Continuing to increase the world population is absolutely nuts.
*I’m not interested in gradual natural declines from whatever factors. 2 max implemented now.
Hard disagree - you’re effectively controlling people’s body autonomy the same way as abortion bans.
Controlling wastefulness, development for the future and education on the other hand- absolutely. Side effect is that better education usually leads to smaller families, and that’s before you also include sex ed and access to contraception.
My primary question is when do the needs of the many vs the needs of the few kick in?
All for body autonomy, but let’s say in the future, we do have food shortages and you know your future kids won’t be able to eat, and let’s say you know they will in fact starve - would you agree that it’s wrong to bring another child into that future?
If so, when is the line drawn? We already say in society that abortion is the moral choice if we know the child is doomed to die because of incurable diseases, does the same thought apply if you know your child will die of starvation?
Now, let’s say that’s happening but you’re the government. And just for this question let’s say the government is actually moral and useful, and basically infallible. I know, will never happen and our government couldn’t be farther from that, but just for the this here they are. As the government they see the problem and see that people having too many babies will cause most babies die of starvation. Is it formal for them to limit the rights of some people to not have more children if it means a larger amount of children will live?
If so, when is that line drawn?
Unfortunately government doesn’t work that way and people are cruel and have bias and so it would never work because it would be implemented in some horrible dystopian way. But I wanted to show my line of thinking, that I’m not someone who wants to be horrible, but in a backwards way to me I think it’s more compassionate
The best answer to that line is what society will accept.
I mean, we already have a way to decide where that line is - supply and demand. In a perfect world people would decide not to have kids because its not financially possible based on the price due to shortages - like you say though that wouldn’t be the case.
With realistic considerations - your support from society ceases at two kids. If you want to have more no govt support.etc. That’s a vote killer as for some reason the governments responsible when you can’t feed your kids, but that’s the best way forward imo.
Agreed. OP is choosing the stick over the carrot. The truth is that increasing education has a direct negative correlation to birth rates, and has like a million bonus side effects too
I agree with this in theory, but the logistics of it is too complicated to put into action. How to prevent the third child, how to define a “couple”, what about single people who want to raise children, and the government having control of what you do with your body are all factors that would complicate things.
I’m honestly in favor of it. Before everyone jumps down my throat, I’m not saying how China did it was the right way.
But we are barreling towards a very unsustainable future. This century is going to be very dire for these next generations. We simply do not have the resources.
There are some great “hacks” I’ll call them. GMOs, urban farming, etc, but those just treat the symptoms.
I’m not having kids and this is one of the big reasons why. My family thinks I’m crazy but from my point of view I’m just bringing kids into this world to suffer, so if I do that then it’s only for selfish reasons. And with that line of thought I think people who willingly have more than, oh, let’s say 3 kids are selfish.
It’s harsh, but seriously look around. It’s unmaintainable, we can’t keep going at infinite growth.
The problem has never been the amount of resources. The problem is distribution of resources is heavily skewed to a few.
If the abundant resources are obtained through unbridled agriculture (deforestation) and excessive amounts of ecosystem-destroying pesticides, maybe they’re not sustainable
Not having kids works on an individual level, but without worldwide implementation/cooperation we just continue on and on growing the population. Thus this post.
And yet the population graph is curving toward a plateau and new generations are so much smaller than previous that many places are more in danger of a rapid drop in population (in a few decades, assuming nothing changes). This is a solved problem: our best bet is to rucsh the developing world toward development
I mean, bias is a problem, but there’s an even bigger issue. What happens if a couple has a third child? It may not seem like it, but this is a major problem.
One of many problems unfortunately. How do you decide what to do? Forcibly remove the child? Relocate? Tax them more?
What if it was an accident? How do you prove it was? There’s no way to do it, and another reason it’ll never happen.
However if you have 5 kids and it happens again… Ehhh I’m willing to say that you did not have 6 accidents.
Yes, putting this into law would either require the government to pay for mandatory abortions or mandatory sterilization after the second child.
Or some serious financial repercussions. Maybe extra tax that goes towards more support for people with fewer children (or their children).
Then that’s class based bias, rich would simply pay for it while the poor get poorer. It’s a fair thought, but the waters get muddy all the way down
Yeah, the system would have to be changed by miles for this to apply evenly among classes, and by extension, races. Some assurance of equal levels of education, resources, and access to medical care to take care of all roadblocks to having exactly the amount of children you want to have. Edit: and that would mean free (as in uninhibited financially or by laws) access to abortion regardless of situation.
You get a max of two, after that benefits are split between the number of children?
Developed nations are seeing declining birth rates. I don’t think we need to do anything.
Every time someone raised the alarm about population growth, some unforeseen innovation made it a non-issue.
Yet population explosion is worse than ever. Only some of the developed nations are improving, though they are suffering the delayed effects of old population explosion (boomers).
We have an absolutely unprecedented population that’s using resources at like 4x sustainable rates and still growing rapidly. Hand waving it away by talking about Malthus is just sticking our heads in the sand.
Well, this will certainly be an unpopular opinion, so at least it matches the community! :-)
The top two responses are opposite - definitely sits right.
I think people shouldn’t have any kids.
All children should be kept secret until adulthood and then have to pretend to have been born before x year. It would build character.
