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

[leedwashere]

A much better solution would be to start colonizing other astronomical bodies. There are whole other planets out there, and a moon close by. These things can hold a lot of people, and government intrusion for any reason, especially one so personal, is abhorrent.

 

[PatSilverFox]

I like singularities better.
Let the population grow!

 

[JackVykios]

No, but I would support initiatives by the state to encourage people to have two kids or less. You know, giving people the facts, telling them what the best thing to do is, and then making sure they're aware of the consequences of overpopulation and how they would ultimately contribute. All this law would do is make criminals out of people who are following their instincts.

 

[SilentCom]

The best solution is space colonies. When our population starts to come close to its limit, you start sending people to space. Too bad NASA is being underfunded and what not.

 

[LadyRhian]

I will never have children, so I am already doing this.

 

[Bobbity]

Americans would be up in arms about this, but something probably needs to be done.

At very best, prevention might work - most of the growth is in poorer countries, where people simply aren't doing anything about it. If we can take the fight to places like Africa and the poorer parts of Asia, we could probably achieve a great deal. As it is, the only way that these laws would be genuinely useful would be for the advanced nations of the world to impose them upon the poorer ones, which is totally unjustified, not to mention very difficult.

Prevention is key, but as a final, drastic measure, then yes, I would agree to a limit of two children. Not one though, because that's both extremely limiting, and would have utterly horrible effects on our society and economy.

People like junkies and teenage girls should be forced to have the coil put in or something to prevent teen pregnancies and future corrupt or homeless kids.

Most of the problem is in the poorer areas of the world. Would you argue that it should be illegal for an African couple to have more than one child, while you can have as many as you want, simply by virtue of your differing economic statuses?

The best solution is space colonies. When our population starts to come close to its limit, you start sending people to space. Too bad NASA is being underfunded and what not.

I think that we're still a little way away from that, my friend.

 

[Polyg0n]

Can't help but laugh at the people saying that when we run out of resources and space we should just go to another planet. They clearly don't have any idea what stage the current space technology is.

On the topic, I voted yes. I have thought about this before and it would be a good idea. It is pretty much the only solution to this problem. Actually I can't understand why so many people are saying no. It wouldn't have to be a strict one child policy. If the law limited the number of children to two it would still have the wanted effect. Most people don't even want to have more than two kids so the law wouldn't even affect majority of people.

 

[Kair]

Your freedom stops at any other individuals freedom, including the generations to come. You do not have the freedom to set your neighbours house on fire. You do not have the freedom to expend all resources on the planet. You do not have the freedom to overpopulate the planet.

The image of freedom that many Americans seem to value so much so much differs a lot from the original thoughts of freedom, envisioned in times of oppression by the nobility.

 

[Heronblade]

The best solution is space colonies. When our population starts to come close to its limit, you start sending people to space. Too bad NASA is being underfunded and what not.

Nasa has been overbudget on nearly every project it has attempted for decades. Not because it wasn't given enough money to do something, but because as things stand it is a terribly inefficient organization.

For example, when satellites need to be launched, certain private corporations ask for as little as 50M per flight. Nasa asks for 40M in order to undercut the private corporations, but it costs them nearly 150M to actually do it. The remaining portion of the budget comes out of tax money.

That pales in comparison with the other issues with what you suggest.

-If we were to use half of the available space grade metals earth could possibly produce, we MIGHT be able to get 1% of our population onto a space station.

-As things stand, we simply cannot transport anyone to another habitable planet. We don't know where one exists, and it would take us 50 thousand years just to reach the nearest possible match and know for sure. Overcoming the transportation issue will not be easy if at all possible. Our current understanding of the laws of physics tells us that it is impossible for a transport vehicle to either effectively reach, much less pass the speed of light.

-In theory, planets somewhat closer to us could be terraformed, Mars in particular. However, working with modern understanding and tech is once more insufficient to the task. With a great deal of luck, we might be able to get Mars to have a habitable atmosphere within the next 5 thousand years.

 

[mrblakemiller]

We are in no danger. I repeat, no danger. A few people have touched on this already, but I'll throw my two cents in:

First of all, we have plenty of food. Plenty. We can feed every single person on Earth. The only reason some people think we don't is that the people who make the food see no profit in giving it to people who can't pay, so Africans starve on a daily basis. This, of course, is changing as technology is allowing us to make better use of land for farming, as countries develop economically and are able to trade for food for the first time, and as people and groups in first-world countries are giving time and money to aid starving nations.

Secondly, the average American couple has two kids. The average Indonesian couple (my data might be fuzzy on this one) has over six kids. As countries develop economically, the birth rate goes down (see the post above about Japan). Also, it's not birth rates that have skyrocketed the population, it's the extension of the natural lifespan. Medicine is better, food is cheaper than ever to produce, and the world is generally a safer place to live than ever before (yes, there are exceptions to that last one). Don't think the world got baby-crazy all of a sudden.

