Birth Strike

Zorya · 05-03-2019 9:21am #1

This seems to me to be neurotic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KASFz2k0WKA

To be living in such fear, to be so daily depressed - anti-natalists wouldn't be much fun as flatmates, I think.

The_Kew_Tour · 05-03-2019 9:24am

The way things are going she might have a point.

SEPT 23 1989 · 05-03-2019 9:27am

Wouldn't be fair on the child having that as a mother

Zorya · 05-03-2019 9:27am

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

The way things are going she might have a point.

I don't agree, but have to go out now, so will argue against in some fashion later on!!

I think it is quite sad to see people so hopeless and apparently helpless so young.

Zorya · 05-03-2019 9:28am

Blackstone108 wrote: »

The world is gonna blow up one day anyway, it will be around long after humans are extinct.

It can't do both these things.

freshpopcorn · 05-03-2019 9:29am

We can all do our bit!
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TheValeyard · 05-03-2019 9:31am

Very much a defeatist attitude. There is still hope and a good chance to turn things around.

Tom Mann Centuria · 05-03-2019 9:31am

Middle class overthinking, don't they realise what's happening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzbWXgM0ygU

Your Face · 05-03-2019 9:46am

It's almost beyond parody.

Fr_Dougal · 05-03-2019 9:57am

People who want/have kids generally want them for selfish reasons. Not the most PC thing to say, and I’m sure parents/future parents will probably jump on me for saying it.

Usually when I ask friends who have kids why they decided to have kids, the response is ‘sure who’s going to look after me when I’m old?’

Yeah let’s overpopulate the planet so your kids can visit you in your nursing home.

Trathnona2 · 05-03-2019 10:00am

They also provide good entertainment!

Cina · 05-03-2019 10:10am

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

People who want/have kids generally want them for selfish reasons. Not the most PC thing to say, and I’m sure parents/future parents will probably jump on me for saying it. .

I agree with this. There are of course many benefits to having children, I doubt most people do it because they're thinking of the future and what those kids can bring to the world.

There is of course, nothing wrong with that, kids can bring joy to people's lives, and security in their older years, that nothing else really can, so of course people will want to do it, and they get the added security of knowing they're bringing life into the world, which probably makes it feel less selfish on their behalf, especially if it's into a good environment.

However crazy that woman may seem though, she does have a point, we have no idea what sort of condition the planet will be in in 30-40 years, all current signs point to it not being a very good one, so I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to have kids.

Personally I'd be happy with a few dogs but the missus will likely want kids to .. c'est la vie.

TomSweeney · 05-03-2019 10:14am

She is a lunatic, but we need more people like her, far far too many people in the world , and it's gonna go absolutely ****ing nuts in the next 50/100 years.

_Brian · 05-03-2019 10:45am

Surely a more responsible attitude towards having children is to be applauded?

First thing people should think of is how will they afford a lifestyle with children.

I see so many parents giving out about the expense of having 4 or 5 kids and how it’s hard to make ends meet. No surprise there.

As for the serially unemployed having 5-6 kids, that’s just criminally irresponsible behaviour. Bringing kids into an environment where they must learn to live on handouts in sub standard housing.

Plopsu · 05-03-2019 11:01am

Nothing wrong with a moral issue with having children, surely. I used to have one my self until I.... uh.... had kids.

wakka12 · 05-03-2019 11:03am

Murray TheDemonic TalkingSkull wrote: »

Very much a defeatist attitude. There is still hope and a good chance to turn things around.

There is so much hope, but its being squandered with each passing day. Who is going to turn things around? Nobody gives the slightest ****, people wont step an inch out of line to help the planet in any way if it means any kind of negative impact on their convenience and comfort, just look at the attitude of people on here to anyone suggesting veganism or not driving their cars

The only chance the world has of surviving is in a scenario with much much less humans on it

Kingp35 · 05-03-2019 11:05am

She is clearly a bit off the wall. However there is absolutely no denying that the world is over populated and only getting worse. I'll probably be dead before the **** really hits the fan but it's coming, the planet can't sustain the current population growth.

