewal level (where each generation gives birth to less members than it had, thus eventually causing the total to go down). Here's a graph showing the trend since the 60's and the expected behaviour: Source
I don't want the human race to go extinct, but it's clear that we need to promote negative population growth NOW.
That's the best news about population growth I've ever seen. Not exactly negative growth, but still hopeful.
As for myself, I want three kids, so I'm not signing up. I'm open to adoption, though.
A little more adoption would make the world a better place. As I understand it though, the problem is that the demand for healthy infants far outweighs the supply and the supply of older or unhealthy children far outweighs the demand.
If you don't mind me asking, what made you pick the number three? It's a pretty common number.
Really? I'd think that coercion would cause the greater backlash. A politician trying to introduce any kind of bureaucracy into child bearing would have just about everyone jumping down his throatExperience says the opposite. Introducing bureaucracy into child bearing is, in fact, precisely what the powerful institutions I'm referring to absolutely insist upon. By contrast, we know they don't much mind outcomes that result in dead women.
A decent person would invariably, of course, prefer a condom to a corpse. Decency is not distributed evenly across the population.
Indeed. I wonder which institutions you're referring to?
How about free birth control for all and a tax penalty for having children?Godless liberal.
redundant department of redundancy department.
redundant department of redundancy department.How about free birth control for all and a tax penalty for having children?Godless liberal.
Not at all. I know many religious folk who are politically liberal-minded. Not everything is divided along party lines. Also, some of us find philosophy to be useful. Case in point... ;-)
Indeed. I wonder which institutions you're referring to?
A decent person would invariably, of course, prefer a condom to a corpse. Decency is not distributed evenly across the population.
The powerful kind.
Not everything is divided along party lines.
This. Sadly that's not the way most people I know think....
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Dividing everything along party lines makes it so much easier for people to lump everything into an us vs them mentality and dismiss everything they disagree with as enemy ideology regardless of facts.
It also makes the MLP jokes so much easier.
That source shows a reduction in growth, not a reduction in population. If the projection went to a negative growth value, then it would suggest a contraction. That graph just shows it is not growing as quickly as it was before.
I don't want the human race to go extinct, but it's clear that we need to promote negative population growth NOW.Actually, the planetary rate of population growth is already reaching the non-renewal level (where each generation gives birth to less members than it had, thus eventually causing the total to go down). Here's a graph showing the trend since the 60's and the expected behaviour: Source
As for myself, I want three kids, so I'm not signing up. I'm open to adoption, though.
I didn't say the population is shrinking; I said we're reaching the point where the renewal rate is less than 1:1, which is expected to happen somewhere between 2040-2060 according to the UN (assuming current trends in child bearing, of course, which in all likelyhood will change, as they have in the past 50 years). What that means is that you have less than 2 kids per couple, which in turn means that every member of a given generation produces less than its equivalent in new members. Thus, once said generation starts to die off, population would start to shrink (before that, it grows).
The current generation is the least fertile in recent history, but since the mortality rates at birth are so low and life expectancy so high, the total growth is still in the possitive numbers, but also dropping at a predictable speed.
We experienced an almost continous rise in the rate of population growth world-wide between the 1300's and the 1960's, and a steady decline since then. It is the first time since the Black Plague that world population growth slows so hard (from the 2.2% in the 60's to the 1.1% we have today).
If you don't mind me asking, what made you pick the number three? It's a pretty common number.
Well, I am the oldest of three siblings, and I had a truly happy childhood, so I'm mostly guessing from personal experience that the number is good. 3 kids worked perfectly for our family (though my own parents, who also had pretty happy childhoods, come from families with 6 siblings).
Not at all. I know many religious folk who are politically liberal-minded. Not everything is divided along party lines. Also, some of us find philosophy to be useful. Case in point... ;-)redundant department of redundancy department.How about free birth control for all and a tax penalty for having children?Godless liberal.
Hehe. Sorry, ran into Poe's law there. Should have added a smiley after the redundant department of redundancy department.
And bah, thats not philosophy, that's sweet sweet natural selection in action!
The powerful kind.Indeed. I wonder which institutions you're referring to?
A decent person would invariably, of course, prefer a condom to a corpse. Decency is not distributed evenly across the population.
There are quite a few of those. Can you narrow it down? Drop a couple of names?
There are quite a few of those. Can you narrow it down? Drop a couple of names?The powerful kind.Indeed. I wonder which institutions you're referring to?
A decent person would invariably, of course, prefer a condom to a corpse. Decency is not distributed evenly across the population.
I thought we both knew, but the biggest kid on the block is the Catholic Church. They're far from the only one, but they are the billion pound gorilla.