Abortion and Population

[Mister Agenda]

Very interesting question. I can think of a number of reasons for population growth to be good. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that unimpeded growth is good.

Here are my initial thoughts

• A declining population isn’t good, just from a practical standpoint. Without new people, lots of business start to shut down. Baby products is an obvious one, but also schools, colleges and universities. Then, we don’t have enough people in the workforce. (We already are experiencing that) We don’t have enough trade workers to keep things running, doctors, lawyers (okay, less of them is fine), teachers, admin assistants, etc. People will consolidate and make do. Maybe we’ll eventually reset at a certain level, but we could also go out with a whimper.
  
• If we want to achieve great things, then we need new people, new ideas, new energy. I want us to go to the moon, Mars and beyond. To do that we need to have people to settle those places. We also need new people to invent new things. We have problems, like people not having enough to sustain themselves. New people with new ideas can help with that.
  

A steady population could be good, it seems. Unfortunately, our current path isn’t going this way.

Can you think of any other reasons?

A declining population really isn't a problem as long as the global population continues to climb. Countries with declining populations, which are preety much only industrially advanced nations, can easily make up the numbers through immigration. Some countries, like Japan and the USA don't like that solution, but it isn't the fault of declining population if they choose to shoot themselves in the foot to keep foreigners out. Not to mention, we can always incentivise having more babies if we want to.

It is not possible in the foreseeable future to ship any significant portion of our population off to other planets, even the nearest ones. There's no conceivable future in which the expense of space travel isn't a far greater restriction than having enough people to send.

We already have over 8 billion people to invent new things, at some point there are going to be diminishing returns. The most conservative UN projection has global population continuing to increase until at least 2050. And again, falling birth rates due to factors under our control is something we obviously can control.

[Ahriman]

Why would you want there to be fewer people?

[arewethereyet]

People are living longer and babies aren't as apt to die as they were many years ago.

We don't need to crank out babies at the rate we used to in order to make up for those who died young.

Not to mention the fact that families simply can't afford 14 kids now and even farm families aren't in need of birthing potential farmhands.

Cripes, this is all about the Catholic church's freakout about birth control that actually works.

[Ahriman]

People are living longer and babies aren't as apt to die as they were many years ago.

We don't need to crank out babies at the rate we used to in order to make up for those who died young.

Not to mention the fact that families simply can't afford 14 kids now and even farm families aren't in need of birthing potential farmhands.

Cripes, this is all about the Catholic church's freakout about birth control that actually works.

So we don't need to crank out babies, okay, that's fine. But why should anyone be using birth control? Going from "14 kids" to "no kids" is not exactly an improvement.

[Silver]

Whitney had it all wrong. They are not the greatest gift of all.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

People are living longer and babies aren't as apt to die as they were many years ago.

We don't need to crank out babies at the rate we used to in order to make up for those who died young.

Not to mention the fact that families simply can't afford 14 kids now and even farm families aren't in need of birthing potential farmhands.

Cripes, this is all about the Catholic church's freakout about birth control that actually works.

So we don't need to crank out babies, okay, that's fine. But why should anyone be using birth control? Going from "14 kids" to "no kids" is not exactly an improvement.

People should be using birth control because:

-There are large swaths of the world that already have too many people for the resources available.

-Infrastructure tends to not keep pace with population.

-To clarify the above, increasing population tends to strain food/water supplies, medical services, and personal economy.

-Not everyone is fit to be a parent.

Non-stupid people know these things.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

People are living longer and babies aren't as apt to die as they were many years ago.

We don't need to crank out babies at the rate we used to in order to make up for those who died young.

Not to mention the fact that families simply can't afford 14 kids now and even farm families aren't in need of birthing potential farmhands.

Cripes, this is all about the Catholic church's freakout about birth control that actually works.

So we don't need to crank out babies, okay, that's fine. But why should anyone be using birth control? Going from "14 kids" to "no kids" is not exactly an improvement.

Birth control doesn't mean no babies.  It means having some control over the number of babies, you twit.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

So we don't need to crank out babies, okay, that's fine. But why should anyone be using birth control? Going from "14 kids" to "no kids" is not exactly an improvement.

Birth control doesn't mean no babies.  It means having some control over the number of babies, you twit.

Exactly. A corn farmer in Kenya is better able to feed two children than fourteen.

Boru

[Ahriman]

So we don't need to crank out babies, okay, that's fine. But why should anyone be using birth control? Going from "14 kids" to "no kids" is not exactly an improvement.

People should be using birth control because:

-There are large swaths of the world that already have too many people for the resources available.

-Infrastructure tends to not keep pace with population.

-To clarify the above, increasing population tends to strain food/water supplies, medical services, and personal economy.

-Not everyone is fit to be a parent.

Non-stupid people know these things.

Boru

1) And none of those areas include people who use birth control.
2) Work faster, then.
3) I'm not convinced that's true.
4) That never stopped anyone before.

[Mister Agenda]

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.

It's nothing like a fire. If it becomes a problem it will be a long, slow simmer with plenty of time to adjust the heat. It can't burn out of control because, one more time, if the reason for the decline is is due to something we control, we can apply that same control to reverse course. Not to mention even if everyone used birth control, we'd still have a birth rate, they'd just all be accidents.