Vern5 said:
I'm going to go ahead and assume that we can mostly agree that the world is ridiculously overpopulated right now. People are dying in the streets. There isn't enough food to go around. Yet, for every plague, famine and genocide you hear about the world population still seems to be rising or at least maintaining itself.
So, I've got to know, do any of you want children and, if so, why?
Its a strange thing to ask people. There are many in the world who just go through life the way other people are (a process known as Social Validation) and readily cling to the idea that life has a specific progression. Some people get married and have children, not because they really want to, but because they figure its about time they did. I know everyone talks about "oh, it was the greatest moment of my life when I saw my newborn boy/girl" and I can't argue with that. But at the same time I can say that the idea of bringing even more children into the world instead of adopting the nearly endless sea of orphaned young sounds selfish. Also, my childhood was pretty bad. Not that I was ever starving but, emotionally, that stuff sucked. I don't think I could consciously put another human being through the same experience I had growing up. But, hey, thats just me.
So how about it? Do you want kids? State your reasoning (Full credit will not be awarded to partial answers of Yes or No).
EDIT - Yes, I do realize there are two other threads that are roughly like this but I feel ashamed about grave digging.
You can assume that if you like, but you'd be wrong. The world is not ridiculously overpopulated. Selected regions of it are. People are only dying in the streets in large numbers in regions where the food supply chain has broken down, either through incompetent or deliberate actions. Regional warlords, regional anarchy, and regional oppression: these cause hunger, not a worldwide lack of food.
As for "bringing another person into the world": First I'd like to say that if everyone your message can reach stopped reproducing today, the
only people left on earth after a few decades would be the people who are currently reproducing like mad despite abject poverty. So pleading with literate people who are wealthy enough to have access to the internet to stop breeding is about as useful as pissing in your own face. That's not going to stem population growth. It's just going to encourage a situation where a greater proportion of the population is illiterate and impoverished.
Second, I'm relatively successful by most standards. So is my wife. If I'm going to work hard enough to be a good parent (and it is
hard work) I'd rather do that to help propagate our own DNA, rather than work tirelessly to support the continued propagation of the DNA of someone too stupid, too careless, or too heartless to avoid reproducing despite their inability or unwillingness to care for their own offspring. Most children adopted internationally are not institutionalized due to parental death, but due to abandonment. Many institutions prohibit asking the situation leading to institutionalization prior to adoption. In places that allow such inquiries, stories told by the personnel are frequently false. In the cases of abandoned children (the majority) the parents who abandoned them are pieces of shit. Why should I take the chance of making myself the permanent legal guardian of someone with the "piece of shit gene"? I'm being facetious, but seriously: Why do those people's DNA deserve my efforts? I'm relatively altruistic in most respects, but that's where I draw the line. I gave at the office, man. I admire people who have that level of devotion, but that's just not me.
So that's why I've decided to reproduce rather than adopt someone else's unwanted, abused child. Is it selfish? You bet. Natural selection is inherently selfish, and I won't apologize for behaving the way that every K-selection animal in the history of the planet has.