Dravokivich · 05-03-2019 11:06am

"Oh gee... a lots changed since then"
-Goodspeed"

seamus · 05-03-2019 11:09am

I haven't watched the video, but it's not an unreasonable stance to take.

Climate change is already fncking over the planet and you still have a sizeable group of morons arguing that it doesn't exist and another sizeable group of morons who can't be arsed doing anything about it.

The pessimistic outlook that we're going to get stuck in a tailspin is not irrational, and thus the idea that it is immoral to bring new life into a dying ecosystem is not off the wall.

I'm more of an optimist, I think we can do it by just dragging the idiots along kicking and screaming and adapting to the balls we've made of things. But I don't blame anyone for being pessimistic.

Dravokivich · 05-03-2019 11:12am

seamus wrote: »

I haven't watched the video, but it's not an unreasonable stance to take.

Give it a go. I just finished it now. The impression I get is, if they were afraid of water, they wouldn't have kids for fear of them getting wet. One of them is even conflicted that a friend of hers is pregnant.

biko · 05-03-2019 11:17am

It's probably a good idea for these people not to procreate.
In a generation their ideas will be gone.

Woke Hogan · 05-03-2019 11:17am

They're dead right. If a person in their twenties has children now that child is looking forward to their dotage in a society marred by water shortages, land wars over reduced spaces to live, failing vaccines, antibiotic immunisation and people ****ting their ****ing guts out from all the plastic we've been spunking into the oceans. That's the best case scenario, assuming there isn't a nuclear holocaust in the meantime which we have been very lucky to avoid so far since the invention of the atomic bomb

I've been urging my (adult) children to consider adopting over bearing natural kids of their own: It would be an act of speciel treason to bring an unwitting baby into this dying society.

wakka12 · 05-03-2019 11:25am

Woke Hogan wrote: »

They're dead right. If a person in their twenties has children now that child is looking forward to their dotage in a society marred by water shortages, land wars over reduced spaces to live, failing vaccines, antibiotic immunisation and people ****ting their ****ing guts out from all the plastic we've been spunking into the oceans. That's the best case scenario, assuming there isn't a nuclear holocaust in the meantime which we have been very lucky to avoid so far since the invention of the atomic bomb

I've been urging my (adult) children to consider adopting over bearing natural kids of their own: It would be an act of speciel treason to bring an unwitting baby into this dying society.

I agree, you can save so many resources for the world by not bringing another child into it. And along with that youll give a child thats already here a loving home. Win win

biko · 05-03-2019 12:03pm

I suppose all the supporters above are for contraception in the developing world.
There are a lot more children born there than here.

Somalia has a birth rate of 6.27
Ireland has a birth rate of 1.92

Shouldn't you guys be out protesting the Somalis for killing the planet?

wakka12 · 05-03-2019 12:12pm

biko wrote: »

I suppose all the supporters above are for contraception in the developing world.
There are a lot more children born there than here.

Somalia has a birth rate of 6.27
Ireland has a birth rate of 1.92

Shouldn't you guys be out protesting the Somalis for killing the planet?

Irish children probably use about ten times the amount of resources the average somalian child does

Ted Johnson · 05-03-2019 12:32pm

Europeans need to start reproducing more as we're heading for extinction. I want to have at least 3 children.

Its the Africans and Asians who need to cop on.

Ted Johnson · 05-03-2019 12:33pm

biko wrote: »

I suppose all the supporters above are for contraception in the developing world.
There are a lot more children born there than here.

Somalia has a birth rate of 6.27
Ireland has a birth rate of 1.92

Shouldn't you guys be out protesting the Somalis for killing the planet?

They'd have to drop the white saviour complex for that to happen.