Finally, if we ever were to reach some sort of crisis point where our population growth became a real problem, we would just react accordingly. People, by and large, legitimately would think twice about having so many kids if they knew the world was actually buckling under the weight. The governments of first-world countries would impose stricter regulations on how resources could be used. Aid to developing nations would increase as it became apparent that their problems were becoming our own. And if a war were to break out because of overpopulation, it wouldn't immediately envelop the whole world. It would either start and end in Africa with a lot of bloodshed or would involve a small first-world nation like England having a civil war. Either way, the war itself would actually work toward solving the problem (though not in the way we would like, of course) because the problem itself is too many living, breathing humans walking around. If you're thinking of someone pushing a nuclear button to solve that problem, relax: they could decide to do that over anything, we're in no greater danger of nuclear war due to overpopulation than we are due to anything else.

Think about this: you can give everyone in the world 1,000 square feet of Texas and leave the rest of the world empty. The entire population of the planet can fit in only the second biggest US state. I know, that says nothing of resources, but it should give you something to chew on. There's plenty of undeveloped land on Earth, plenty of space we simply are not using and could start using if we needed to. Everything is going to be just fine.

Humanity is not going to end because there are too many humans. Does that even need to be said?

 

[quantumsoul]

The easiest way to control birth with out too many ethical hang ups(I'm there still will be some) is this:

Mandatory birth control implants to either men or women. Then when a person wants a child they apply for a permit. As long as the requirements for the child permit are reasonable this should work.

 

[Enrathi]

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

habitable planets(and there are no more in our solasystem so it would take an impractical amount of time to get out of the solarsystem

inhabitble is easy just go to outer space and dump and call it a day
(in=not so inhabitable=not habitable and going off your first post if people alredy live there its habitable)

Actually, habitable and inhabitable are synonymous, like flammable and inflammable. The word you're thinking of is uninhabitable

in·hab·it
v. in·hab·it·ed, in·hab·it·ing, in·hab·its
v.tr.
1. To live or reside in.
2. To be present in; fill: Old childhood memories inhabit the attic.
v.intr. Archaic
To dwell.
[Middle English enhabiten, from Old French enhabiter, from Latin inhabitre : in-, in; see in-2 + habitre, to dwell, frequentative of habre, to have; see ghabh- in Indo-European roots.]

 

[sheogoraththemad]

my best bet is still space exploration/colonisation.

 

[zehydra]

Ideally, we could expand into Space and figure out some kind of sustainable living there, but I have a funny feeling OP's scenario will happen before we get that far.

I do not mind this law.

 

[archvile93]

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.

Yes, but in third world countries its still very very high. I guess when you're poor you don't have anything else to do.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

My bet is that the majority of people voting on your poll don't want kids anyway or are guys and cant have an understanding of the maternal desire to have another child. <3

You hit it right there. There seems to be an alarming number of people on the Escapist that fall under that category. There is the strangely high number of people that claim they are "Asexual", having no interest in sex or having it. Though the real reason for the high number is because it is one of those bizarre, not thought out, and pointless fads the youngins go through these days, I guarantee 95% or more don't have such a rare thing like that. Though, I believe they could be contributing to the skewed vote.

The other day in a relationship thread, someone said that they didn't see a point in having a relationship, I've seen that sentiment many times. Though most of those are probably people that just are down on their luck getting a relationship start up, but they could be contributing to this vote as well.

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No, you have no right to barge in on my life and tell me how many kids I can have.
I want to continue my family name in my branch, so chances are when the time comes, I won't be satisfied until I have a son.
I've looked and majority of the people that are say yes are not from the US. I applaud the few that aren't from the US that are saying no.
I respect and accept a few views and ideas that come out of other countries, but I worry about the growing number people that have the view that people have no real rights and that a select few with a crack pot idea are allowed to control people and tell them how to live; like the few "we should take over the US threads".

That is why I hate what is happening with the US government. All of this social malarkey, that would take away privacy and freedoms of the people on how to live their lives. The government or anybody else shouldn't be able to tell me how I chose to protect myself on my property, if I feel I need a gun for protection and I want to shoot a person that is trespassing on my property and is threatening me or my property, that is my business.

When I have kids, the government better not be forcing my kids to do community service to graduate. If my kids don't care about helping other people out, so be it, it will be their lives.
The government shouldn't force people to pay for the health care of other people. Like the community service thing, that is forced charity.
Other things the government or other people should have no control over:

My diet.(Sparked by a thread that talked about possibly forcing people to be vegetarians. Also buy the stupid taxes on snack foods, sodas and juice drinks, because they are "bad" for me.
How much energy/electricity/water I can use.
What I teach my kids and what I choose for them not to learn.
And because of this thread: My family life and what kind of family I choose to have, whether I end up having one kid or ten.

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.

Wow. I'm not a woman and I find that offensive.

So you are saying that only an uneducated, a stupid woman would want to have more than one or two kids?

I seen and read about plenty of educated, smart, and successful women that have had three or more kids.

 

[PixelJunk]

Sigh...