Poll: Would you agree to this new law - saving humanity from certain disaster

[BiscuitTrouser]

You all probably know that human population is increasing exponentially, as discussed in a "culling" thread a litte further down. However im wondering how you all feel about my favourite solution to the certain death of millions of people. Let me draw you a trio of graphs.

Spoiler

Now this is obviously not a sustainable growth pattern. What happens when we reach the maximum point at which the planet can hold people. Here is the BEST case scenario.

Spoiler

This might seem fine, but remember at this point the same amount of people are dying as being born. Of starvation. Even in first world countries. Imagine if about... 1/3 of all children born died in some way or another in this country. Would be terrible. And this is the best case.

Spoiler

This is obviously the worst case. Due to war or famine or deadly disease the population sharply decreases. Millions of people die.

TLDR:

With this in mind would you allow a government to control the amount of children you had, to say a max of 2 to prevent one of these two inevitable futures? What are your thoughts on such laws to save humanity as a whole but temporarily deny us of rights.

EDIT: Enforcing these, well you wouldnt be asked to kill your extra children, but you would not recieve benifits for it. Trying to think of ways to enforce it without punishing the child also...

 

[IzisviAziria]

China's law has had mixed results, so I don't know that I necessarily support a direct "this many kids" law, but I certainly agree that something needs to be done. If no better idea comes up, yes, I would vote for this law.

However, keep in mind that population growth in developed countries has been declining very steadily for quite a while.

 

[EllEzDee]

People shouldn't be allowed more than 2 kids anyways. A girl and a boy. If you got 2 of the same sex, hard luck; just like the lottery which you never win on a regular basis.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

My question is, what happens once you hit the maximum? Government-enforced abortions if there's any slip-ups? 'Euthanasia' for the third child, if things get that far? If you don't get the kid you want, are you justified in 'getting rid' of it? How about if you divorce someone and marry another?

It's unlikely that this will happen when matters like this are so very touchy, without even getting to that point.

As for me personally: No, sorry. It may be the best choice assuming there's no unknown variables on the way, but I value what little freedom I have too highly to throw some more away.

 

[Hunter15]

You all probably know that human population is increasing exponentially, as discussed in a "culling" thread a litte further down. However im wondering how you all feel about my favourite solution to the certain death of millions of people. Let me draw you a trio of graphs.

Spoiler

Now this is obviously not a sustainable growth pattern. What happens when we reach the maximum point at which the planet can hold people. Here is the BEST case scenario.

Spoiler

This might seem fine, but remember at this point the same amount of people are dying as being born. Of starvation. Even in first world countries. Imagine if about... 1/3 of all children born died in some way or another in this country. Would be terrible. And this is the best case.

Spoiler

This is obviously the worst case. Due to war or famine or deadly disease the population sharply decreases. Millions of people die.

TLDR:

With this in mind would you allow a government to control the amount of children you had, to say a max of 2 to prevent one of these two inevitable futures? What are your thoughts on such laws to save humanity as a whole but temporarily deny us of rights.

EDIT: Enforcing these, well you wouldnt be asked to kill your extra children, but you would not recieve benifits for it. Trying to think of ways to enforce it without punishing the child also...

GODDAMN HORSEMEN ALWAYS KILLING OUR KIDS

 

[Leon Last Lord Shyle]

While I do agree some form of population control is necessary It would also be nigh on impossible to implement.

if you tied it in with some form of government reward system, first 2 children get free education etc but for any after that do not, it might help to dissuade from any more children and if any more are born they either pay for after normal school education or we get more labourer's to work the fields making more food.

On another note... there are people who WANT MORE THAN 2 KIDS?

 

[manythings]

No, since those laws won't affect the rich. It's a law by the elite to reduce the number of peasants they have cluttering up the place. The premier of china has like 14 kids for christ's sake.

 

[StormShaun]

I think just have two children, and whats with the girl's family gains EVERYTHING that the guys family has...or is it the other way round?

 

[similar.squirrel]

One way or another, the global population is going to crash. All we can do is prepare. It's probably too late to cut back on reproduction, but it's a good idea anyway.

 

[Nickolai77]

I wouldn't make laws regarding how many children a state's citizens can have. One, ideologically speaking it's wrong- the state should only make laws to prevent harm. Secondly, practically it's needless.

When a country reaches a certain level of development comparable to Western countries, population growth rates slow and things become more or less sustainable. Countries like Germany and Japan have very little or even negative population growth, and the only reason why the population of the UK and France is increasing is due to immigration.

So really, the answer is to encourage development in the 3rd world and population growth will level out.

 

[Sebenko]

I say we hold two fingers up to mother nature, and don't do that.

There's Mars just over there, and plenty more planets further away. Let's go get those. Humanity has been tied to this beautiful rock for far too long, it's time we expanded.

 

[WannaBlessedBe]

The most humane way to do it is advance the education and opportunities of women. As this is done, both the birth rate and infant mortality plummet. Problem solved with no draconian laws.

