Breeding.... is it ethical?

[MrXarvox]

I was going to just reply to the discussion going on in my other thread, but I figured I'd just keep that one from going too off-topic and instead start up a thread on the subject here.

I'll sum up my 2 cents on the subject:

There are too many people in the world already. Don't make any more. If you feel the need to have a child, adopt one. Dumb people will always be breeding young and giving their unsupportable children to adoption agencies. If you absolutely HAVE to make one of your own, make ONE. No more.

<waits for the flames from the resident breeding population>

 

[Lotus Mox]

First, we don't have too many ppl right now, but yes there is some limit there, and it is probably not too far away.

But the danger of making such an abrupt change of having everyone having at max 1 child, is an age pyramid in a few decades which stands on its head, that's not a good thing to have.
Noone can support all these elderly people, although Soylent Green could help to feed them...

Also adopting a child of stupid parents would inhibit the grand evolution, since intelligence is about 50% genetically determined.

 

[Ferret]

I've always been a big fan of sterilizing the stupid - as a matter of fact I beleive that everyone should be tested about the age of ten. They should be given a basic intelligence and skills test. They fail, they die...

-Ferret

"...oxygen should be a privilage - not a right..."

 

[train]

Ferret - What if they fail and we try to kill them, but they live... Does it work like the death penalty where we can't try and kill them again???

 

[EricBess]

There is nothing wrong with having children. However, it should be done responsibly. For example, a single mother who keeps playing around and has 10 kids but can't support them...That's a problem.

Much of the problem stems from a societal view of the family. Divorce rates are high and single parent families are high because people don't take commitments seriously. That leads to situations such as a single mother living on wellfare to support her 3 children in poor conditions.

On the other hand, I have 4 children and I'm expecting a 5th in March. Am I an evil person? Selfish? On the contrary, I have a good job and skills to earn a good living. My wife is also educated and could earn a living if need be. We have gradually increased our earning potential and also the size of our family. We've been through financial troubles, but we've been fiscally responsible to be able to have the size of family we have.

I wouldn't trade it for anything. And as far as adopting, I think it is a good thing. There are a lot of good people that have tried, but can't have children of their own. These people should adopt. But there is something very special about having your own child. If you don't believe me, ask those people that do adopt if they feel they have somehow missed out on something.

 

[MrXarvox]

5 children, in my opinion, is evil and selfish. Regardless of how many you can financially support, breeding like that is just wrong. I am not completely against having your own children. One is fine. Two I can tolerate. Three is pushing it. Four is not good at all and Five, as they said (albeit in different context) in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, is right out.

 

[EricBess]

I suppose you are entitled to your opinion. I don't see "overcrowding" as a huge issue, however, as most people now days seem to have your attitude and don't want to have children. I see this as primarily a self-rectifying problem

Regardless, think about it logistically. Assume for a moment that each couple in the world marries and forms a family. If each family had 1 child, we would halve our population every generation. 2 children would maintain status quo, and 3 children would increase population.

Now, we all know that many people die before they have a chance to have a family. There are also a lot of people out there who choose not to have a family. And, in today's society, there are a ton of one-child families out there.

Your original argument states that we shouldn't have children because there are a lot of dumb people who breed irresponsibly and end up giving their children up for adoption, thus creating "too many people". Why should my situation be considered evil simply because these people aren't being responsible?

Regardless, suppose I already have two children and my wife becomes pregnant, dispite efforts to avoid that? Do you recommend aborting the fetus? I'm not saying this is what happened, I'm simply raising a hypothetical.

Now, to address the question of too many people. that is an opinion at best. I don't suppose you have any research that accurately demonstrates the number of people that this earth can support, do you? I'd be interested in seeing it

 

[MrXarvox]

No, I haven't anything conclusive as far as how many people the world can support, but I think that 7 billion is just a tad over the threshold, given the ravenous consuming tendencies of even the most destitute human being.

Your original argument states that we shouldn't have children because there are a lot of dumb people who breed irresponsibly and end up giving their children up for adoption, thus creating "too many people". Why should my situation be considered evil simply because these people aren't being responsible?

That wasn't my reasoning behind my whole argument. That was just one of the reasons not to have children of your own.

Regardless, suppose I already have two children and my wife becomes pregnant, dispite efforts to avoid that? Do you recommend aborting the fetus? I'm not saying this is what happened, I'm simply raising a hypothetical

Yes, I do recommend abortion. I am all for abortion.

Regardless, think about it logistically. Assume for a moment that each couple in the world marries and forms a family. If each family had 1 child, we would halve our population every generation. 2 children would maintain status quo, and 3 children would increase population.

Which is why I say I can tolerate 2 children. I like the idea of a massive population drop, though even a levelling-off would be great.

 

[EricBess]

From your profile, I see that you are 19 years old. I suspect that you haven't had much direct experience with life.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being idealistic.

I've spoken with people who have had abortions. Now, I'm sure not every case is the same, but everyone of the people that I spoke to was tormented by guilt.

As far as what the world can support, what evidence do you have that 7 billion is over the threshold?

A quote I once heard - "Minds are like paracutes. They function best when open."

 

[MrXarvox]

No, I haven't had much direct experience with life.
And as I said, I don't have anything conclusive to say that the world is indeed overpopulated. It's my view of the whole thing, backed up only by the obvious fact that the world is getting more and more polluted and foul each day because of people.

