Yeah because Cletus and Starla's four kids from a cousin marriage benefit the future greatly lol
Also you can be 25 and just plan to have kids later once you have a stable career and some money saved up. "Degenerate selfish people" is a real edgy way to put it, but coincidentally also a pretty stupid one.
Perspective I suppose. In simple terms, with the way things are right now, we could imprecisely say that having kids early and often supports the current unsustainable economic model of “exponential growth” that relies on steady leaps in population to feed supply and demand of consumer markets.
If one supports “the environment” or the long term sustainability of the human race, not having kids is probably one of the better ways to ease back problems like climate change.
Of course if the people who want to “save the planet” have less kids and the people who are not really concerned have more, eventually the future is filled with people raised to think by those who don’t care as much about the planet. So the bit of catch 22 there is that ideology is often a numbers game, and an ideology that suppresses breeding won’t tend to spread as fast or as far as one which is rooted in breeding. Hence why so many ideologies have a concept of fruitfulness at their core- Outbreed to succeed.
lol. Don’t be so sure. On an INDIVIDUAL basis- the decision to not have children is unlikely to result in any serious foreseeable danger to the human race. Most figures I can find estimate somewhere around 70-90% of humans have a child in their lifetimes. US census data suggests that in 2021 roughly 40% of US homes had a child under 18 living with parents/guardians. Note that is a census of children UNDER 18, AND LIVING AF HOME. The number of adult children is not counted. Note that many people will have more than one child. This is simpler to examine- we can see population growth over time, and the global population has increased for centuries at least- meaning that the total combined population is having more than one child per human or else factoring in the numbers of deaths each year from various conflicts and causes- the global population would show a more stable number over time or a decline.
So if we take a conservative estimate between 40-70% of people having a child in their life and look at the growth statistics. We could radically reduce the percentage of people having children and lower the population levels over time, and eventually when they reached a sustainable limit, adjust birth rates to more or less maintain a global population level. Periodic adjustments and measurements would be needed since what is “sustainable” changes based on conditions and of course on the overall standard of living and resource usage per person.
Technology has not been able to keep up with procreation. Since the 1959’s we have effectively doubled or more the efficiency and environmental cleanliness of commercial air travel propulsion- but population increase and subsequent commerce has led to an increase in utilization of air travel which outstrips the mitigation of impact on the whole. So while the per flight pollution is lower than of technology was still that of the 1950’s,
Total pollution from air travel has increased. Much the same the now almost globally ubiquitous automobile has increased exponentially in its efficiency and mitigation of environmental impact, but more people are using automobiles and with more frequency and total miles traveled.
While we MAY in the future reach a technological point that we could provide an effectively infinite number of people technology and living necessities like food or housing without any significant total negative environmental impact, not only is that unlikely or very far off in all probability, but unless we come up with some form of violating or “side stepping” known science and fundamentals of physical reality- There is a limit to any resource we can get on Earth, with many key resources being limited more so.
Thusly at some point, we just cannot sustain population growth or maintain a global population size without endangering the entire species in earth and presumably even if we spread to the known..
..viable solar system. For some time- likely a long time in human terms and a short time in terms of epochs, we could POSSIBLY sustain the species with exponential population growth so long as the standard of living and or per person resource usage was severely curtailed. However, if we were so capable of “giving up” so much- we wouldn’t be facing many of these environmental crises. What’s more, at least in recorded history, it tends to be the case so far that on the whole humans have considered their wants and comforts ahead of the long term future of others.
Even if we imagine a future where we have socially “evolved” beyond that and live very simple lives of sustenance level resources per person globally- we’d also need to work out the science and social development of an entirely new system of farming that can provide for for such huge and growing numbers which is sustainable long term.
>On an INDIVIDUAL basis- the decision to not have children is unlikely to result in any serious foreseeable danger to the human race.
...I disagree for the obvious reason.
Meh. One is welcome to disagree. Facts is facts though, and every day, month, year, generation- for at least centuries of not all of human history- some individuals decide not to have kids. Now, of course when individuals all or mostly decide the same thing those tiny individual decisions make a huge impact- if every person on earth decides to light a bon fire at the same time we would be able to measure- likely perceive without measuring- the impact of that. So in a sense yes- if enough individuals all decided to not have kids in the same time period- the species would be in danger for obvious reasons.
But if more individuals decided to not have kids, it probably would have an overall positive impact on the global environment in general providing the technology to provide for that society and the size of that society were balanced in such a way to offset each other.
Also you can be 25 and just plan to have kids later once you have a stable career and some money saved up. "Degenerate selfish people" is a real edgy way to put it, but coincidentally also a pretty stupid one.
If one supports “the environment” or the long term sustainability of the human race, not having kids is probably one of the better ways to ease back problems like climate change.
Of course if the people who want to “save the planet” have less kids and the people who are not really concerned have more, eventually the future is filled with people raised to think by those who don’t care as much about the planet. So the bit of catch 22 there is that ideology is often a numbers game, and an ideology that suppresses breeding won’t tend to spread as fast or as far as one which is rooted in breeding. Hence why so many ideologies have a concept of fruitfulness at their core- Outbreed to succeed.
>not having kids
Pretty sure you can only have one of these.
Technology has not been able to keep up with procreation. Since the 1959’s we have effectively doubled or more the efficiency and environmental cleanliness of commercial air travel propulsion- but population increase and subsequent commerce has led to an increase in utilization of air travel which outstrips the mitigation of impact on the whole. So while the per flight pollution is lower than of technology was still that of the 1950’s,
While we MAY in the future reach a technological point that we could provide an effectively infinite number of people technology and living necessities like food or housing without any significant total negative environmental impact, not only is that unlikely or very far off in all probability, but unless we come up with some form of violating or “side stepping” known science and fundamentals of physical reality- There is a limit to any resource we can get on Earth, with many key resources being limited more so.
Thusly at some point, we just cannot sustain population growth or maintain a global population size without endangering the entire species in earth and presumably even if we spread to the known..
Even if we imagine a future where we have socially “evolved” beyond that and live very simple lives of sustenance level resources per person globally- we’d also need to work out the science and social development of an entirely new system of farming that can provide for for such huge and growing numbers which is sustainable long term.
...I disagree for the obvious reason.
But if more individuals decided to not have kids, it probably would have an overall positive impact on the global environment in general providing the technology to provide for that society and the size of that society were balanced in such a way to offset each other.