 

[mb16]

You could do it like carbon credits and if you know someone who has no children you can take their credits and have more children
OR
you could have every one castrated but before that they donate to a sperm bank, and you then "apply" to have a child made for you.

and yes i do like being evil

 

[Jacques Dean]

the more kids u have the more likely it is that geniuses that can solve allmankind's problems are born (like solve food crisis or discover ftl speed an build spaceships) its simple mathemathics. why tf would you leave everything up to the govt. u have a mind of urown use it imo

 

[IzisviAziria]

id say find another inhabitable planet, make friends with the natives and ask them if we can have some land for the overcrowding....and also DO THIS CONSTANTLY... DONT DO IT ONCE THEN JUST KEEP ASKING FOR MORE LAND THAT HOW A WAR WILL BREAK OUT...WHEN WE HAVE UN OUT OF ROOM ON THE PLANET GO FIND ANOTHER ONE

... joke post, right?

 

[Hunter15]

id say find another inhabitable planet, make friends with the natives and ask them if we can have some land for the overcrowding....and also DO THIS CONSTANTLY... DONT DO IT ONCE THEN JUST KEEP ASKING FOR MORE LAND THAT HOW A WAR WILL BREAK OUT...WHEN WE HAVE UN OUT OF ROOM ON THE PLANET GO FIND ANOTHER ONE

... joke post, right?

no im serious wait till our space program become more advanced and then have the people we cant support on earth go to the nearest inhabitable planet

 

[Altorin]

You all probably know that human population is increasing exponentially, as discussed in a "culling" thread a litte further down. However im wondering how you all feel about my favourite solution to the certain death of millions of people. Let me draw you a trio of graphs.

Spoiler

Now this is obviously not a sustainable growth pattern. What happens when we reach the maximum point at which the planet can hold people. Here is the BEST case scenario.

Spoiler

This might seem fine, but remember at this point the same amount of people are dying as being born. Of starvation. Even in first world countries. Imagine if about... 1/3 of all children born died in some way or another in this country. Would be terrible. And this is the best case.

Spoiler

This is obviously the worst case. Due to war or famine or deadly disease the population sharply decreases. Millions of people die.

TLDR:

With this in mind would you allow a government to control the amount of children you had, to say a max of 2 to prevent one of these two inevitable futures? What are your thoughts on such laws to save humanity as a whole but temporarily deny us of rights.

EDIT: Enforcing these, well you wouldnt be asked to kill your extra children, but you would not recieve benifits for it. Trying to think of ways to enforce it without punishing the child also...

If nature and biology cull us, that's one thing. I just don't think people should do it. If a war arises and kills a lot of people, bringing us down to a reasonable number (I doubt the population will plummet that far and if it does, ehh, we had a good run), then we'll start the cycle over again. I just hate the idea of one person looking at another person and saying "You need to die for the good of me." Or even worse, one person looking at millions of people and saying that. If we overpopulate ourselves into starvation, that will probably happen, but it would be a natural event, and humanity would perceviere. If there was a worldwide, VOLUNTEER effort to sterilize people "for the good of the future", I could get behind that. A lot of people choose to do it, if they made it into a movement, I could get behind that. I'm sure many more would choose to do it if incentives were there.

A few generations of that would buy us many years to come up with some other solution. The end result of everything is the same though. Humanity will die out. Eventually. It's inevitable unless we escape earth and spread to other planets. in 2 billion years, the earth almost melts because of the sun's life-cycle, so that's like, a hard cap on our existence. Our own natural resources will run out long before that. That's a soft cap, because we don't know how long those will last. In any case, unless we can safely leave earth, we're doomed.

id say find another inhabitable planet, make friends with the natives and ask them if we can have some land for the overcrowding....and also DO THIS CONSTANTLY... DONT DO IT ONCE THEN JUST KEEP ASKING FOR MORE LAND THAT HOW A WAR WILL BREAK OUT...WHEN WE HAVE UN OUT OF ROOM ON THE PLANET GO FIND ANOTHER ONE

... joke post, right?

no im serious wait till our space program become more advanced and then have the people we cant support on earth go to the nearest inhabitable planet

just so you know, the nearest inhabitable planet that we think we've discovered (hell, we don't even really KNOW if it's inhabitable, or even exists still, as it's many light years away, it could blow up today and the reality of it's destruction wouldn't reach us for many years) is 50,000 years away by conventional propulsion systems (IE, what we're flying now, and what, unless we discover some insane thing like the ability to utilize matter/anti-matter annihilation to power our ships).

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

I would put a cap on the amount of children people in cities can have, and if broken tthe parents would be fined and forced to leave the city for an area with a lower population.

 

[IzisviAziria]

id say find another inhabitable planet, make friends with the natives and ask them if we can have some land for the overcrowding....and also DO THIS CONSTANTLY... DONT DO IT ONCE THEN JUST KEEP ASKING FOR MORE LAND THAT HOW A WAR WILL BREAK OUT...WHEN WE HAVE UN OUT OF ROOM ON THE PLANET GO FIND ANOTHER ONE

... joke post, right?

no im serious wait till our space program become more advanced and then have the people we cant support on earth go to the nearest inhabitable planet

You either A) don't quite realize how far away the nearest "inhabitable" planet is or B) Have seriously overestimated our space technology growth. At any rate, I can promise you that the planet will achieve maximum capacity long before we achieve light speed. Or the apocalypse will happen before either, in which case, neither matters.

 

[Baneat]

Last time someone did this projection stuff, they got it very wrong, because they didn't account for the fact that people invent new stuff when they're forced to.

Let the chips fall as they may and see what happens.