financial incentives to address human overpopulation

ess0two

ninky wrote: »

what if they emigrate? quite hard to pop by if you live in australia. there's always skype i suppose. i don't think i'd want to make the occasional visit from kids the centre of my social life. i'd want friends and neighbours. but maybe if you've spent a large part of your life focussed on raising children your social circle is more limited?

and if i was dribbling and incontinent i'd be passed caring tbh. there's more to life than planning who will be there if you're left dribbling and !!!!ing in a chair for your final months.

There more to life than saving the planet and resources,we can argue both pros/cons of kids but this where i'll leave it.

What you've never had you never miss.

ninky_2

ess0two wrote: »

What you've never had you never miss.

and in a couple of generations time unless we address human population levels they'll probably be saying this about the rainforests.

angrypirate

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Wrong again, because lifespan is not predictable for any individual and health/frailty in older age still doesn't permit proper working in most cases.

Most healthy fit people are able to work easily into their late 60s. If people expect to spend at least 20 years retired then they should pay for it themselves. Otherwise they should expect to spend not as long retired

Conrad

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Our economic competitiveness depends on maintaining the right balance of old to young. But there's nothing that says they have to be born here.

Over the long term we will come to value quality of life and health of planet above nationalistic comparative wealth, and in the end stop being slaves to growth and economic wealth.

A bit idealistic, but where we'll eventualy get too. We all get one short stay on the planet, about 21000 days 'awake'. How odd that we spend each day scrabbling around to amass wealth, ergo amass stuff that ends up in a tip one day, and to temporarily dwell in a house that is passed on to others when we die. Has to be more to life if we step back off the conveyor and think about it. Life is about experiences, yet we spend such a tiny portion of it actualy having enjoyable experience. We think our work is oh so fulfuling and important, but in the great scheme it's utterly meaningless and ALL of us are easily replaced although many think thier work place will collapse without them, lol:rotfl:

Shakethedisease

Well, according to some articles I've read recently, global birthrates are falling, even in relatively 'uneducated' areas.. but it's actually consumption rates that are going up. It's not really an argument over 'we should have x,y or z amount of children'.. Birth rates falling, yet comsuption still increasing. So what would the benefit be of trying to birth rates further ?

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/the-overpopulation-myth/

Here are the numbers. Forty years ago, the average woman had between five and six kids. Now she has 2.6. This is getting close to the replacement level which, allowing for girls who don’t make it to adulthood, is around 2.3. As I show in my new book, Peoplequake, half the world already has a fertility rate below the long-term replacement level. That includes all of Europe, much of the Caribbean and the far east from Japan to Vietnam and Thailand, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Tunisia.

It also includes China, where the state decides how many children couples can have. This is brutal and repulsive. But the odd thing is that it may not make much difference any more: Chinese communities around the world have gone the same way without any compulsion—Taiwan, Singapore, and even Hong Kong. When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, it had the lowest fertility rate in the world: below one child per woman...

....India is even lower, at 2.8. Tell that also to the women of Brazil. In this hotbed of Catholicism, women have two children on average—and this is falling. Nothing the priests say can stop it.
Women are doing this because, for the first time in history, they can...

ultrawomble

Elephant in the room - increasing antibiotic resistance.

ninky_2

ultrawomble wrote: »

Elephant in the room - increasing antibiotic resistance.

lower population density would provide greater resistance.

michaels

True when you reach steady state (which also assumes that longevity will stop increasing) but we are still in a state of demographic transition at the moment, the rapid increases in longevity and declining birth rate is not resulting in a declining population (especially given net migration) but it is leading to a change in the dependency ratio. The current 'deal' in terms of pensions, health care and benefits only works with an increasing population giving a fairly low dependency ration.

ninky wrote: »

why? children are dependent citizens. more dependent than the elderly since they have never earned. they also need maternity / health services / education / often social services.

dependent children take workers out of the workforce far more than dependent elderly. not only this but the benefits for those out of the workforce with children are far greater than those who stay at home to look after an elderly relative.

fewer children would lead to massive savings in education and healthcare not to mention smaller class sizes. this would more than make up the amount needed to pay for the elderly.

ninky_2

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Well, according to some articles I've read recently, global birthrates are falling, even in relatively 'uneducated' areas.. but it's actually consumption rates that are going up. It's not really an argument over 'we should have x,y or z amount of children'.. Birth rates falling, yet comsuption still increasing. So what would the benefit be of trying to birth rates further ?

we could all have a better standard of living. personally i'd like to think lifestyle improvements - which, let's face it often involve consumption - were not hindered by too many people.

i don't see why people in developing countries shouldn't have a taste of what we've had just because there are too many people.

quality of lives rather than quantity of lives is the key.

chewmylegoff

Conrad wrote: »

Over the long term we will come to value quality of life and health of planet above nationalistic comparative wealth, and in the end stop being slaves to growth and economic wealth.

possibly, but then some aliens will invade, create mind-controlled husks to infiltrate our hippy society and then blow up big the tree we all live in with very large missiles.