Poll: Maximum Children Allowed per Couple

[game-lover]

Meh... I can't say I really care.

As long as I don't have to have any, whatever.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Imposing a limit on how many children a couple can have is a really, really bad idea from a PR standpoint. I personally hate children to be honest and think people whose children outnumber the fingers on their hands are completely irresponsible but I would hate to think what kind of death threats I'd get from those same people when I came over telling them to stop with the fuck-making. To be honest though, I think a good counter to this would be to have kids in a spaced-out time frame. If you want a family of six fine but maybe limit yourself to one pup every 5 years. It makes sense to me...

 

[Agow95]

I think people should be able to have as many children as they can handle and support, and I think the last thing we want is a law telling us what that number is.

 

[lacktheknack]

I think it works just fine as is. The more advanced a country gets, the more land it takes to support each person and interestingly enough, the fewer children they seem to have.

Really, a decent sized farmstead can support twelve people. We could probably support DOZENS of billions of people. It's when we all insist on consuming oil, natural gas, coltan, difficult-to-grow foods, etc. that we start having problems.

 

[lacktheknack]

Meh... I can't say I really care.

As long as I don't have to have any, whatever.

This is exactly why we don't need a maximum.

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

One or two, depending on the location and how overpopulated it is. We don't need more humans.

so no limits on first world countries and heavy limits on 3rd world then?

Nah, stricter. Have you *been* to New York City? Good grief, we don't need any more density. The American population would be just fine were we to cut it in half.

 

[Aprilgold]

As many as they can afford to provide for and keep safe.

Basically along the same lines of what adopting parents have to go through.

Yeah this, putting a arbitrary limit is dumb as hell. Other then impossible to enforce people would have it revoked as soon as possible.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[WanderingFool]

Ill go with the obvious choice, and say 2 kids per couple. Of course, this is a recommendation, not a rule.

I also think the people that are saying we need to limit the number of kids born to people should take a step back and look at the world... its only a matter of time until we have pleanty of space for all those new kids...

 

[Darkmantle]

One or two, depending on the location and how overpopulated it is. We don't need more humans.

so no limits on first world countries and heavy limits on 3rd world then?

Nah, stricter. Have you *been* to New York City? Good grief, we don't need any more density. The American population would be just fine were we to cut it in half.

Not really. The states is at replacement birthrate. Putting anything in place to lower the birthrate will just doom the country to slow death for no reason.

I don't get the crusade here, why not complain about India, which is a smaller country with way more people than the states.

you're just going to have to accept that, for once, 1st world countries are not the problem in this issue.

 

[DJjaffacake]

I think you should only be allowed to have children if you can afford them. Rich people can have as many as they want, because they won't be mooching off the gov't any time soon and their wealth will slowly be redistributed. As poor people slowly die off, there'll be more job openings available. It's a shame that Subsaharan Africa and SE Asia would pretty much go extinct except for a handful of despots, but that's the price of progress, and it's not like anyone born there has any opportunities in life anyway.

This would mean that I'd probably never have children either, which is a shame, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. actually, I'll probably never have children anyway.

You should really make it clear when you're being ironic. Use italics, a different font, a disclaimer in teeny tiny letters, or whatever. Otherwise, you''l probably face...

THE WRATH OF THOSE WHO MISUNDERSTOOD BECAUSE SARCASM IS HARD TO SEE IN WRITING

[sub]Dun dun duuuuun[/sub]

 

[DrOswald]

Or we could use our land better.

Spoiler: World Map

[http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/04/15/cartograms/]

You might think 'uhh... what about Russia?'
Well, that map warps countries based on the population compared to land. Russia and Canada are squished up because they have a lot of unused land.

And anyway, you can't dictate how many children someone is allowed to have without some infanticide. Because what if someone has triplets? Are you just going to kill one of them? If so, you're a sick sonofabitch. If not, you're inconsistent with your beliefs.

I think you miss the point, or at least it seems like it. The belief is not that people should have only 2 kids, it is that over population is a problem. The purposed solution is the limit on children. It is not inconsistent with the belief to let the third triplet live, and there is no call at all for infanticide. In fact, a 2 child limit would not result in a sustained population as many born will never have children or will only have 1. Some third's would be absolutely necessary.

