Stop the Madness, Before It's Too Late
The BBC wonders here if it's wrong to have more than two kids, due to the manner in which it strains the planet's resources. Heck yeah; as the second of three kids, I have no doubt that the third one was superfluous.
Okay, I do "kid," but I think it's not helpful to have more than two in this day and age. If every couple had one kid, over the next two generations, imagine how much easier life would be for those who follow us. Think about their needs, not Nadya's needs to have a large family or Gretchen & Bill's need to fill up the gas-guzzling minivan with the delightful screams of five little-leaguers.
How will we get the rapidly growing segments of our population, eg, the Third World, to go along with this? I dunno, that's the part I haven't figured out yet. And it won't make much difference for us in "developed" nations to hold the line when they won't.
Rob, where does the BBC's (and other's) alleged concern for the environment cross over to eugenics? Any population control measure will disproportionately affect African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities. Don't assume the BBC doesn't know that. While I wouldn't mind seeing the Democratic base decrease in size, this is just wrong. I have no problem with large families so long as those families can adequately sustain themselves without government assistance.
Hmm. I'm not sure what you're getting at, John, esp when you say "Don't assume the BBC doesn't know that."
That seems to imply the BBC would hate population reduction because it would hurt the "Democratic base."
Yet the BBC floats a provocative ethical question while not taking a stand one way or another. The BBC isn't saying we shouldn't have more kids due to the environment or population control is bad because it would reduce the Democratic base. It's reporting on issues. And it expresses a range of perspectives in this article.
Are you implying the BBC has an agenda here?
The point I was trying to make is that there's a fine line between environmentalists and others believing in or wanting to practice eugenics - both groups are after the same thing and, I believe, one group sometimes cloaks itself within the other.
I guess my point about the Democratic base was a distraction - it had nothing to do about the BBC, the article you referenced, or anything else. I was merely saying that any population control measure would hit minority groups the hardest, and of course voting minorities, in general, have a proclivity to go Democratic.
Thanks, though I'm still not sure what you're getting at with eugenics. They're not saying that only minorities should cut back on children, and they're not discouraging anyone from having kids.
They're just saying that the world's resources wouldn't be under as much pressure if each procreating couple didn't go beyond replacing itself. Where's the eugenics in that?