Population Control

[dagda]

Personaly, I think population control is a great idea. More reasources and jobs to go around and less stress on the enviroment. I know Christians are split into two camps concerning it; the pro-life group who are uneasy about anything which must embrase contraceptives to work and those who think population control is the best way, in the long term, of preserving 'Gods creation'.
I was wondering what the atheist community in general and the forum users in particular thought about the policy of population control.

[Tiberius]

It is very important, given the rate of growth compared to our systems of government. With a global government it might be at least possible to sustain a larger population, but a one-world government isn't ever going to happen...at least not anytime within the next 100 years.

As for the Christian perspective, the phrase "Go forth and multiply" was possibly the worst decision God ever made. "Go forth, multiply for a few thousand years, but keep the population to sustainable levels" would have been better...it just doesn't have the same punchiness.

[Eilonnwy]

Ahh, population control. One of the reasons I'm pro-choice, which may seem cruel. (But it's not the only reason)

[solidsquid]

A good way to help in population control would, at least in the U.S., be to utilize sex education programs that actually work besides the ridiculous "abstinence-only" programs.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Population control?

What do you think wars are for? Not to mention plagues such as AIDS? Both helped along splendidly by ignoramuses, cynics and moral midgets who convince the great unwashed there's an animal called "the just war" and/or any disease or natural catastrophe "is god's will".

[Kyuuketsuki]

Given that population pressure means greater resource requirement and that inevitably leads to war I'd say population control is a good thing, my concern would be to find a humane way to do it, limiting families to 2 or less children (probably by some kind of taxation related method but then how do you do that without penalising the children whose only crime is to be born?) would be one way but it would pointless unless carried out globally.

As usual I suppose education is the key, education is always the key IMO ... from education all good things spring.

Kyu

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

The PRC has a one child policy.

If you choose to have more than one,the state does not help with that child. All services for that child are user pays.

Because Chinese society value males more than females,the PRC is currently experiencing a severe imbalance of the ratio between Male/Female.

What is the solution in say rural India,where there is high infant morality,and no social services? Without a family to help,once a person is too old or sick to work,they have to beg,or they die. There is rarely any cash to save in a subsistence economy for one's old age.

The argument that world starvation is due to global food shortages is simplistic and misleading. A world market economy is a significant direct cause.


@Kyu; you're right about "The no true Scotsman". It was the hobbit's face palm response which led me to put him on ignore. Of course,I'm an intolerant old fart.I admire the forbearance of others here who are not masochists.

[athoughtfulman]

I think it's an interesting idea, but I wonder whether it would work.

Obviously no one's going to stop people gettin' it on, and they'll never force everyone to use birth control, so what's the solution? Killing all babies in families that already have one?

I'd rather we do something like the Spartans and kill all the physically deficient babies, you know, start taking control of natural selection At least we'd have a killer army.

[g-mark]

The world is over-populated. The Worlds eco-system cannot sustain the amount of human beings that are present today. The problem will become worse as we multiply.

If you knew the problem at hand and it's consequences, would you sacrifice having children to make a difference?

[Giff]

Some kind of control is needed. However this isn't needed in most european counntry since there are very little children getting born there. But countries like India and others need to have some kind of control, which would be hard to execute.

Also a reason why there are not so many children born, for an example in Denmark, is becasue 1/5 of the male population is steril. Also the amount of sperm have decreased with 50% the last 20 years, when looking a spermbanks.

That have to with chemicals common in plasitc, lotions and so on that effect our hormons. By themselves are they not harmful but mixing diffrent harmless chemcials effect childrens hormons drasticly.

That is one problem that need to be fixed since those chemicals also have increased the number of people who have gotten cancer and diabetes. 1:20 was bumber of people getting breast and testicle cancer now that number is 1:6. Looking at how these chemicals effect animals shows that is very much likely these who have made people steril and increased the numbers of people getting cancer.

In a way is a sort of population control already here. But scientist believe that it could threatned our species in the future if not taken care of. They called that the human male is dangered.

More and more boys who are born have something wrong with there testicles. Sometimes is it visible, like that they are so underdeveloped that they haven't leaved the body or is it nonvisible that it caused the boy getting steril and some cases do they develop cancer because the cells later mutate.