Setting a limit on # of kids

[bankside]

Rich countries do not "overconsume." Countries need to fit their aspirations for growth within the sustainable ecological footprint of their borders. So if China has four times the population of the United States, which is roughly comparable in size, then the Chinese are implying they never want more than a quarter of the resources and (roughly) wealth enjoyed by Americans.

But they're not. They aspire to great material heights. And to achieve that, their population has to decline to a level where they can live comfortably rather than scrounging for every last pitiful overstretched resource. I commend their efforts to control population expansion, and I hope they can refine their methods to be both more effective and more compatible with individual responsibility rather than collective control. Financial incentives and penalties would be a step in the right direction.

The goal here is not to have as many people as possible using as few resources as required for some kind of pathetic grovelling subsistence lifestyle, the goal should be to cap national (and global) population at a level to allow all to live in relative ease and comfort.

 

[MercuryJones]

And if we did nothing to control the birth rate and only gave out rations, the exploding amount of people would put a strain on rations.

Less people=Bigger rations
More people=Smaller rations

So you just want a way to waste more resources. Got it.

 

[Semirhage666]

I don't know where you live, but if it's the US, you are part of the nation is accounts for 5% of the world population, but 23% of its energy, 15% of its meat and 28% of its paper. Until you bring those things more in line with average world use for adequate levels, you really have nothing to say about population control.

Then let's do this for the US and leave the other countries alone. Passing such a law here WOULD bring down our national resource usage.

 

[MercuryJones]

Any hypothetical law would be applicable to 1 country only, and therefore, other countries' usage is irrelevant. Take any country, and the fact remains that 3 children in a family in that country WILL NOT use as much resources and 8 children in that family in that country. In fact, by your argument, it would make SENSE to put this into effect for the entirety of the US.

But the US isn't rationing resources anyway, so who cares?

If, as the OP pretends, you are concerned with overutilization of resources, it makes no sense to focus on limiting births in the US because the US doesn't give a fuck about resources no matter how many or few of us there are.

 

[DigitalFudge]

Honestly?

If we would just colonize the moon or mars and move some of these suckers there it would all be better.

In the next 100 years there will be some kind of expansion in technology that either allows people to live underwater, or space.


If Plan A doesn't work then a nuke that is bound to happen will do, an alien invasion, Super tsunami........ We have so many amazing options for total destruction.. Why limit ourselves?



Btw if America Limited births they would have to enforce it... That would fuck up the constitution.. Or the Bill of Rights... Something...

 

[MercuryJones]

Then let's do this for the US and leave the other countries alone. Passing such a law here WOULD bring down our national resource usage.

If you want to lead the fight to limit the number of people children are legally allowed to have, be my guest.

But you're not going to, and neither is the OP.

 

[Hot White Trash]

Rich countries do not "overconsume."

Really? Really? What do you call buying more house, more car, more shit that you can afford or even use? What the fuck has this recession been about?

And the idea that a 8 child family will always consume more than a 3 child family is not just absurd but stupid. Nicky and Paris Hilton consume (as in buy) more shit than 20 poor families. Think about it. Those two girls spend probably a million a year. A poor family earns less than $40,000 a year and 20 such families combined earn less than $800k. So its not the number of people in a family, but how much they earn and spend.

 

[MercuryJones]

Yes, I am for the simple reason that it is preventing the developement of a zygote (not a blob of tissue), causing birth defects of those who do survive, and in that case, a failed Birth control leads to aborting the fetus by a doctor. It is immoral in both secular and Religious, and it is Murder; enough said.

I don't know who's more fucking lame in this thread, the guy who thinks birth control should be outlawed so there will be more factory workers, or the guy who thinks births should be limited so he can waste more resources.

 

[Ephemeral]

we're in absolutely no danger of running out of food to eat and land on which to build shelter.

Where'd you get this idea from? Cities are jampacked and are increasingly destroying wildlife and the homes of many animals in order to keep up with the rise of citizens.

So you just want a way to waste more resources. Got it.

So you honestly want a world where we'd have to fight for clean food and water? Where buying a jug of milk would be considered a luxury?

And stop saying I don't care about resources. This whole idea is about our resources. I wouldn't care how many kids you had if it didn't affect our ecological footprints.

You do not know me. Please do not assume what I want to do.

 

[MercuryJones]

Bankside, I don't mean to imply that every nation is currently using the resources they have decided to use and don't want more.

But even in other western nations, with pretty high (global) standards of living, resources are used more sparingly than in the US. In my travels in Europe I don't see anything like the rampant waste and over consumption that is par for the course in the US.

As you said, the goal isn't a subsistence lifestyle. But resources could be used much more responsibly without reducing us to hungry hut-dwellers.