El_Bee · 05-03-2019 12:38pm

conorhal · 05-03-2019 12:42pm

TomSweeney wrote: »

She is a lunatic, but we need more people like her, far far too many people in the world , and it's gonna go absolutely ****ing nuts in the next 50/100 years.

Have you actually looked at first world birth rates? It would be in steep decline if we weren't importing migrants to top up the population?
Not one EU nation (Ireland included) has a birth rate above replacement levels without migration. Not. One.

Generally I'd agree that we could probably use fewer first world consumers to ensure resources don't burn out before we develop technological solutions to address climate change issues and alternative energy supplies, but it's not like we actually have to do anything to achieve that bar stop importing people.

As for yer wan, she should look at 50 and 100 years ago if she wants to see a world that was a horror show to bring children into, a world literally at war and succumbing to the Spanish Flu.
Today's first world children are being born into a world in which they've literally never had it so good.
I've come across people like yer wan before and they are almost without exception neurotic nihilists that can't 'adult' and extrapolate their own inability to cope by projecting catastrophe on everything else.
Nihilism has never offered a solution to anything but nihilism, primarily because it's so self-defeating, in that regard yer wan should be encouraged in her thinking because it just means that 'her kind of thinking' should be solved in one generation.

AllForIt · 05-03-2019 12:46pm

Reproduction blackmail. Whatever next.

El_Bee · 05-03-2019 12:47pm

wakka12 wrote: »

Irish children probably use about ten times the amount of resources the average somalian child does

Actually if you factor in the production, movement & distribution of foreign aid it works out about the same.

Woke Hogan · 05-03-2019 12:51pm

biko wrote: »

I suppose all the supporters above are for contraception in the developing world.
There are a lot more children born there than here.

Somalia has a birth rate of 6.27
Ireland has a birth rate of 1.92

Shouldn't you guys be out protesting the Somalis for killing the planet?

People should have less children in general. Irish, Somalis, Papua New Guineans. Everybody.

Auntie Semite · 05-03-2019 1:12pm

With birth rates below replacement levels in most Western countries one might say Westerners were doing their bit.
But now the west is importing millions of migrants from all over the world.
Millions of consumers who will consume resources, generate waste, consume fossil fuels etc
This is apparently to pay for our pensions so it would seem like our governments have chosen pensions over climate change.

You also have many on the left advocating for a reduction in population whilst at the same time advocating for an increase in immigration, generally from populations with a much higher birth rate than indigenous Europeans.
It doesn't really make any sense.
.

wakka12 · 05-03-2019 1:16pm

El_Bee wrote: »

Actually if you factor in the production, movement & distribution of foreign aid it works out about the same.

Any sources on that? The amuont of somalian children suffering malnutrition would seem to disprove that point

'Somalia has chronically high malnutrition rates; one in eight children under five is acutely malnourished.'

Not to mention the fact the life expectancy in somalia is only 51 years, even if they did use as many resources as europeans(which they absolutely do not) they would use far less in their limetime due to living for fewer years

Anyway as I said a few posts back there is definitely no hope for the world. A poster said there is time to reverse the damage and make changes well how do you make changes when plenty of first world people living incredibly privileged lives think they only use the same resources as starving east africans

Irish Guitarist · 05-03-2019 1:18pm

She's worried about insects going extinct. She should have sex with an insect to see if she can get pregnant with a giant bee or something.

El_Bee · 05-03-2019 1:23pm

wakka12 wrote: »

Any sources on that? The amuont of somalian children suffering malnutrition would seem to disprove that point

'Somalia has chronically high malnutrition rates; one in eight children under five is acutely malnourished.'

Not to mention the fact the life expectancy in somalia is only 51 years, even if they did use as many resources as europeans(which they absolutely do not) they would use far less in their limetime due to living for fewer years

Yeah I probably should have worded it more accurately, while the resources are distributed they don't actually get to the people who need it, I mean it's no secret that at this stage foreign aid has done more damage to Africa then colonialism ever did.

hatrickpatrick · 05-03-2019 1:29pm

We've doubled the human population by several billion[/b] people in something like have a century. I've been saying this for a long time - human overpopulation is the elephant in so many rooms when we talk about why the world is f*cked up, but it's not one anyone wants to address. Fair play to these people for bringing it into the open in some form.