The real right answer
I already have two and cannot understand why anyone would want anymore…that said, no.
It’s almost always childless young men saying this.
For a truly contentious opinion I’d love to see a married woman with three kids say it.
I mean, okay let’s break that down.
Young men, okay I’m a man in my late 30s, so throw young out as your argument. Second my wife shares the same thoughts, so, I don’t want to speak to her but maybe the gender side isn’t as important either.
Childless, well yes, my wife and I are both childless because of the massive problems facing the world today, mostly caused by overpopulation. I’d say being childless is more of a logical conclusion to having these thoughts rather than the other way around. It’s also more likely in your assumptions that a married woman with 3 kids would be pro having kids.
I don’t know what you thought you were proving, but to me it’s very logical why childless people are the people who are in favor of people having less children.
It was a flippant throwaway comment. I’m in my 40s, also married and also childless by choice. My partner and I being very similar to you.
I wasn’t proving anything, just making a subtle joke about a parent effectively eliminating one of their children.
Got it, sorry I didn’t not pick up on the joke. I’ve been accused by my parents for being selfish that I don’t want kids and so I take things as “only young dumb people have these opinions” a bit too personally. Appreciate the explanation
Oh no, no need to apologise it was a pretty weak joke… But solidarity, I’ve had that too.
And getting asked “is everything ok?” as if we can’t have kids, rather than chose not to.
And the emotional blackmail about no grandchildren.
I think it really unnerves some folk.
The opinion that childfree people must be young, immature, and selfish is shockingly common.
Having children is a selfish choice as well–people have them because they want them. That’s selfish. It’s not wrong, but it’s not some altruistic deed, either.
At least society is slowly coming around to the idea that having children is a choice and not a requirement.
No kidding (ha!), I didn’t have kids because i think the entire idea is stupid. So yes, I’d suggest that other people have less also.
People get children without being a couple.
What even is the definition of a couple and why should that determine the number?
Good point. The obvious, and unpopular, take would probably be per uterus insteadnof per couple, since that is almost completely trackable, unlike paternity.
yeah no, that’s discriminatory
This is already a tracked statistic. It’s called the fertility rate. Yes, it’s tracked per uterus, and it’s actually been falling precipitously for decades:
Ooo, do women have the power or are they a commodity valued on ability to have kids. Will this be a boon for feminine rights or a massive step backwards.
I smell a new post
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Great, now I’ve got to go reinstall borderlands
That would kill surrogacy for women who can’t carry babies
Violation of body autonomy is of the absolute most profound violations and the state has no right to do that. Whether or not people SHOULD have kids is irrelevant; even if they shouldn’t, there exists no acceptable power lever to prevent it.
It’s also a solution in search of a problem. Human population growth is already slowing and will likely plateau in my lifetime before starting a trend of retreat. Assuming we aren’t all dead by way of the collapsing climate already.
Real unpopular opinion incoming:
there is no bigger body autonomy violation than being forced into this world in the first place.
Children aren’t the problem. Late stage capitalism is. We have the technology and resources to feed everyone in the world but we don’t. Because it’s not profitable.
We reward billionaires more wealth than they could ever spend in their lives. Why? For accidentally being in the right place and time to take advantage of an opportunity. We pretend they’re special, but it really comes down to mostly luck. That wealth could lift humanity out of poverty.
We need to make a new system that rewards people for doing what needs to be done, not for what’s profitable.
Humans are taking up too much land, it’s not just a matter of feeding everyone
Show me your data on that one
If you wanna end up with billions of dead baby girls, sure, cuz that’s what happens.
Instead, best way to curve overpopulation is just improve education.
Also we still have tonnes and tonnes of room for growth if we just stopped being incredibly wasteful. We produce multiple times the food to feed everyone on earth already, but almost all of it ends up thrown out and wasted.
We need a fundamental shift in priorities, and better push on legislation to get food into people’s mouths.
Not every country has the obsessive cultural view that males are better.
So you’d end up with mountains of dead babies whose sex doesn’t matter. Is that any better?
Let’s see, uh… what the fuck are you talking about? You think people would carry babies to term and then just kill them vs. abortion, contraception or sterilization?
That’s what we have seen in China time and time again. Given that the areas of the world where a 2 kids rule would be most applicable are the countries that lack access to medical care, contraception and education, that’s what would happen there as well
Maybe start by not making people who don’t want babies have them…
How, though? Without more specifics about how the “limit” would work, this statement is fairly meaningless.
(Not to say that I’m necessarily onboard with any single specific way I can conceive of that would establish a “limit” on how many children people can have.)
What’s a “couple”? Would governments do something bad (a fine, jail time, etc) to people who had a third child as a punishment/deterrent? If jail time, what would be done with the two kids they ostensibly already have? Would some people who already have two kids be forced on threat of incarceration to undergo abortions and/or sterilization? Maybe all the governments on earth would just make it legal for any person to kill any child with two or more older siblings on sight, hmm? (There’s a lot of sarcasm in this paragraph. I hope that’s obvious, but maybe it’s good to point it out explicitly anyway.)
There is a lot that governments can do to “encourage” a lower birth rate that wouldn’t be draconian like throwing people in jail for having kids. Like free birth control, for instance. More funding for womens’ healthcare organizations. The word “limit” in your post makes it seem like that’s not what you’re going for at all.
China.
