Abortion and Population

[Rev. Rye]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

 Well is society really "advancing" if it's making humans obsolete?

The creatures we're busy extincting would say so.

[Ahriman]

The human world is in desperate need of people who would be willing to make drastic changes. I say keep making more people until the right ones come along.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The human world is in desperate need of people who would be willing to make drastic changes. I say keep making more people until the right ones come along.

I bet you graduated from the Prometheus School of Running Away.

[Rev. Rye]

The human world is in desperate need of people who would be willing to make drastic changes. I say keep making more people until the right ones come along.

And who’s going to help pay to keep them alive? And not just alive, but in a position where they actually have the luxury of being able to make said drastic changes?

Otherwise, that sort of advice just sounds like this:

[brewer]

[The Grand Nudger]

Costs a little over a quarter mil to raise a kid in the us. 20% of that is just food. Thankfully, the price goes down drastically after two. Basically every additional child also appears to come with a roughly 25% decrease in cost. Experience, hand me downs, more practice with tighter budgeting, that sort of thing.

The brunt of that cost is absorbed by the parents - that's what made state investment in children so lucrative. Consequently, while most people have just as many kids as they want - among the group of people who indicate they wished they had more, the number one reason they didn't was cost. It's not even close.

There's no drastic change gene so we can't just breed environmentalists, for example. Demographically speaking those with luxuries are the least likely to advocate for drastic change in the first place. Truth is that the drastic changes will be mostly cobbled together by the poor as a brute force of demographics. People who can't wait for tech or wealth (or the next douchebro "genius") to save them. We need to make it more affordable to raise kids and close the skills gap - ideally at the same time, and we'll enjoy a baby boom. There could be an abortion clinic on every street corner and it wouldn't matter at all.

Or, you know, we could bitch and moan impotently about what whores deserve. Bet that'll make us super-fuckable.

[Mister Agenda]

Hi Thumpalumpacus,

Thanks for responding. I appreciate you clarifying the point being discussed.

So if anyone wants to argue that abortion reduces net population growth, they'll need better evidence.

Yes, I would argue that abortion could contribute to reducing net population growth. It clearly and by definition reduces the number of live births. If there are not other factors, then population growth would be reduced.

However, I was not arguing that abortion reduces net population growth. I tried to summarize my point in the last line.

So, you can be for abortion if you want. But don’t argue based on population levels.

Let me try to lay it out better than I did before. My apologies if it's still not clear.

People often argue for abortion, in part, because of our population levels. “We don’t need the people. We have too many people." This has been a rally cry for many years. My point is that the population levels are not out of control. The fearmongering was that we would run out of resources and even space (I think of a Star Trek episode).

On the contrary, population decline is a real thing that many countries are experiencing now. An article a year ago in Scientific American stated that the US present fertility rate is about 1.7, below the replacement rate. Which, by definition, means that our population will decline. As people start dying, there will not be new people to replace them. As people start aging, there will not be new workers to replace them.

So while you write that you aren't arguing that point, you are most certainly, by your own admission, agreeing with it. You can't eat your cake and have it, too.

That quote seemed the best one to start from. Obviously not. I should have left abortion out of the thread title, too. I only included it because that was part of the original thread.

Pax et bonum

Huh. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say (that I can recall) that we should have more abortions to help keep the excess human population down. I suppose we must run in very different circles.

[Mister Agenda]

 Well is society really "advancing" if it's making humans obsolete?

Having smaller families doesn't make humans obsolete unless if falls below replacement rate globally for generations. Our robot overlords are much more likely to render us obsolete.

[Ahriman]

 Well is society really "advancing" if it's making humans obsolete?

Having smaller families doesn't make humans obsolete unless if falls below replacement rate globally for generations. Our robot overlords are much more likely to render us obsolete.

Why would it even need to get to that point? That's like saying, "well, my kitchen is on fire, but I won't do anything about it until the whole house is on fire". And in this context, "having smaller families" just means, having families without children.