We cannot sustain our own unrestricted growth as a species without a corresponding inevitable drop in individual quality of life. Regardless of how the planet changes in the future, this is a fundamental fact - the planet's resources are not going to change, at least not nearly as quickly as our population is increasing, so eventually we will reach a crescendo in terms of potential quality of life with a sharp drop off thereafter if we continue to expand. Humanity needed to reach some kind of equilibrium, but that's very much past tense - even if we stop expanding now and the population simply remains roughly where it is, there are still too many of us. Until we find other planets capable of sustaining us and develop the means to get large numbers of people to those planets safely, we need to put the brakes on population growth.

Fair play to these people for waking up to that.

hatrickpatrick · 05-03-2019 1:32pm

Auntie Semite wrote: »

You also have many on the left advocating for a reduction in population whilst at the same time advocating for an increase in immigration, generally from populations with a much higher birth rate than indigenous Europeans.
It doesn't really make any sense.
.

As a leftist I have to agree. The lack of logic in it is astounding. I'm not in favour of entirely closed borders like many on the right are, but population needs to decline and that becomes entirely useless if we simply replace our own falling population with population from elsewhere - the point is that as it stands, our current way of living cannot be sustained if the population doesn't fall.

Baggly · 05-03-2019 1:39pm

freshpopcorn wrote: »

We can all do our bit!

Finally, the justification i was looking for!

monkeybutter · 05-03-2019 1:42pm

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

People who want/have kids generally want them for selfish reasons. Not the most PC thing to say, and I’m sure parents/future parents will probably jump on me for saying it.

Usually when I ask friends who have kids why they decided to have kids, the response is ‘sure who’s going to look after me when I’m old?’

Yeah let’s overpopulate the planet so your kids can visit you in your nursing home.

You'd think it would be hard to find someone to top yer wan in the video

And yet here you are

Auntie Semite · 05-03-2019 2:02pm

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

As a leftist I have to agree. The lack of logic in it is astounding. I'm not in favour of entirely closed borders like many on the right are, but population needs to decline and that becomes entirely useless if we simply replace our own falling population with population from elsewhere - the point is that as it stands, our current way of living cannot be sustained if the population doesn't fall.

I was always a leftist and voted accordingly but now my opposition to mass immigration sees me categorised as 'far right'
It's worth remembering that the Capitalist right were always in favour of mass immigration and still are.
The big wtf? Moment for me was a number of years ago when leader of the Green Party (I voted for them) Eamonn Ryan spoke about the need to double Irelands population to 10 Million.
How can an environmentalist advocate for such an increase in population and the accompanying strain on resources and increase in consumption?
Surely such an increase is the opposite of what environmentalism is all about?

Slightly off topic but the great Angela Nagle wrote a piece recently about the leftist case against mass immigration.

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/11/the-left-case-against-open-borders/

Just to note I am not opposed to tightly controlled immigration just not what we have at the moment.

Zorya · 05-03-2019 3:04pm

Fair enough if individuals decide they don't want children - children are troublesome smelly things on the whole, I cannot blame people for abstaining - but what these ladies are doing is different.

First they are choosing to imagine that everything personal is political. Every inner feeling must be recognised and addressed by the body politic, otherwise they are profoundly disappointed in the ''authorities''. Not only do they live feeling ''terrified'', apparently, and ''depressed'' but they also want to start a movement. This is narcissism. And collectivism. Don't want children on your own time, pet, and if you need a movement there are plenty of environmental movements that have been thriving for very long times on the idea of impending cataclysm and nihilistic doom, I'm sure you will find one that tickles your fancy.

