Vern5 said:
PhiMed said:
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.
You're genes are better than another person's genes because their children are up for adoption? I don't know but that sounds really egotistical.
What about children who need foster parents because their parents died due to circumstances beyond their control? Not every child is left without parents because of some inherent fault in the parent. There is a possibility that the majority of orphans were abandoned by neglectful or immature parents but to base your entire opinion of the orphan demographic upon that idea and willingly proclaim them all to be genetically inferior... doesn't that sound a little heartless? And to look upon these children as collections of genetic material instead of human beings...
Look, there's no way to stem the amount of mistakes among the human gene pool. But do the abandoned children really have to suffer for their parents faults?
No, I'm not saying my genes are superior to a person whose child is in an institution. I'm saying that my genes are more important
to me. I think your genes are probably more important
to you than mine are.
I expect no assistance in care for my child from strangers, and I offer equal in trade. If my wife and I both were to die, we have already made arrangements for our child's care. The people who would take him in have already agreed to do so. We've even made arrangements in case something happens to them. Unless something were to happen that completely eliminated three separate families, my children will never be in an institution. In other words, I care. Caring for your children is superior to not caring.
As far as saying their genes don't deserve to be preserved: I'm saying that if you believe, as the scientific establishment does, that genetics have any influence whatsoever on personality, then the genes that would combine to create a person with a personality that could even conceive of abandoning his or her child aren't worth my efforts to maintain in the gene pool. I can't imagine abandoning my child for any reason. If I met someone who abandoned their child, I'd want to punch them in the face. I can't really make the leap from "want to punch in the face" to "want to take into my house and raise for the next couple decades" for the same stuff. Sorry, can't do it.
People all over the world abandon their children for many reasons, including poverty (shouldn't have had the kid), drugs (stop using, druggie), not being able to support
another child (stop fucking), and gender (if you abandon a child simply because it's female, go ahead and sterilize yourself now), and I consider my actions superior to theirs. If you think that considering the non-abandonment of a child to be superior behavior makes me egotistical, that's fine. You're entitled to think that, but I'm also entitled to think that holding that opinion makes you an idiot. They willfully abandoned a child that they made. Fuck them.
There are certainly children in these institutions who are, legitimately, orphans. They are a minority. Studies conflict on percentages, but they are in the minority. I'm not saying they don't deserve to be adopted, and I never said that about abandoned children, either. I'm saying they
won't be adopted
by me. Do you have an application pending for adoption that you haven't told us about? Is my decision not to adopt somehow worse than yours? I've decided not to adopt because I'd rather raise my child. You've decided not to adopt because you don't want to raise any child. Which is worse again? Which is more selfish?
All living things are collections of genetic material. The singular drive of living things is to support and pass on their genetic material. This is known as natural selection, and it applies to all living things, great and small. Humans are unique in their insistence that that this is not the case for them. I applaud people who devote their lives to fighting the forces of nature in this way in the name of compassion or, as you put it, "heart". I am not one of them. I treat sick people with modern technology. That's all the nature fighting I can stomach.
Many animals, when taking a new mate, will kill all their mate's offspring from past suitors so that their own offspring will have access to as many resources as possible. Other animals abandon their young as soon as they come into the world and devote zero care to them after their birth. Humans have an evolutionary quirk that's a remnant of when we were tiny bands of people and every individual counted that causes us to care for other people's children if they are abandoned or orphaned. As you stated in your original argument, this is no longer necessary. You say there are too many people. I say you're wrong, but there are certainly enough. I'm willing to take the risk that my decision not to raise someone else's child will have very little impact on the world as a whole. I think my odds are pretty good.
Now, to take your side (a bit), I think that people who can't conceive without modern technology
should adopt. The world is trying to tell you something when it gives you the desire to raise a child coupled with the incapability of creating one. Take the hint. You shouldn't spend tens of thousands of dollars on IVF or any other reproductive technology, and you sure as
hell shouldn't expect the government or insurance company to pay for it.