In addition absolute limits are not the only possible way to discourage child birth. Tax incentives for people who adopt rather than conceive, loss of benefits for having more children, education on the benefits of small family sizes and the dangers of over population, and simple social pressure are all excellent options.

In any case, I don't see how it is so horribly immoral to put a limit on children for a family, so long as the laws reflect the spirit of the idea and the situation warrants such action. I don't think we are to the point we need to do this, but I do think it is foolish to have overly large families though how many children qualifies as an overly large family is difficult to determine. My parents had 4 children and were amazing parents to all of us. I know some people who can't handle the 1 child that they have.

 

[In Search of Username]

1, but an unlimited number of adopted children. Seriously I don't get why more people don't adopt. All the, er, fun, of raising a child without the horror of childbirth.

But yeah, as others have pointed out, actually implementing any measures like these generally leads to a lack of human rights - even if you implemented it purely through something like financial incentives it'd still have a greater effect on the poor than the rich, so that'd just be another problem. Much as this policy seems necessary, it just isn't feasible.

I'm all for getting rid of this perception we seem to have that babies are the best thing in the world and your life is incomplete if you haven't had one though. Changing people's perceptions is the only real way to do it.

Of course, this will never happen because we're a bunch of idiots, and eventually it'll just be necessary to have the kind of population control they have in China, or die. Bye bye human rights!

Man, we're screwed.

Changing people perceptions of that will be hard as we have all been hardwired to want to have children to spread our DNA into the next generation. Overcoming our natures is a rather hard thing to do.

Yeah, but all kinds of things are hardwired into our DNA that we still manage to overcome. That's evolution for you. Not denying it'd be a difficult thing to get over though.

 

[Mr_RogersCU13]

I would say that the right to have as many children as you please is fundamental (given by nature or God, depending on your persuasion), and can't be taken away.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

I stopped reading at "people are outgrowing the planet and our ability to support the population." Why? Because we have artificial food and we have a lot of land to build skyscrapers on.

Water isn't a problem, housing isn't a problem, food isn't a problem. I really don't see the problem if I'm honest. All this Malthusianism repeats itself over and over and it never comes to anything, humanity always finds a way to support itself. When we actually have run out of space the I expect we'll be in much bigger conundrums than whether or not we should limit the number of children each couple can have.

 

[Snowbell]

You know, I said exactly the same thing recently on another post,about limiting the number of births per year, hang on I might as well go lift it directly

Ah, here we go;

I was actually having the same debate with some friends yesterday. As I see it, a better method than the one-child policy is to have a birth cap each year. The previous year, people would apply to have a child and their finance and situation would be assessed to decide whether they would be appropriate to have children.

The benefits to this would be:
Families can still have multiple children (within reason)
There would be no more 'chav' families living off child benefits
Children would more likely be born into a good family structure who can support them
It would create a motivation for people to work hard to be approved
Overpopulation would stop being a problem
Birth control would become mandatory, meaning fewer teenage girls would have to suffer traumatic abortions
Jobs would be created in the form of assessing the families and doing the paperwork
Numbers of adoptions would rise, as they would be exempt from the birth limit

The drawbacks are that rich families could be given preference (though limiting the number of children per family to, say 3 would help prevent this), and there would be a whole lot of fuss from pro-choice factions and religions who're annoyed their congregation can't have as many children to fuel their ranks

Inb4 'That's a really harsh view and you should feel bad': Can YOU think of a better way to prevent overpopulation?
I have a lot of pro-choice views too, and I'm not saying this 'conservative' policy should be implimented I just can't think of a better way to combat overpopulation and job saturation.

 

[cookingwithrage]

On how many you can support. If you're a poor crack whore, you shouldn't even be allowed to think about kids.

 

[WanderingFool]

We SERIOUSLY need to reduce our population total by a solid billion or so.

It's just for general reasons. More food for everyone, space, blah blah blah.

it would just increase the quality of life really. And if we simply keep increasing our population this planet is gonna burn out faster than you can count the children being born themselves.

What we need is a good, old-fashioned mass slaughter.

Man... where are the reapers when you fucking need them, eh?