Second the agument for over-population is contestable. I cannot put in every fact and figure here to say how this is so, but it is. It cannot be proven conclusively. It looks like population will level out in the near future. And yet this contestable argument forms a fundamental tenet in the religion of modern peoples. Wash out your jam jars and hold back your eggs and sperm because the planet cannot be saved. Sounds predictably Malthusian. This has been a problem that has bothered self indulgent intellectuals for more than a century - what to do with the filthy swarming masses. People like Maurice Strong lectured about over population from his UN high chair and meanwhile was buying up vast swathes of land to keep back the dreadful hordes.

The rate of population growth has been slowing quite dramatically over the past 50 years, in fact the rate of fertility has dropped off a cliff. Which seems to bother hardly anybody, though surely it is indicative of something seriously amiss. Efforts to control population such as have happened in China and India have had horrendous unforeseen results - sex selective abortion and female infanticide has left over 30 million extra men in both countries at present, which has increased prostitution, bride kidnap, extortionate dowries, suicide and depression. We are not good at population control - except in one area. Increased wealth and education reduces birth rate per family to sustainable levels.

It is not over-population that is the problem at the moment, but reckless and exorbitant use of resources. Especially in the pursuit of profit. Built in obsolescence (Buck me! I managed to spell that correctly without google!!). Over consumption of literally everything. We all consume too much, far too much. Irrational solutions for transport, home heating, land management and so on. The concentration of resources in the hands of very very few people, people who have been proven over time to be amoral and profligate wastrels.

There are loads of smart people coming up with brilliant ideas all the time. Human ingenuity is one of the best things about the species. To be wringing your hands like these girls are doing is profound alienation from their fellow humans, and not good for their mental health.

Neither of them look as though they are in the throes of poverty either. They are neurotic - in the sense of being maladapted, cynical and preoccupied with negative mental imaginings. It's not useful.

That's enough for the minute.

tritium · 05-03-2019 3:58pm

Looking at birth rates, in particular relative to the replacement rate, I’d suggest the focus here shouldn’t be on the first world.

If you want the first world to input part of the solution start addressing questions around overconsumption rather than birth rate. Then leverage the technology the first world has developed to reduce wastage and optimize production.

Meanwhile deal with population growth where it actually is growing unsustainably, in the third world, by encouraging contraception instead of pumping more aid into pretending birth rates there aren’t an issue.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5 · 05-03-2019 4:12pm

Genuine question because I feel like I'm missing something obvious, what is this connection between migration and global population that means you can't logically advocate for halting or reversing population growth and also advocate for unrestricted or nearly unrestricted migration? What's the difference between having 20 people in region A and 80 people in region B, and having 40 people in region A and 60 people in region B?

Gimme A Pound · 05-03-2019 4:20pm

wakka12 wrote: »

There is so much hope, but its being squandered with each passing day. Who is going to turn things around? Nobody gives the slightest ****

Loads of people give a ****.

biko wrote: »

I suppose all the supporters above are for contraception in the developing world.

I suppose so too. No reason not to be.

Shouldn't you guys be out protesting the Somalis for killing the planet?

Is there an indication that they're ok with the over population of Somalia?

monkeybutter wrote: »

You'd think it would be hard to find someone to top yer wan in the video

And yet here you are

Strangely personal. And what's actually so wrong with what he said?

Quite the irrational defensiveness here.

As for the video: one of the women - "25 and not wanting children" shocker!

There is truth to what they say though, even if they're no craic and that bit too jaded. But that's not an attack on people who do have children either. Whichever choice is fair enough to me.

There was a thread a while back (seems to be deleted) about the same topic... well actually I think it was something like "What's the most selfish thing a person could do?" - of course the "woke" folk had to chime in "Have children". Thus started a train wreck of nuttiness of the highest order - far worse than these women. Some kid thought he was so cool saying "NPC" over and over. Normally I see both sides but on that thread I was with the parents all the way. This case is far more rational though.

