Are they worth it ?

grizzly wrote: »

We're all living off the same finite resources — so I count everyone who lives on earth towards this; Bangladesh or Balbriggan.

+1 the human population goes up by one million every 4 days. This is not sustainable. We're already screwing the planet. Less people = less destruction of resources, less CO2, more habitat left alone, more and better resources for the ones left. The list is long.

pickarooney wrote: »

So should we just let the human race die out or should selective breeding be introduced?

Eh we're a long away away from dying out. Way back in the day we hit a bottleneck and nearly went extinct when we got down to 20,000, but we came back from that. Currently we're at six and a half billion. We're the most common large mammal on the planet. We could lose 6 billion people and still be fine. Two billion would be optimum.

deman wrote: »

For thousands of years, the wisest of the human race have searched in earnest for the meaning of life. They have also searched for immortality and everlasting life. These secrets can be found in our children. I have four children that make my life a bundle of joy. Yes, there are sacrifices to be made. But isn't that sacrifice worth it when you know that some part of you will be around when you are long gone? If this sounds selfish to some, then what about those who choose not to have children? To me this sounds like the ultimate act of selfishness.

I agree with bluewolf on the selfishness argument, but if we do want to go down that route, adding to a growing population thats harming the rest of the planet for ego purposes is surely a better example of same? Adding one new person is debatable and a better bet as then the population would stabalise, but adding 4 or 6, sometimes more? I can understand that need in some parts of Africa as an insurance against old age and child mortality, but in a society where child mortality is very low? Its not selfish so much as self centered and succumbing to baser subjective biology over long term objective logic. I love my kids. They give me so much pleasure. A part of me will live on through them.

Also, Europe has an ageing population and yes we do need more families having children here.

Nope we dont. if we kept the population levels current then fine, but adding to them is frankly daft. Pretty much every current ill to do with humanity on this planet is down to over population. Looking back over the history of this planet it seems nature doesnt like this either and sooner or later tries to redress the balance. Not always to a bad end result, though the mechanism can be terrible. The black death a good example. Without it it's unlikely the enlightenment, the industrial revolution and modern commerce would exist in the modern world. Most of us would probably be serfs.

pickarooney wrote: »

So what is common sense breeding? You said having a child was selfish, whoever or wherever the parents were. Surely, when resources are limited, bringing more people in to share them is the opposite of selfish? Selfish people would want to get rid of all the people who don't bring them any immediate benefit so they could continue to use all the resources they want, no?

Not really. The drive to reproduce is obviously a very old and strong one. Objectivity and logic go out the window. Look at populations in areas where resources are tight or damn near non existent. They usually have huge families. Logic would suggest the poor in resources would limit their families, yet they almost never do. It's less selfish than ego and biology driven.

Its not unlike our expanding waistlines in the west. Biologically we select for laying down fat in case of famine. A good tactic, but we dont have famine in the west. We've an overproduction of food. Clearly being fat is bad for the individual, yet individuals keep getting fatter. It's not objective selfishness, but biology and self centredness.