please stop having babies ffs
And what then, the human race just dies out? I get the pessimistic feeling, but we may very well be the only sapient species in this galaxy. It would be such a waste to just give up and perish because of momentary hardships.
We are literally sapient stardust, and I’m certainly not going to give up and throw away the efforts and struggles on millions of ancestors just because of some current corporate greed and fascism is in fashion.
Why would I care if the human race dies out? I won’t be here to notice.
Let’s instead focus on not burning the place to the ground during our lifetimes.
This is what we hate boomers for. Short-termism. How about we start being angry at the right culprits? Your peers in the West aren’t having kids anymore already.
I don’t share this view. Life is an interesting pattern created by matter, but no need to be spiritual about it. If life ceased to exist, no one would be sad about it. Actually a lot of struggle and pain would be over which is positive in my opinion. In practice, we should value quality of life of conscious beings instead of quantity. Having less is better.
Really? Why not? You think the impressive development of an intelligent and aware species is important enough to make that same species suffer more and more to the inevitable extinction anyways? Let’s do it now while it’s still partially habitable so that the end isn’t quite as horrific. Your logic makes no sense.
Oh come on, it’s a #notallmen moment. Lol
When people say “stop having kids”, what they mean is stop having unplanned pregnancies. I don’t think that many people want our literal extinction.
I wish all people would stop having kids. I am all for the voluntary human extinction movement. A very key word is voluntary though, which really just makes it an ideology.
We are in no way at risk of dying out from negative population growth. If we start to go down below a few million, then maybe let’s talk.
World population is still increasing, and is set to maybe stabilize in a couple decades. Fingers crossed. If we could (gently, without mass starvation) reduce the population down to a more sustainable level, that is an unmitigatedly good thing.
What might kill us is infertility from pollution or disease, but this won’t do it.
I totally agree with you. I just hate all of these “don’t have kids” arguments from liberal people. It’s not a viable solution, because the fascists and the idiots are gong to have kids. We need at least some sane people to continue on.
But the is all emotional and subjective, I’ll admit that. I’m not really thinking about this topic with a clear head anymore.
The real issue is that we have a rapidly aging workforce and there’s not enough young people to replace them. With the average age of parents raising, the gap is getting larger. In the 50s it was 16 workers for every 1 retired. The 70s, 5:1. That number is now almost 2:1. This is bad. Very bad.
Higher bar for jobs. Lower wage for entry level. Later retiring age. Higher need for migrant and seasonal workers.
The Earth can sustain the current population levels. Imagine we decrease those, at what point do we stop?
The problem with malthusianism is that it doesn’t give any tangible answer to the issues it claims to solve.
First off, when do we stop that decrease? Secondly, when we reach the coveted equilibrium point, how do we stop the plundering of resources capitalists will still subject us to?
I’m not arguing for an ever-increasing demography, but I’m against a system that’s unattainable (because, even with violent rule enforcement, people will keep having kids), does not meaningfully address the issue with the plundering of terrestrial resources, and means the lower class will have to bear the brunt of the work of dealing with an aging population.
gently, without mass starvation
Even more gently if you want to make sure there’s enough younger people to care for the elderly
Found the pro-abortionist.
(For those that don’t get the joke, notice that I didn’t say pro-life or anti-choice. It’s the “flush them all - no exceptions” position.)
youd have to be pretty narcissistic to bring a child into the current environment
There was a theory that roughly 15 years after Roe v Wade crime started decreasing because people who weren’t ready for or didn’t want children could now have an abortion. Many of those kids that were previously born “unwanted” were in poor households and so the kids getting to about 15 years old in those conditions would start getting into trouble and start committing crimes.
For any fuckwit that says “make better decisions then! Use protection!” I’m the result of a broken condom, that shit absolutely happens. I was a “pleasant surprise.” Honestly I wish they’d have just had the abortion.
Absolutely not, Slovakia saw the same thing. When abortion was strictly outlawed, crime skyrocketed in 18 years due to children being born in awful conditions.
The prolife movement is a probirth movement only. Because they don’t give a fuck about the kid after birth.
Edit: Romania not Slovakia
I think you may have the wrong country. I can’t find anything about a complete abortion ban in Slovakia (except for a rejected proposal in 2020), nor a sharp increase in crime, apart from that following promptly after the overthrow of the communists.
It doesn’t get brought up because it’s not useful to anyone politically. Already support abortion rights? Well then lower crime rates is just a positive unintended side effect of a policy that grants women their inherent right to bodily autonomy. Already oppose abortion rights? Then you probably don’t care about crime rates because you already think that abortion itself is a crime.
My sister had her first child because her birth control failed due to another medication making it less effective.
No one warned her about that being a thing that can happen with that particular med. Not her doctor. Not the pharmacist. No one said a thing… which is super fucked up. She was married at the time, but still. They were not ready for a kid(their words)
This was almost 20 years ago so I don’t remember which med it was, and I’m hoping the medical community is better about this now.
It’s really honestly amazing that there are so many people in this world that don’t understand that, A, married couples use birth control and have regular sex and, B, that birth control can fail.
Are they all incels are something?
PSA: Antibiotics will make your birth control less effective.
Also no they do not warn most people about that.
It was never about stopping abortion. It’s about keeping people in poverty and creating a cycle of uneducated voters that either don’t vote or vote Republican because they don’t know better
Don’t worry, Republicans will solve this by banning abortion and birth control nationwide!
They are always thinking of the children.
Okay, so on an actual serious note – Historically, this has actually been the lever that’s been pulled by government in order to control population growth.
The problem is that we’ve grown so much as a society that we now realize that bodily-autonomy is a human right.
There are ways they can promote population growth, if that is something we really want. Better and free school lunches would be a start. Childcare. Pre-K education. Free college. Health-care. And generally a more wealthy middle class.
The biggest reason people are having fewer kids is money.
This 100%. We and many of our peers with a kid are one and done in the current system. But if we could afford college educations for multiple kids, get adequate parental leave, access to early childcare that doesn’t cost an entire paycheck? That would change the decision quite a bit.
But also I’m happy to have fewer kids and let more immigrant and/or refugee families with young kids move here too. Solves the labor shortage and provides a much needed influx of fresh ideas and culture, not to mention getting some folks out of dangerous situations. Somehow all of the people who want to “save the children” are extremely silent on that front when it’s children moving to another country for a better life.
And legalizing marriage to minors. And outlawing comprehensive sexual education.
A few Republicans also rape and traffic minors just to show how dedicated they are to countering the declining birth rate!
Pizzagate was projection.
Also, we need to be clear, rape is such a harsh word, it’s not fair to ruin someone’s whole career over a little misunderstanding like consent…