‘Population Bomb’ scientist: ‘Nobody’ has the right to ‘as many children as they want’

Why don't we impose a mandatory death age instead?

If no-one lives past the age of 40, we can keep on producing and evolving as a species at a break-neck pace

 

So China is right?

 

The problem with his argument is in the part you quoted,

Whether it is a right or not people will keep having children. The PRC has slowed it's population growth but it isn't at zero or replacement levels so just trying to legislate people from reproducing doesn't work that well. While I think overpopulation is a problem the way to go I think is increasing education access to contraception, improving women's rights and yes keeping abortion legal.

 

Logan 5 disagrees

 

I mean....whether you agree or disagree...people are going to keep having kids, and many will be irresponsible about it.

 

the future belongs to the breeders

a society can wipe itself out within a few generations if it's reproducing below replacement rate

China will get old before it gets powerful

 

I was in training with a coworker from Nigeria last week, and it was interesting to hear him explain his reason for stopping at 3 children. He told me that he wants to send his children to private school, but there's no way he could afford to do that and have a big family. So he and his wife stopped at 3. In fact, he mentioned that he originally only planned to have 2 kids, but the last one was a surprise.

So I think building middle classes in developing nations and giving them access to education and luxuries will go a long way toward controlling the population. What that may mean, however, is that companies can't expect the same kind of profit in 3d world countries that they previously did, and that they should be expected to contribute to the building of infrastructure of their host countries. And that lower profit margin might mean lower salaries for the rest of us - the earnings made in 3rd world countries won't be able to prop up salaries in the US.

So how much are we all willing to sacrifice here?

 

Thomas Malthus would agree.

The most basic human compulsion is to breed. We aren't gonna check that anytime soon without some dystopian, police state action.

We need to colonize space. That's right... Mars b****es. :grin:

 

China have done more to relive pollution and hunger problem for the world than any other nations by simply slowing the growth of its population (China is projected to have negative growth by next decade). India with its unchecked population growth will cause untold problems for the world in the near future.

 

Okay!

There is always this over-arching objective, for the good of country, mankind, the universe, or whatever they feel like at the moment for which individual rights, as fundamental as giving birth, can be per se outlawed. The collectvism is so important that individual rights, as fundamental as giving birth, can be trampled. What does "a better world mean" if my right to live, speak, procreate can not be secured?

 

It is not about "collectivism" - the straw man of libertarian logic. It is about the species and the habitat the species needs to survive. Individual rights don't mean squat if humans go extinct, because individual stupidity destroyed the habitat.

Objectivist ideology does offer a possible solution. It is one Rand herself basically borrowed from a line of thinkers who followed Thomas Malthus. Just eliminate the social safety net. No charity. No food services. No subsidized health care. No unemployment insurance.

Let the "natural laws" of nature dispatch those who cannot survive. You can't afford to feed your kids? Then don't have so many. Once you watch your kids starve to death, hopefully, you learn your lesson.

Malthus would say the worst thing we do is help idiots, the immoral, the undisciplined, and the undeserving continue to breed and live. He would say nature has a built in system for checking population. We just need to let it work.

I don't support his position. Just relaying it.... We should consider Mars, though.

 

You can fit the entire world population inside Jacksonville FL, standing room only.

Overpopulation is not a concern.

 

The key is education---



There's no need to kill people. there's a need to educate many.

TFR (total fertility rates) of all the developed countries are often below replacement rate. It's the developing countries where female education and literacy will be the key to all of our future prosperity.

 

Correct.

 

Interesting subject.

 

Maybe higher immigration quotas for people from countries with denser populations.

 

Individual rights have to mean something; we don't live for other generations.