As far as abortion goes, it's probably their upbringing that causes the people you've talked to to feel such guilt, as their mothers would most likely have gasped at the mere thought of such a thing. Or maybe they feel guilty to have made the mistake of having unsafe sex.

Again, this is me speculating. I speculate on a lot of things.

 

[nodnarb24]

On the threshold topic, is is almost impossible to tell how many people is too much because each society requires different amount of resources. For example, if everyone in the current population lived like the average American, we would need over 4 Earths to support ourselves, but if everyone lived like the average Indian, it would require over 18 billion people to meet the capacity.

I believe that only certain areas should adopt over population measures, such as India and China due to their high populations and ever increasing standard of living.

 

[Chaos Turtle]

We need stupid people to work the crappy jobs...

I'm not breeding, by the way, sort of by default.

 

[Ferret]

My opinion is that there is too many people on the planet. America - as well as most other industrialized nations - is not overpopulated. We can more-or-less handle our population...even though starvation is still a problem in the inner cities.

But, let's take a look at some other countries like Mexico, India, and China. These countries have some serious overpopulation problems. China has a pretty draconian policy of only allowing one child - of course, this leads to fathers drowning daughters until they get a son. In India, they haven't even begun to consider the problem despite the fact that they have over a billion people and w/ their rigid caste system (and religious view that eating cows is wrong) starvation is a reality...

...and Mexico; the're Catholic. Need I say more. Every year starving families sneak into our country and become a serious burden on the taxpayers of America.

-Ferret

"...the man working in the reptile house at the zoo says there are no Giraffes because he cannot see them. But, there are Giraffes..."

 

[TomB]

Of course it's ethical to "breed". It's called "propagating the species", and the mechanism by which it is accomplished is actually kind of fun to partake in...

I've got 2 of them there youngin's, and my life would not be complete without them. It's true, of course, that we could have adopted instead of "breeding" them up ourselves, but then, I wouldn't have gotten to witness their entry into our somewhat screwed up world that way, and that was a truly awesome experience.

Try it sometime...

 

[TomB]

Please lay off of the Catholics already. I'm starting to get more than a little offended here...

 

[MrXarvox]

Umm, yes TomB, but when there are too many, it becomes a debatable subject as to whether it's a good thing to still be doing it.

As for the Catholics, might I share this funny poem:
----
Corn and Catholics

What! still those two infernal questions,
That with our meals our slumbers mix,
that spoil our tempers and digestions--
Eternal Corn and Catholics!

Gods! Were there never two such bores?
Nothing else talkt of night or morn--
Nothing in doors or out of doors
But endless Catholics and Corn!

Never was such a brace of pests--
While ministers, still worse than either,
Skilled but in feathering their nests,
Plague us with both and settle neither.

So addled in my cranium meet
Popery and corn that oft I doubt,
Whether this year, 't was bonded Wheat,
Or bonded Papists, they let out.

Here, landlords, here polemics nail you,
Armed with all the rubbish they can rake up;
Prices and Texts at once assail you--
From Daniel these, and those from Jacob.

And when you sleep with head still torn
Between the two, their shapes you mix,
Till sometimes Catholics seem Corn--
And Corn again seems Catholics.

Now Dantsic wheat before you floats--
Now Jesuits from California--
Now Ceres linked with Titus Oats,
Comes dancing through the "Porta Cornea."

Oft too the corn grows animate,
And a whole crop of heads appears,
Like Papists, bearding Church and State--
Themselves, together, by the ears!

In short these torments never cease,
And oft I wish myself transferred off
To some far, lonely land of peace
Where Corn or Papists ne'er were heard of.

Yes, waft me Parry, to the Pole;
For--if my fate is to be chosen
'Twixt bores and icebergs--on my soul,
I'd rather, of the two, be frozen!

--Thomas Moore, circa 1826


Corn and Catholics... sounds like an Aztec dish...

 

[Deadman]

Look, we should just take the warning labels off everything and let natural selection do it's course

 

[train]

Statement of fact - It is not the Catholics methodology to populate the world. That belongs to the Mormons... Those are ideals founded within the religion... I know - I was Catholic, and I dated a Mormon...

As for the overall breeding bit - most of it is ethical...

As for the ones not ethical - MrXarvox - help NASA and the government build an environment on Mars and the Moon and we won't have to deal with taking up space here by killing anyone - just let them go live in their own place...

But who would then run our McDonalds???

 

[Spiderman]

To fully answer this question, a lot more information needs to be given. Since I don't have it (and I don't see anyone else who does), my position is that it's not our place to play "God" and decide who can have children and who cannot. Hitler and America already tried that to some extent and I think it's a shameful part of history.

Does Earth have too many people? It's hard to say... a lot of the world is being "mismanaged"; look at Zimbabwe. They're suffering a severe food shortage right now when they shouldn't. Why? Because the president is intent on "reclaiming" the land from whites and giving it to blacks.

On the other hand, you have mudslides from deforestation and people trying to irrigate desert areas to farm.

Pollution? In the industrialized countries there are stricter standards for emissions. But there are more people using and emitting such emissions, not to mention companies ignoring or lobbying to change them because they cost them too much money.

People themselves could make a difference if they're more conscious, but some choose not to or don't care.

Personally, I think the future will take care of itself. Either new diseases will arise or mutate to help control the population (already there are some which resist all known antibotics) or we might actually get into space and expand that way (or the sea but I don't think there's a lot of effort going that way).

 

[train]

Paraphrasing: "During each generation a new plague shall be brought upon the earth..."

That's a solution not cntrolled by us...