Is it selfish to have more than two children?

[moodydaniel]

Is having more than two children selfish? The future of the planet rarely plays a part when planning a family, but that's got to change, say environmental campaigners.

Full article from Aunty

My personal opinion is that the human population is too high to remain sustainable (given it's current demands for resources). So we either reduce our numbers, or our reduce the impact of our lifestyles, or face some form of environmental disaster.

Discuss!

[Kyuuketsuki]

Probably doable in the west with our state support and so on but difficult to in countries where parents rely on children for support as they get too old to work.

I liked the Asimov scenario where Earth had only a million people or so living in technological harmony with the planet, the idea of them being to paranoid to literally meet each other wasn't so good though.

Kyu

[IamAwake]

If everyone in developed countries only had one child to replace themselves when they die, the population problem would be solved. Our population would seriously decline, which would really benefit earth. It isn't as important for people in other places because they use a tiny fraction of the resources we use per person. They have a much smaller "footprint" than we do, and also shorter lifespans. In their cases, they sometimes have 6 children in the hopes that a couple survive to adulthood. Having several children here is irresponsible in my opinion. The amount of resources each of us consumes over the course of our lives is tremendous. We are conditioned super-consumers of everything from energy to health care to food products and loads of other crap we require to keep up our ever-rising standard of living. Each child you have also has the potential to have many offspring and grandchildren and on and on. And we really aren't sure how the world will be for them when they get here, so it's really taking a risk with other people's lives. I don't think we need several kids to lead a fulfilling life, it's just that people always want to fill a hole in their lives.

[Rockthatpiano06]

I agree we need to do something and I do think its selfish. I don't think that the gov't should limit the amount of children that people would have, and unfortunatly I don't think people are selfless enough to do it so we're basically screwed. The same people that have a bazillion kids are also the ones that don't believe in global warming and think God is going to come down in his space ship and take them all to paradise before shit hits the fan... so not much chance of salvaging the earth at this point.

[bozo]

From what I see of today's kids, 2 is more than enough for anybody.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I have no children by choice, and since the vasectomy at age 40,that is a remote possibility.

Imo "Selfish" is a moral judgment and irrelevant. Like all animals ,our strongest drives are to survive and to reproduce. My position is that of egoism,on several levels. Human beings are essentially self interested, not consistently altruistic as a species. So far,a life observation is that there are altruistic acts ,but no altruistic people. (I've even been guilty of such acts myself from time-to-time,but am usually able suppress such impulses)

I'm not convinced of the accuracy of Malthusian predictions of world starvation any time soon. Food production is not yet a real issue.Distribution and a world market economy are the real causes of starvation.

However given continued exponential population growth, I think it's inevitable that eventually food production will fall below demand .Hopefully there will be a convenient pandemic or major oil war before that happens. I'll probably be dead by then so really don't care.


The extinction of the human race would be a significant benefit to the rest of the species on this planet which we are busily making uninhabitable from greed, stupidity and our instincts to survive an increase..

[Giff]

I think that to have like 7 or 9 children is quite insane. It's hard for the parents to both work and try to raise all those children. It would be quite devestating for the famillies economy, even tough they get extra child support from the goverment.

I don't know if it selfish to have more then two. To have like 2-4 children is okay. But more then that is just stupid.

[Edwardo Piet]

2-4 children is ok?

Damn, I'm one in 5. Lol.

I guess the situation has changed since 20 years ago though and that's the point right?