Zorya · 05-03-2019 4:22pm

Virginia Breezy Police wrote: »

Genuine question because I feel like I'm missing something obvious, what is this connection between migration and global population that means you can't logically advocate for halting or reversing population growth and also advocate for unrestricted or nearly unrestricted migration? What's the difference between having 20 people in region A and 80 people in region B, and having 40 people in region A and 60 people in region B?

I cannot answer that comprehensively, it's not something that I think about in relation to population, I also don't advocate for control of population as that is happening naturally.
The issue, or one of the issues I could see with unrestricted migration is the collapse of welfare states by being over-whelmed. People with lower education, language issues etc will not be able to take many jobs in a post-industrial economy and will need housing, health services etc., and it would take a long time to balance the welfare requirements with inward taxes, and unrestricted migration would put a serious strain on the set up.
I have also have a personal (and not economic) bugbear on this issue in that multiculturalism that does not require integration into the cultural, societal and civic ethos of the receiving country - which is what is called for generally - this means that cultural habits and ideas that are inappropriate in a secular liberal state may gain ground with unrestricted migration. Some migrants are coming from places where there are medieval ideas regarding women, gays, sex, etc, and I have no truck with cultural equivalence or relativism.
It is better to rise the tide on location, whereby education and opportunity and the emancipation of women will naturally curb the numbers of children per family, educate people for global jobs, and perhaps make those destitute parts of the world attractive for people to live in because they will thrive.

professore · 05-03-2019 5:24pm

Europe's indigenous population is collapsing. You see lots of articles about how more childcare etc is needed but in countries like Sweden this seems to make the birth rate collapse even further. Our tax base is going to collapse as a result. Even in developing countries the birth rate is collapsing.

Sperm quality and consequently fertility has been on a steep decline for 30 years now. Combine that with lots of women not wanting kids or putting them off until it's too late and it becomes clear that the real problem is population collapse, not population explosion.

Baggly · 05-03-2019 5:32pm

Zorya, your posts are a credit to the forum, imo.

Zorya · 05-03-2019 5:35pm

Pter wrote: »

Zorya, your posts are a credit to the forum, imo.

Thanks Pter. Be sure I am capable of quite the opposite

When you are carding me in the future I will remind you of this post

hatrickpatrick · 05-03-2019 5:47pm

Virginia Breezy Police wrote: »

Genuine question because I feel like I'm missing something obvious, what is this connection between migration and global population that means you can't logically advocate for halting or reversing population growth and also advocate for unrestricted or nearly unrestricted migration? What's the difference between having 20 people in region A and 80 people in region B, and having 40 people in region A and 60 people in region B?

It doesn't make a difference on a global level, obviously that's more a local issue. But to take one example, if you already have a desperate local shortage of a vital resource (in the case of Dublin, housing), then any form of population increase - be it indigenous reproduction or immigration - will cause a drop in quality of life per capita. Some small towns who oppose immigration aren't doing so out of any reason other than wanting their small town to remain a small town and not become more crowded and thus more urban in culture and lifestyle. That's a reasonable position to hold IMO, and doesn't make one racist or right wing. I'd imagine a lot of those places would have the same issue with a sudden influx of newcomers from Cork or Dublin - they just don't want their close-knit and small community becoming less close knit.

hatrickpatrick · 05-03-2019 5:50pm

professore wrote: »

Europe's indigenous population is collapsing. You see lots of articles about how more childcare etc is needed but in countries like Sweden this seems to make the birth rate collapse even further. Our tax base is going to collapse as a result. Even in developing countries the birth rate is collapsing.

Sperm quality and consequently fertility has been on a steep decline for 30 years now. Combine that with lots of women not wanting kids or putting them off until it's too late and it becomes clear that the real problem is population collapse, not population explosion.

But this is all a good thing ultimately - a smaller population means a greater share of resources per capita.

Birth Strike

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