 

[Ephemeral]

drive cross country sometime.

there's ridiculous amounts of empty space; we have so much food that we're throwing it away on stuff like ethanol and subsidizing farmers not to grow.

I think we're quickly approaching a time where most white collar jobs are telecommute-able.

Empty spaces where wildlife live and reproduce. If we disrupt their land, animal populations could have no where to turn and die out.

How much of that food is natural? With the increase in populations, farms would have to produce more at a faster rate to keep up with demand.

 

[MercuryJones]

So you honestly want a world where we'd have to fight for clean food and water? Where buying a jug of milk would be considered a luxury?

You have to be stupid to get that out of what I've said. I've consistently talked about the US wasting resources including food. What about stopping THAT = milk being a luxury?

And stop saying I don't care about resources. This whole idea is about our resources. I wouldn't care how many kids you had if it didn't affect our ecological footprints.

But the ecological footprint isn't based on number of kids as much as it is based on utilization. A single person can waste more resources than a family, depending on lifestyle choices. You keep ignoring that.

 

[fetaby]

But resources could be used much more responsibly without reducing us to hungry hut-dwellers.

Yeah! So so just keep buying compact florescent bulbs and it will alllllll work out in the end.

 

[fetaby]

But the ecological footprint isn't based on number of kids as much as it is based on utilization. A single person can waste more resources than a family, depending on lifestyle choices. You keep ignoring that.

So we become super efficient, even at that level of efficiency a family of eight uses more resources than a family of five.

 

[Ephemeral]

As you said, the goal isn't a subsistence lifestyle. But resources could be used much more responsibly without reducing us to hungry hut-dwellers.

How?

You don't want to control the population number, so there's gonna be more people. More people means a higher demand.

A village of 100 is gonna need more land to farm, more trees to cut down, more fresh water, and a better sewage system than a village of 50.

 

[bankside]

A single person can waste more resources than a family...

Exactly! This is what we should all aspire to! Wasting plentiful resources. If the world isn't infested with humans all scrambling to live efficiently, we'll all live pretty good lives. The world population is already 6 and a half billion. We should penalize those who try to take it to 11 billion or more.

 

[Ephemeral]

You have to be stupid to get that out of what I've said. I've consistently talked about the US wasting resources including food. What about stopping THAT = milk being a luxury?

Who needs food to survive? Humans. Humans give birth to babies. Those babies are going to grow into adults who need food to live. The U.S. will need to increase their usage of resources to satisfy the population.

Let's say a restaurant receives 200 customers a day. If they start receiving 500 customers a day, they can't have the same amount of food they had when they had 200 customers. They have to increase their resources in order to keep up with the growing demand. If they don't, their customers will walk out or they'd have to close when they run out of food, leaving a line of angry customers who've been waiting hours just to be told, "Sorry. No more food for today."

How can you not understand this?

But the ecological footprint isn't based on number of kids as much as it is based on utilization. A single person can waste more resources than a family, depending on lifestyle choices. You keep ignoring that.

Can, but usually more people waste more based on the sole reason they need more.

A baby uses an average of 2,788 disposable diapers per year. This requires more of the products to make these diapers, more of the company to ship these diapers, more of the parents using gas to go to the grocery store and buy these diapers. While the urine and feces breaks down soon, the actual diapers can take decades to break down. This requires more space to store these diapers.

Wanna use cloth diapers? Calculate the number of types you need to use the washing machine and detergent. That's a waste of water and VOCs being released from the chemicals in the detergent.

Babies need diapers, disposable or cloth. Do you not know of the economic impact of the Baby Boom?

 

[Ephemeral]

There was a time that Colonial America was predominately agricultural, ie; Family farms! Family farms since the 1940's have been swallowed up by the fuckin' Corporate farmers, and poisoning us with the genetically Modified foods. We don't need Government Population controls, Its the corporate Big Shots who are already doing it, though it is much slower than the abortion and birth control.

Let's say corporations never took over family farms (which BTW, I strongly disagree with corporations doing this. It makes me sick to my stomach) and chemicals and pesticides were never used on crops. Do you think they'd of been able to handle today's high demand? I'm no expert on this area, but the organic, natural way doesn't produce products at a quicker, bigger, year-round pace.

 

[Ephemeral]

the fact is, government intervention isn't needed to slow population growth. it's already slowing and will continue to slow without our civil rights being destroyed and the constitution getting burned.

we're not standing on the edge of a cliff where population growth is a significant problem requiring a dramatic and heavy-handed solution.

Even though your report on population growth said things were slowing down, everything around me says otherwise. More cars on the road, more pollution, more wildlife areas being destroyed, more children, more people.

 

[fetaby]

Colin Campbell, the head of the depletion centre, said: "It's quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it's gone."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/world-oil-supplies-are-set-to-run-out-faster-than-expected-warn-scientists-453068.html

Now add 6 more straws.